Where amber-haired women, soft breathing of spice,

Lay languidly lapped in the gold-dropping showers

"Which gladdened and maddened their amorous eyes.

I have looked for thee vainly in churches where beaming

The Saints glowed embalmed in a prism of dyes,

[73]

"Where wave over wave the rapt music went streaming

With breakers of sound in full anthems elate.

I have asked, but none knew thee, or knew but thy seeming;

"A mask in thy likeness on high seats of state;

And they bound it with gold, and they crowned it with glory,

This thing they called love, which was bond slave to hate.

"And they bowed down before it with brown heads and hoary,

They worshipped it nightly, loud hymning its praise,

While out in the cold blast, none heeding its story,

"Love staggers, an outcast, with lust in its place."

Love shivered and sighed like a reed that is shaken,

And lifting his hunger-nipped face to my face:

[74]

"Nay, if of the world I must needs die forsaken,

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