My friend must be a bird,    Because it flies!    Mortal my friend must be,    Because it dies!    Barbs has it, like a bee.    Ah, curious friend,    Thou puzzlest me!

    Who has not found the heaven below    Will fail of it above.    God’s residence is next to mine,    His furniture is love.

    Where every bird is bold to go,    And bees abashless play,    The foreigner before he knocks    Must thrust the tears away.

    When I hoped I feared,    Since I hoped I dared;    Everywhere alone    As a church remain;    Spectre cannot harm,    Serpent cannot charm;    He deposes doom,    Who hath suffered him.

    What soft, cherubic creatures    These gentlewomen are!    One would as soon assault a plush    Or violate a star.     Such dimity convictions,    A horror so refined    Of freckled human nature,    Of Deity…

    What inn is this    Where for the night    Peculiar traveller comes?    Who is the landlord?    Where the maids?    Behold, what curious rooms!    No ruddy fires on the hearth,    No brimming tankards flow.    Necromancer,…

    What if I say I shall not wait?    What if I burst the fleshly gate    And pass, escaped, to thee?    What if I file this mortal off,    See where…

    A solemn thing it was, I said,    A woman white to be,    And wear, if God should count me fit,    Her hallowed mystery.     A timid thing to drop…

    We play at paste,    Till qualified for pearl,    Then drop the paste,    And deem ourself a fool.    The shapes, though, were similar,    And our new hands    Learned gem-tactics    Practising sands.

    We outgrow love like other things    And put it in the drawer,    Till it an antique fashion shows    Like costumes grandsires wore.