should not discover My hidden couch – nor the heaven above her – As a strong love shielding a weary lover, I would have her shield me with shining breast.] [When light in the realms of space lay hidden, When life was yet in the womb of time, Ere flesh was fettered to fruits forbidden, And souls were wedded to care and crime, Was the course foreshaped for the future spirit – A burden of folly, a void of merit – That would fain the wisdom of stars inherit, And cannot fathom the seas sublime ?] [Under the sea or the soil (what matter ? The sea and the soil are under the sun), As in the former days in the latter The sleeping or waking is known of none. Surely the sleeper shall not awaken To griefs forgotten or joys forsaken, For the price of all things given and taken, The sum of all things done and undone.] [Shall we count offences or coin excuses, Or weigh with scales the soul of a man, Whom a strong hand binds and a sure hand looses, Whose light is a spark and his life a span ? The seed he sowed or the soil he cumbered, The time he served or the space he slumbered ; Will it profit a man when his days are numbered, Or his deeds since the days of his life began ?] [One, glad because of the light, saith, 'Shall not The righteous Judge of all the earth do right, For behold the sparrows on the house-tops fall not Save as seemeth to Him good in His sight ?' And this man's joy shall have no abiding Through lights departing and lives dividing, He is soon as one in the darkness hiding, One loving darkness rather than light.] [A little season of love and laughter, Of light and life, and pleasure and pain, And a horror of outer darkness after, And dust returneth to dust again. Then the lesser life shall be as the greater, And the lover of life shall join the hater, And the one thing cometh sooner or later, And no one knoweth the loss or gain.] [Love of my life ! we had lights in season – Hard to part from, harder to keep – We had strength to labour and souls to reason, And seed to scatter and fruits to reap.