One Word is Too Often Profaned

One Word is Too Often Profaned by Percy Bysshe Shelley

One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it.
One feeling is too falsely disdain'd
For thee to disdain it.
One hope is too like dispair
For prudence to smother:
A pity from thee much more dear
Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love
But wilt thou accept not,
The worship this heart lifts above
And heavens reject not,
The crave of the moth for the stars
And the night for the morrow,
A gleam of something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?

This work published before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.