V
The goal of love is gotten not of these
White-blooded fools that haste and marry and tire.
They grasp and break their bubble ecstasies;
We know desire the secret of desire.
We have the wisdom of the saints of old
Who know that what divinely is begun
Glows from dawn's grey to noon's deliberate gold
Darkens to crimson—and day's race is run.
For us the glamour of the dawn suborning,
We escape the enervating heat of noon:
We hear Astarte for Adonis mourning,
And close our lover's calendar at June.
Ah, Lola! but we suffer. Hell's own worm
Aches less than this, and hath an earlier term.
White-blooded fools that haste and marry and tire.
They grasp and break their bubble ecstasies;
We know desire the secret of desire.
We have the wisdom of the saints of old
Who know that what divinely is begun
Glows from dawn's grey to noon's deliberate gold
Darkens to crimson—and day's race is run.
For us the glamour of the dawn suborning,
We escape the enervating heat of noon:
We hear Astarte for Adonis mourning,
And close our lover's calendar at June.
Ah, Lola! but we suffer. Hell's own worm
Aches less than this, and hath an earlier term.
— 71 —
