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Or while that each from other's breath did drink
Health to the rose, the violet, or pink),
Call'd on the sudden by the jealous mother,
Some stricter mistress or suspicious other,
Urging divorcement (worse than death to these)
By the soon jingling of some sleepy keys,
Part with a hasty kiss; and in that show
How stay they would, yet forced they are to go.
Even such are we, and in our parting do
No otherwise than as those former two
Natures like ours, we who have spent our time
Both from the morning to the evening chime.
Nay, till the bellman of the night had tolled
Past noon of night, yet wear the hours not old
Nor dulled with iron sleep, but have outworn
The fresh and fairest nourish of the morn
With flame and rapture; drinking to the odd
Number of nine which makes us full with God,
And in that mystic frenzy we have hurled,
As with a tempest, nature through the world,
And in a whirlwind twirl'd her home, aghast
At that which in her ecstasy had past;
Thus crowned with rosebuds, sack, thou mad'st me fly
Like fire-drakes, yet didst me no harm thereby.
O thou almighty nature, who didst give
True heat wherewith humanity doth live
Beyond its stinted circle, giving food,
White fame and resurrection to the good;
Shoring them up 'bove ruin till the doom,
The general April of the world doth come