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IDEAL PASSION
VI
How many human loves swarm to my arms,
Although I am unworthy! yet, in truth,
I was a lover from my earliest youth,
And love, even the unworthiest, hath dear charms;
And oft I feel within me vague alarms,
Thick-thronging fears, and inward-turning ruth,
Lest my affections be not things of sooth,
But phantom-fancies that oft end in harms.
Yet, though I seem unto the outward sense
The veriest chameleon of love,
That takes its colors from its ambience,
And on the sweet herb that it pastures of,
Transformed unto its nature, glows intense,
These lower loves mirror the love above.