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THE DESCENT OF LOVE.
BY THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.
Ah youthful Love! thy votarist,
Though oft he turns into a jest
Thy freaks or foibles, yet will join
In humble worship at thy shrine,
And eulogise thee morn and even
As the best, earliest gift of Heaven.
Though oft he turns into a jest
Thy freaks or foibles, yet will join
In humble worship at thy shrine,
And eulogise thee morn and even
As the best, earliest gift of Heaven.
Thou blushing thing of pain and bliss!
Child of a happier sphere than this!
Wert thou a nursling of the sky,
Foster'd in Paradise on high,
To thrill the radiant breasts above?
No—angels feel not youthful love;
Theirs is a flame we cannot know,
A holy ardour free from wo;
But ours a joy, supreme, intense,
A short and splendid recompense
For an esteem, unbroke, unmoved,
Which man immortal might have proved.
Art thou not then, O virtuous love,
The dearest gift of Heaven above?
Child of a happier sphere than this!
Wert thou a nursling of the sky,
Foster'd in Paradise on high,
To thrill the radiant breasts above?
No—angels feel not youthful love;
Theirs is a flame we cannot know,
A holy ardour free from wo;
But ours a joy, supreme, intense,
A short and splendid recompense
For an esteem, unbroke, unmoved,
Which man immortal might have proved.
Art thou not then, O virtuous love,
The dearest gift of Heaven above?
Blest be thy native home on earth,
The place that own'd thy mystic birth,
When far beneath the golden morn
Was thy seraphic being born.
The place that own'd thy mystic birth,
When far beneath the golden morn
Was thy seraphic being born.