The Broken Wing/The Fear of Love
III. The Sanctuary
I. The Fear of Love
O Could my love devise
A shield for you from envious lips and eyes
That desecrate the sweetness of your days
With tumults of their praise!
A shield for you from envious lips and eyes
That desecrate the sweetness of your days
With tumults of their praise!
O could my love design
A secret, sealed, invulnerable shrine
To hide you, happy and inviolate,
From covetous Time and Fate.
A secret, sealed, invulnerable shrine
To hide you, happy and inviolate,
From covetous Time and Fate.
Love, I am drenched with fear
Lest the uncounted avarice of the year
Add to the triumph of all garnered grace
The rapture of your face!
Lest the uncounted avarice of the year
Add to the triumph of all garnered grace
The rapture of your face!
I tremble with despair
Lest the far-journeying winds and sunbeams bear
Bright rumours of your luring brows and breath
Unto the groves of Death.
Lest the far-journeying winds and sunbeams bear
Bright rumours of your luring brows and breath
Unto the groves of Death.
What sanctuary can I pledge
Whose very love of you is sacrilege?
O I would save you from the ravening fire
Of my own heart's desire!
Whose very love of you is sacrilege?
O I would save you from the ravening fire
Of my own heart's desire!