Her fingers number every nerve
Just as a miser counts his gold;
She lives upon his shrieks and cries,
And she grows young as he grows old.
6.
Till he becomes a bleeding youth,
And she becomes a virgin bright;
Then he rends up his manacles
And binds her down for his delight.
7.
He plants himself in all her nerves
Just as a husbandman his mould,
And she becomes his dwelling-place
And garden fruitful seventyfold.
8.
An aged shadow soon he fades,
Wandering round an earthly cot,
Full fillèd all with gems and gold
Which he by industry had got.
9.
And these are the gems of the human soul,
The rubies and pearls of a lovesick eye,
The countless gold of the aching heart,
The martyr's groan and the lover's sigh.
10.
They are his meat, they are his drink;
He feeds the beggar and the poor;
To the wayfaring traveller
For ever open is his door.
