Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/986

It was enough for me to clasp her hand:
  To blend with her love-looks my own: no more.
Enough (with thoughts like ships that cannot land,
  Blown by faint winds about a magic shore)
To realize, in each mysterious feeling,
  The droop of the warm cheek so near my own:
  The cool white arm about my shoulder thrown:
Those exquisite fair feet where I was kneeling.

How little know they life's divinest bliss,
  That know not to possess and yet refrain!
Let the young Psyche roam, a fleeting kiss:
  Grasp it—a few poor grains of dust remain.
See how those floating flowers, the butterflies,
  Hover the garden thro', and take no root!
  Desire for ever hath a flying foot:
Free pleasure comes and goes beneath the skies.

Close not thy hand upon the innocent joy
  That trusts itself within thy reach. It may,
Or may not, linger. Thou canst but destroy
  The wingèd wanderer. Let it go or stay.
Love thou the rose, yet leave it on its stem.
  Think! Midas starved by turning all to gold.
  Blessèd are those that spare, and that withhold;
Because the whole world shall be trusted them.

The foolish Faun pursues the unwilling Nymph
  That culls her flowers beside the precipice
Or dips her shining ankles in the lymph:
  But, just when she must perish or be his,