Love, should I set my heart upon a crown,
      Squander my years, and gain it,
     What recompense of pleasure could I own?
      For youth's red drops would stain it.

     Much have I thought on what our lives may mean,
      And what their best endeavor,
     Seeing we may not come again to glean,
      But, losing, lose forever.

     Seeing how zealots, making choice of pain,
      From home and country parted,
     Have thought it life to leave their fellows slain,
      Their women broken-hearted;

     How teasing truth a thousand faces claims,
      As in a broken mirror,
     And what a father died for in the flames
      His own son scorns as error;

     How even they whose hearts were sweet with song
      Must quaff oblivion's potion,
     And, soon or late, their sails be lost along
      The all-surrounding ocean:

     Oh, ask me not the haven of our ships,
      Nor what flag floats above you!
     I hold you close, I kiss your sweet, sweet lips,
      And love you, love you, love you!

     When first I stood before you,
         Isabel,
     I stood there to adore you,
         In your spell;
     For all that grace composes,
     And all that beauty knows is
     Your face above the roses,
         Isabel.

     You knew the charm of flowers,
         Isabel,
     Which, like incarnate hours,
         Rose and fell
     At your bosom, glowed and gloried,
     White and pale and pink and florid,
     And you touched them with your forehead,
         Isabel.

     Amid the jest and laughter,
         Isabel,
     I saw you, and thereafter,
         Ill or well,
     There was nothing else worth seeing,
     Worth following or fleeing,
     And no reason else for being,
         Isabel.

     Some time, far hence, when Autumn sheds
      Her frost upon your hair,
     And you together sit at dusk,
      May I come to you there?
     And lightly will our hearts turn back
      To this, then distant, day
     When, while the