"Sweet Love, I cannot show thee in this guise..." - William Ellery Channing (1818–1901)

Sweet Love, I cannot show thee in this guise
Of earthly words, how dear to me thou art,
Nor once compare thy image in my eyes
With thy dear self reposed within my heart.
The love I bear to thee I truly prize
Above all joys that offer in the mart
Of the wide world, our wishes to suffice,—
And yet I seek thy love; for no desert
That I can boast, but that my new love cries
For love that to its own excess is meet,
And searching widely through this dark world’s space,
Hath found a love which hath its holy seat
Within thy bosom’s blissfulest embrace,
And to awake this love is at thy feet,
Whence will it not arise till thou accord this grace.

Let not my love implore of thee in vain,
For in its loneliness it dooms to wo,
From whose deep depths I cannot rise again;
Let not thy love conspire to kill me so
With my love, which will only share its reign
With thine its sister; rather may both go
To that high altar, where no longer twain,
In sweetest concord both together grow,
Thence to ascend to the Eternal Love,
And be absorbed and spread through all the life
That breathes in purest holiest bliss above,
Or that incites all mortals to the strife
Of kindness, in this scene of mixed delight
And griefs—of brightest day and darkest night.