Nay, do not ask me, Sweet, if I have loved before,
Or if, mayhap, in other years to be,
A younger, fairer face than thine I know,
I'll love her more than thee.
What should it matter if I've loved before,
So that I love thee now, and love thee best?
What matters it that I should love again
If, first, the daisy-buds blow o'er thy breast?
Love has the waywardness of strange caprice,
One can not chain it to a recreant heart,
Nor, when around the soul its tendrils twine,
Can will the clinging, silken bonds to part.
It is enough, I hold thee prisoned in my arms,
And drink the dewy fragrance of thy breath;
And earth, and heaven, and hades, are forgot,
And love holds carnival, and laughs at death.
Then do not ask me, Sweet, if I have loved before,
Or if some day my heart might turn from thee;
In this brief hour, thou hast my soul of love,
And thou are _Is_, and _Was_, and _May be_--all to me.