Give me back my heart, fair child;
To you as yet 'twere worth but little;
Half beguiler, half beguiled,
Be you warned, your own is brittle,
I know it by your redd'ning cheeks,
I know it by those two black streaks
Arching up your pearly brows
In a momentary laughter,
Stretched in long and dark repose
With a sigh the moment after.
"Hid it; dropt it on the moors!
Lost it, and you can not find it"--
My own heart I want, not yours
You have bound and must unbind it.
Set it free then from your net,
We will love, sweet--but not yet!
Fling it from you--we are strong;
Love is trouble, love is folly;
Love, that makes an old heart young,
Makes a young heart melancholy.
--_Aubrey de Vere._
The common problem, yours, mine, everyone's,
Is not to fancy what were fair in life,
Provided it could be--but finding first
What may be, then find how to make it fair
Up to our means. --_Browning._