Chapter XLV

And I could see, when there above,
This was thine essence, Holy Love!
For love, below, unfailing comer
To light and shade our life’s young summer;
The love that stirs each earthly bosom,
When life’s first blushing roses blossom;
That joyful, gleeful, blissful sighing,
Dying for love, yet never dying:
Oh, that sweet speech of eye to eye,
Is love, but not like love on high.
’Tis all the same in essence fair,
But mingled here—’tis perfect there:
Here, earthly, troubled, never sure,
Above, ’tis tearless, blest, and pure:
Here, never can we call our own,
Flesh of our flesh, and bone of bone;
Above, two hearts may join in one,
And never is the tie undone,
Unending still, and still begun.