Chapter XII: The Voice of Love

I

"Mine, mine!" saith Love, "Deny me many times. Yet mine that body wherein mine arrow thrills, And mine the fugitive soul that bleeding climbs Hunting a vision on the frozen hills. Mine are her stigmata, sad rhapsodist.-- And when to the delighted bridal-bowers They bring thee starlike through the silver mist Of music and canticles and myrtle-flowers, And the dark hour bids the consentless heart Surrender to disillusion, since in all The labyrinth of deed no counterpart Can pattern Passion's archetype, nor shall The chalice of sense endure her flaming wine, Superb and bitter dreamer, thou most art mine."