Chapter XXIII

Oh, let us live out love with all our powers,
Aspire audaciously in thoughts most high,
That they may interweave in harmony
In the supremest ecstasy of ours.
Because within our twined souls
Something more pure than aught in us,
More sacred, mightier, unrolls--
Join we our hands, and let us seek it thus.

What matters it that naught but tears,
Our halting speech avail
For that whose puissant beauty, as it nears,
Doth make our two hearts quail?
Oh, may we thus forever meet

Love's stern, ensweetened pains,
Kneeling, by fervour overcome,
Before the sudden god within that reigns,
So violent and so burning sweet,
Our very souls succumb.