Destiny

Bid me not cease to love thee! though all vainly:
     My heart's best gifts are lavished on thy shrine; 
Though happiness and hope seem wrecked insanely,
     Since well I know thou never canst be mine! 
Yet, dearest, by the heaven that bends above thee,
     By the good angels with their pitying eyes, 
And by thy soul, bid me not cease to love thee,
     For life must pass ere this wild passion dies.

My memory yields no word that thou hast spoken,
     No smile of thine hath distance power to dim; 
In love's bright chain no single link is broken,
     And still thy name is beauty's synonym: 
I sleep, and lo! my dreams are all elysian,
     Filled with thy presence like informing flame; 
I wake, and still one beatific vision
     Smiles through the spaces, evermore the same.

Bid me not cease to love thee! though I never 
     May hope to win an answering love from thee;
Thine, beyond ransom — thine .to-day, forever, 
     Dearer than freedom such sweet bonds to me;
The radiant morning and the dewy evening, 
     The solemn night with myriad stars above,
The infinite sea, the all-embracing heaven,
     With their weird voices bid me still to love !

No more I ask thee to return my passion,
     Nor of thy pity aught do I implore; 
For hopeless love, sublimed to adoration,
     Lifts the sad soul to heights unknown before, 
And braids its gloom with sunbeams! Gloom and glory —
     A troubled joy — a passionate unrest, 
Why, this is life! — the old pathetic story,
     Through love and joy and sorrow manifest.