462. Freedom and Love

J. Campbell

  HOW delicious is the winning

  Of a kiss at love’s beginning,

  When two mutual hearts are sighing

  For the knot there’s no untying!

  Yet remember, ’midst your wooing

  Love has bliss, but Love has ruing;

  Other smiles may make you fickle,

  Tears for other charms may trickle.

  Love he comes and Love he tarries

  Just as fate or fancy carries;

  Longest stays, when sorest chidden;

  Laughs and flies, when press’d and bidden.

  Bind the sea to slumber stilly,

  Bind its odour to the lily,

  Bind the aspen ne’er to quiver,

  Then bind Love to last for ever.

  Love’s a fire that needs renewal

  Of fresh beauty for its fuel:

  Love’s wing moults when caged and captured,

  Only free, he soars enraptured.

  Can you keep the bee from ranging,

  Or the ringdove’s neck from changing?

  No! nor fetter’d Love from dying

  In the knot there’s no untying.