514. One Word is Too Often Profaned

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792—1822)

  ONE word is too often profaned

  For me to profane it,

  One feeling too falsely disdain’d

  For thee to disdain it.

  One hope is too like despair

  For prudence to smother,

  And Pity from thee more dear

  Than that from another.

  I can give not what men call love;

  But wilt thou accept not

  The worship the heart lifts above

  And the Heavens reject not:

  The desire of the moth for the star,

  Of the night for the morrow,

  The devotion to something afar

  From the sphere of our sorrow?