Sonnet Liv: Love's Fatality

Sweet Love,—but oh! most dread Desire of Love Life-thwarted. Linked in gyves I saw them stand, Love shackled with Vain-longing, hand to hand: And one was eyed as the blue vault above: But hope tempestuous like a fire-cloud hove I' the other's gaze, even as in his whose wand Vainly all night with spell-wrought power has spann'd The unyielding caves of some deep treasure-trove. Also his lips, two writhen flakes of flame, Made moan: “Alas O Love, thus leashed with me! Wing-footed thou, wing-shouldered, once born free: And I, thy cowering self, in chains grown tame,— Bound to thy body and soul, named with thy name,— Life's iron heart, even Love's Fatality.”