The Burden Of Desire

In some glad way I know thereof: A garden glows down in my heart, Wherein I meet and often part With many an ancient tale of love A Romeo garden, banked with bloom, And trellised with the eglantine; In which a rose climbs to a room, A balcony one mass of vine, Dim, haunted of perfume A balcony, whereon she gleams, The soft Desire of all Dreams, And smiles and bends like Juliet, Year after year. While to her side, all dewy wet, A rose stuck in his ear, Love climbs to draw her near. II. And in another way I know: Down in my soul a graveyard lies, Wherein I meet, in ghostly wise, With many an ancient tale of woe A graveyard of the Capulets, Deep-vaulted with ancestral gloom, Through whose dark yews the moonlight jets On many a wildly caryen tomb, That mossy mildew frets A graveyard where the Soul's Desire Sleeps, pale-entombed; and, kneeling by her, Love, like that hapless Montague, Year after year, Weary and worn and wild of hue, Within her sepulchre, Falls bleeding on her bier.