I've been in love for long With what I cannot tell And will contrive a song For the intangible That has no mould or shape, From which there's no escape.
It is not even a name, Yet is all constancy; Tried or untried, the same, It cannot part from me; A breath, yet as still As the established hill.
It is not any thing, And yet all being is; Being, being, being, Its burden and its bliss. How can I ever prove What it is I love?
This happy happy love Is sieged with crying sorrows, Crushed beneath and above Between todays and morrows; A little paradise Held in the world's vice.
And there it is content And careless as a child, And in imprisonment Flourishes sweet and wild; In wrong, beyond wrong, All the world's day long.
This love a moment known For what I do not know And in a moment gone Is like the happy doe That keeps its perfect laws Between the tiger's paws And vindicates its cause.