Time's Revenges

31And I've a Lady — there he wakes,

32The laughing fiend and prince of snakes

33Within me, at her name, to pray

34Fate send some creature in the way

35Of my love for her, to be down-torn,

36Upthrust and outward-borne,

37So I might prove myself that sea

38Of passion which I needs must be!

39Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaint

40And my style infirm and its figures faint,

41All the critics say, and more blame yet,

42And not one angry word you get.

43But, please you, wonder I would put

44My cheek beneath that lady's foot

45Rather than trample under mine

46That laurels of the Florentine,

47And you shall see how the devil spends

48A fire God gave for other ends!

49I tell you, I stride up and down

50This garret, crowned with love's best crown,

51And feasted with love's perfect feast,

52To think I kill for her, at least,

53Body and soul and peace and fame,

54Alike youth's end and manhood's aim,

55 — So is my spirit, as flesh with sin,

56Filled full, eaten out and in

57With the face of her, the eyes of her,

58The lips, the little chin, the stir

59Of shadow round her mouth; and she

60 — I'll tell you, — calmly would decree

61That I should roast at a slow fire,

62If that would compass her desire

63And make her one whom they invite

64To the famous ball to-morrow night.

65There may be heaven; there must be hell;

66Meantime, there is our earth here — well!