Ask me not to stand at thy friendship's gate —...

Ask me not to stand at thy friendship's gate —

I, who loved thee, now must like a cold spectre from a far forgotten land of snow

Watch thee fall asleep on the couch of freezing friendship?

In these arms thou sought and joyed on many delights

Excavated the ruins of passion to build them anew,

Or sailed on thy wings — these arms — over love's enchanted sea.

Friendship!

Barrier not this, but a coward's refuge —

A shadow, not the rainbow-light of loving and life.

O come, my pilot, conduct the bark of our twin souls

From cold friendship's haven

Over love's boistrous desire-foam-fringéd ocean

Till in the sheer joy and fatigue of flying

We fail, fall and fade

Into the heart of Passion's another fire-born day.