Love Within Vows

We love, and O! we know it; yet Love's name

Upon our lips a tremulous wish must die;

We both were made for loving, you and I,

And still was Love denied. To both it came,

More fleeting than the beauty of a flame:

Now each within the other's hungering eye

Beholds the corse of Joy embalmed lie,

And smiles to know his penury the same.

There is no sorrow in this love, O Friend,

New-sprung from ruin, tho’ our lips be sealed

By silence and the world's hard fetter. Dear

To me your being; yet we know nor fear

Of loss nor of possession; here's a shield

Shall part us nobly faithful to the end.