For love I, too, could die (she said) nor fear it,

Such love as some of the dead queens have had
Whose sorrow matched their beauty. I could bear it,
And I think die too, to have been so glad.
With the sweet wonder in a great light lying
I would not e'en upbraid the deadly dart,
But gazing in the eyes of my Love, dying,
Passion my beauty in his aching heart.
Beyond the shadow of my own renewal
So to have set my beauty like a flame,
Quivering as Helen's - ah! that Trojan jewel,
Where all love's pride and sorrow has a name -
I, too, would take time's grandeur to the dust,
And haply in Hades smile as lovers must.