“Fierce midnights and famishing morrows, And the loves that complete and controlAll the joys of the flesh, all the sorrowsThat wear out the soul.”

“Love, is it morning risen or night deceasedThat makes the mirth of this triumphant east?Is it bliss given or bitterness put byThat makes most glad men's hearts at love's high feast?Grief smiles, joy weeps, that day should live and die."Is it with soul's thirst or with body's drouthThat summer yearns out sunward to the south,With all the flowers that when thy birth drew nighWere molten in one rose to make thy mouth?O love, what care though day should live and die?"Is the sun glad of all love on earth,The spirit and sense and work of things and worth?Is the moon sad because the month must flyAnd bring her death that can but bring back birth?For all these things as day must live and die."Love, is it day that makes thee thy delightOr thou that seest day made out of thy light?Love, as the sun and sea are thou and I,Sea without sun dark, sun without sea bright;The sun is one though day should live and die."O which is elder, night or light, who knows?And life or love, which first of these twain grows?For life is born of love to wail and cry,And love is born of life to heal his woes,And light of night, that day should live and die."O sun of heaven above the wordly sea,O very love, what light is this of thee!My sea of soul is deep as thou art high,But all thy light is shed through all of me,As love's through love, while day shall live and die.”

“Love, that is first and last of all things made,The light that has the living world for shade,The spirit that for temporal veil has onThe souls of all men woven in unison,One fiery raiment with all lives inwroughtAnd lights of sunny and starry deed and thought,And alway through new act and passion newShines the divine same body and beauty through,The body spiritual of fire and lightThat is to worldly noon as noon to night;Love, that is flesh upon the spirit of manAnd spirit within the flesh whence breath began;Love, that keeps all the choir of lives in chime;Love, that is blood within the veins of time;That wrought the whole world without stroke of hand,Shaping the breadth of sea, the length of land,And with the pulse and motion of his breathThrough the great heart of the earth strikes life and death,The sweet twain chords that make the sweet tune liveThrough day and night of things alternative,Through silence and through sound of stress and strife,And ebb and flow of dying death and life:Love, that sounds loud or light in all men's ears,Whence all men's eyes take fire from sparks of tears,That binds on all men's feet or chains or wings;Love that is root and fruit of terrene things;Love, that the whole world's waters shall not drown,The whole world's fiery forces not burn down;Love, that what time his own hands guard his headThe whole world's wrath and strength shall not strike dead;Love, that if once his own hands make his graveThe whole world's pity and sorrow shall not save;Love, that for very life shall not be sold,Nor bought nor bound with iron nor with gold;So strong that heaven, could love bid heaven farewell,Would turn to fruitless and unflowering hell;So sweet that hell, to hell could love be given,Would turn to splendid and sonorous heaven;Love that is fire within thee and light above,And lives by grace of nothing but of love;Through many and lovely thoughts and much desireLed these twain to the life of tears and fire;Through many and lovely days and much delightLed these twain to the lifeless life of night.”

“But now, you are twain, you are cloven apartFlesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart.”

“And her heart sprang in Iseult, and she drewWith all her spirit and life the sunrise throughAnd through her lips the keen triumphant airSea-scented, sweeter than land-roses were,And through her eyes the whole rejoicing eastSun-satisfied, and all the heaven at feastSpread for the morning; and the imperious mirthOf wind and light that moved upon the earth,Making the spring, and all the fruitful mightAnd strong regeneration of delightThat swells the seedling leaf and sapling man,Since the first life in the first world beganTo burn and burgeon through void limbs and veins,And the first love with sharp sweet procreant painsTo pierce and bring forth roses; yea, she feltThrough her own soul the sovereign morning melt,And all the sacred passion of the sun;And as the young clouds flamed and were undoneAbout him coming, touched and burnt awayIn rosy ruin and yellow spoil of day,The sweet veil of her body and corporal senseFelt the dawn also cleave it, and incenseWith light from inward and with effluent heatThe kindling soul through fleshly hands and feet.And as the august great blossom of the dawnBurst, and the full sun scarce from sea withdrawnSeemed on the fiery water a flower afloat,So as a fire the mighty morning smoteThroughout her, and incensed with the influent hourHer whole soul's one great mystical red flowerBurst, and the bud of her sweet spirit brokeRose-fashion, and the strong spring at a strokeThrilled, and was cloven, and from the full sheath cameThe whole rose of the woman red as flame:And all her Mayday blood as from a swoonFlushed, and May rose up in her and was June.So for a space her hearth as heavenward burned:Then with half summer in her eyes she turned,And on her lips was April yet, and smiled,As though the spirit and sense unreconciledShrank laughing back, and would not ere its hourLet life put forth the irrevocable flower.And the soft speech between them grew again”

“We are not sure of sorrow; and joy was never sure; Today will die tomorrow; Time stoops to no man's lure.”

“She might come in to bride-bed: and he laughed,As one that wist not well of wise love's craft,And bade all bridal things be as she would.Yet of his gentleness he gat not good;For clothed and covered with the nuptial darkSoft like a bride came Brangwain to King Mark,And to the queen came Tristram; and the night Fled, and ere danger of detective lightFrom the king sleeping Brangwain slid away,And where had lain her handmaid Iseult lay.And the king waking saw beside his headThat face yet passion-coloured, amorous redFrom lips not his, and all that strange hair shedAcross the tissued pillows, fold on fold,Innumerable, incomparable, all gold,To fire men's eyes with wonder, and with loveMen's hearts; so shone its flowering crown aboveThe brows enwound with that imperial wreath,And framed with fragrant radiance round the face beneath.And the king marvelled, seeing with sudden startHer very glory, and said out of his heart;"What have I done of good for God to blessThat all this he should give me, tress on tress,All this great wealth and wondrous? Was it thisThat in mine arms I had all night to kiss,And mix with me this beauty? this that seemsMore fair than heaven doth in some tired saint's dreams,Being part of that same heaven? yea, more, for he,Though loved of God so, yet but seems to see,But to me sinful such great grace is givenThat in mine hands I hold this part of heaven,Not to mine eyes lent merely. Doth God makeSuch things so godlike for man's mortal sake?Have I not sinned, that in this fleshly lifeHave made of her a mere man's very wife?”