I bade my Lady think what she might mean. <br />Know I my meaning, I? Can I love one, <br />And yet be jealous of another? None <br />Commits such folly. Terrible Love, I ween, <br />Has might, even dead, half sighing to upheave <br />The lightless seas of selfishness amain: <br />Seas that in a man's heart have no rain <br />To fall and still them. Peace can I achieve, <br />By turning to this fountain-source of woe, <br />This woman, who's to Love as fire to wood? <br />She breathed the violet breath of maidenhood <br />Against my kisses once! but I say, No! <br />The thing is mocked at! Helplessly afloat, <br />I know not what I do, whereto I strive, <br />The dread that my old love may be alive, <br />Has seized my nursling new love by the throat.<br /><br />George Meredith<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/modern-love-xl-i-bade-my-lady-think/
