Ah! Could I ever grow in some remote degree
Nearer the whiteness of my darling's love;
By likening her, my darker self reprove
Beneath the eyes of her calm purity;
Drop from my soul the earth that sullies me,
And struggling upward, if but slowly, move
A little nearer to those lights above,
Whose guiding rays I cannot choose but see!
Even as I muse, the vision of those eyes
Awakes the fiery current in my veins
With longings wild, mixed thrills of joys and pains;
Remembered kisses, burning with the dyes
That flushed her cheeks, the struggles, sobs and sighs,
Ere her chaste will lay vanquished in my chains.