Percy Bysshe Shelley

1792-1822 / Horsham / England

To ----

ONE word is too often profaned
   For me to profane it;
One feeling too falsely disdain'd
   For thee to disdain it;
One hope is too like despair
   For prudence to smother;
And pity from thee more dear
   Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love:
   But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
   And the heavens reject not,
The desire of the moth for the star,
   Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
   From the sphere of our sorrow?
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