The sin was mine; I did not understand.
        So now is music prisoned in her cave,
        Save where some ebbing desultory wave
Frets with its restless whirls this meagre strand.
And in the withered hollow of this land
        Hath Summer dug herself so deep a grave,
        That hardly can the leaden willow crave
One silver blossom from keen Winter’s hand.
But who is this who cometh by the shore?
(Nay, love, look up and wonder!) Who is this
        Who cometh in dyed garments from the South?
It is thy new-found Lord, and he shall kiss
        The yet unravished roses of thy mouth,
And I shall weep and worship, as before.

It was deep April, and the morn
          Shakspear was born;
The world was on us, pressing sore;
My Love and I took hands and swore,
   Against the world, to be
Poets and lovers ever more,
To laugh and dream on Lethe’s shore,
To sing to Charon in his boat,
Heartening the timid souls afloat;
Of judgment never to take heed,
But to those fast-locked souls to speed,
Who never from Apollo fled,
Who spent no hour among the dead;
          Continually
          With them to dwell,
Indifferent to heaven and hell.