Where art thou, Love, whose strange sweet light of yore
Made all the wide waste earth and seas and skies
As beautiful as erst was Paradise,
When our first parents learnt thy blissful lore?
Where art thou gone? The winds and waters war
'Gainst me defenceless, with unceasing strife,
My heart is famished, and my path of life
Unfruitful as a storm-tormented shore.
How dreadful is this world with thee away!
How coarse and common all beneath the sky,
If thou thy all-atoning grace deny!
O, Love! for thee I anguish, night and day;
And search the heavens, again and yet again,
For thy returning wings, but still in vain!