XIV 1

If thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love's sake only. Do not say I love her for her smile-her look-her way

..

Of speaking gently, -for a trick of thought

That falls in well with mine, and certęs brought

A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"

For these things in themselves, Beloved, nray

Be changed, or change for thee,-and love, so wrought,

May be unwrought so. Neither love me for

Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,

A creature might forget to weep, who bore

Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!

But love me for love's sake, that ever

more

Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

XV

ACCUSE me not, beseech thee, that I

wear

Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;

For we two look two ways, and cannot shine

With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.

On me thou lookest with no doubting

care,

As on a bee shut in a crystalline; Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love's divine,

And to spread wing and fly in the outer air

Were most impossible failure, if I strove
To fail so. But I look on thee-on thee-
Beholding, besides love, the end of love,
Hearing oblivion beyond memory;
As one who sits and gazes from above,
Over the rivers to the bitter sea.

XVI 2

AND yet, because thou overcomest so, Because thou art more noble and like a

king,

1 Compare the Letters, 1, 256, 274-5, 506, 508.

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Compare the Letters, 1, 515.