I sometimes wonder if you did not choose

[ZaunköniG]

I sometimes wonder if you did not choose
Which, of the many an uncommingling state
Of man-and-woman love, you best could lose,--
And hold the choice wisely inviolate?
Perhaps you said--"Life, with its myriad jars,
Would wreck us, linked together, into dust.
Nor grow we any nearer to the stars
By the high constancy of sundered trust.
Wherefore, instead of separate deathless faith,--
Instead of bursts of amorous pulsing strife,--
Instead of friendship, that poor maskèd wraith,--
Instead of the magnificence of joined life,--
Let this man give me, be it boon or curse,
Love's restless glances,--and a little verse."