Forbidden Lave

OH, love! thou that shelterest some

’Neath thy wings, so white and warm,

Wherefore on a bat-like wing

All disguisèd didst thou come

In so terrible a form?

As a dark forbidden thing,

As a demon of the air—

As a sorrow and a sin,

Wherefore cam’st thou thus to me,

As a tempter and a snare?

When the heart that beats within

This, my bosom, warm’d to thee,

Was it from a love of sinning,

From a fatal love of wrong,

From a wish to shun the light?

Nay! I swear at the beginning

Hadst thou sung an angel’s song,—

Had this wrong thing been the right,

Thou hadst seem’d as worth the winning,

And with will as firm and strong

I had lov’d with all my might.