Is Love a Fancy or a Feeling?
Is love a fancy, or a feeling? No.
It is immortal as immaculate Truth.
Tis not a blossom shed as soon as youth
Drops from the stem of life- for it will grow,
In barren regions, where no waters flow
Nor ray of promise cheats the pensive gloom.
A darkling fire, faint hovering o’er a tomb,
That but itself and darkness nought doth shew
Is my love’s beauty, – yet it cannot die,
Nor will it change, though all be changed beside;
Tho’ fairest beauty be no longer fair,
Tho’ vows be false, and faith itself deny,
Tho’ sharp enjoyment be a suicide,
And hope a spectre in a ruin bare.
by Hartley Coleridge