SURRENDER

Take every joy my nature holds, Take every bliss my heart enfolds; Come, capture every one, While youth and beauty run, Locked in each other’s lithesome arms— Like flowers entwined. Cast from thy mind Those fearful, hindering alarms. Take, to the last deep drop, Nor think when you would stop, My strength’s rich wine. Love made divine The rapturous blood of me for you. Red, full and bright, Like Vallambrosa’s vineyard dew On autumn’s night. My mind explore, its treasures take, So long as joy is there To find, and leave it bare Of every thought that might awake New transports in your soul— Then break the empty bowl, So no one else may use The vessel, should one choose. My body clean and sweet enjoy, ’Twas made to serve your least delight, And when at last our passions cloy, In one fierce moment, rise and smite With withering scorn, And leave it shorn Of all its energy and force. Then, blasted, reel it down death’s course. My soul? Nay, that, my love, you cannot hurt, For it is thee. Look, and it will assert Your image like a faithful stream, Reflecting every feature of your form, Showing the slightest, quickest gleam From eyes which make it pass from cold to warm. It is, O love, your heart, your pulse, your breath, And only in your loss can it know death! Here I surrender all my mind, My heart, my body, all you find In thought, in blood, in flesh, to serve thee well In giving heaven—then, thou, consign to hell Whate’er is left of me. E’en then my joy shall be— That it was wrecked by thee.