[Editor: This poem by Mary Eliza Fullerton was published in Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics (1908).]
I
Love’s Exclusiveness
Oh, little heart, the honey in thy cells
Is all for one; the house is far too small
To banquet more than her: ’tis not for all.
In dainty plenitude the sweetness swells,
One pair of lips shall find it where it wells;
And if, anon there ooze beyond the wall
A tiny drop on which the hungry fall
Like greedy ants, one hath the secret dells.
Oh, little heart! what are the big world’s woes?
The wide world’s needs? Do lovers know or care?
Not more than cares yon peasant, as he goes
Home through the starlight, how those beings fare
Who, in wild terror in a world afar
Down gulfs of space, fall with their falling star.
Source:
Mary E. Fullerton, Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics, Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian, 1908, p. 22
Editor’s notes:
anon = soon, shortly (it may also mean: at another time, later; an archaic meaning is: at once, immediately)
dell = a small valley, dale, or glen, especially one with many trees; a secluded wooded hollow
hath = (archaic) has
yon = an abbreviation of “yonder”: at a distance; far away
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