[BNP/E3, 16A – 37]

more complete

p. 595 [858]

Beauty and love let no one separate,

Whom exact Nature did to each other fit,

Giving to Beauty love as finishing fate

And to Love beauty as the out-part of it.

Let he be friend who wills where the mind’s fair,

Yet let none love outside the body's thought,

So the seen couple shall a coupling bear

Still in the[1] beauty each in each other sought.

I, thus deformed, and aged by thought’s stress

Could thus but love thee out of mockery

Of love and thee and mine unworthiness,

Yet do I thank the gods this cannot be

     Who made not long for my undue, or wish

     Like a slave-king to wear the robe and †

__________

I could but love thee out of mockery

Of love and thee and my own ugliness;

Therefore thy beauty I sing and wish not thee,

Thanking the Gods I long not out of place

     Lest like a slave that for kings' robes doth long,

     Obtained, shall with mere wearing do them wrong.

[37v]

That the sought in each the couple get.[2]

Beauty and love let no one separate,

Whom accurate Nature did to each ocher fit,

He that loves should love beauty and keep its state,

And in the seen couple still beauty get.

But I, deformed and aged, though my age  be 

Not thirty years of {…}

To think love thee were a mockery[3]

Of love, and thee, and my unworthiness.

Ay, and I thank the gods that made me strong

To crave not where {…}

Not as the slave that for’s master’s robe doth long,

Obtained must mock the wearing with manner of wearing.

     So, though thy beauty I sing, because tis true,

     The rest’s no more, being to myself not due.

21-12-1917.

So I, deformed, and aged though my age be 

Not thirty time the solar circles

Could not have thee except by mockery

Of love, and thee, and my unworthiness.

I thank the gods that, this being so, I’m strong

To nothing wave that {…}

Unlike a slave that for king’s robes doth long

Obtained, shall mock the worn robes with the wearing.

Therefore I ask not save thy {…} to see

Thanking the gods I long not out of place. 

 
[1] in the /true to-be\
[2] each the couple get. /thy couple fit.\
[3] To think love thee were a mockery /(Could not {…} but by mockery)\