‘My heart was dead, Dead of devotion and tired memory…
Patmore, Eros
Yet, as I have said,
My heart was dead,
Dead of devotion and tired memory,
When a strange grace of thee In a fair stranger, as I take it, bred
To her some tender heed,
Most innocent
Of purpose therewith blent,
And pure of faith, I think, to thee; yet such
That the pale reflex of an alien love,
So vaguely, sadly shown,
Did her heart touch Above
All that, till then, had woo’d her for its own.
