| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | III. Love Self-Sacrificed | | By Aubrey Thomas de Vere (1814–1902) |
| | (Entitled by the Author, “Incompatibility”)
FORGIVE me that I love you as I do, | |
| Friend patient long; too patient to reprove | |
| The inconvenience of superfluous love. | |
| You feel that it molests you, and ’t is true. | |
| In a light bark you sit, with a full crew;— | 5 |
| Your life, full-orbed, compelled strange love to meet, | |
| Becomes, by such addition, incomplete. | |
| Because I love, I leave you. O, adieu! | |
| Perhaps when I am gone the thought of me | |
| May sometimes be your àcceptable guest. | 10 |
| Indeed you love me: but my company | |
| Old time makes tedious; and to part is best. | |
| Not without Nature’s will are natures wed:— | |
| O gentle Death, how dear thou mak’st the dead! | | | | |
|
|
