One Word

One word is too often profaned

For me to profane it,

One feeling too falsely disdained

For thee to disdain it;

One hope is too like despair

For prudence to smother,

And pity from thee more dear

Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love

But wilt thou accept not,

The worship this heart lifts above

And heavens reject not,—

The desire of the moth for the star

And the night for the morrow,

The devotion to something afar

From the sphere of our sorrow?