Canto LXXXVIII

He tasted love with half his mind,

      Nor ever drank the inviolate spring

      Where nighest heaven, who first could fling

This bitter seed among mankind;

That could the dead, whose dying eyes

      Were closed with wail, resume their life,

      They would but find in child and wife

An iron welcome when they rise:

'Twas well, indeed, when warm with wine,

      To pledge them with a kindly tear:

      To talk them o'er, to wish them here,

To count their memories half divine;

But if they came who past away,

      Behold their brides in other hands:

      The hard heir strides about their lands,

And will not yield them for a day.

Yea, tho' their sons were none of these,

      Not less the yet-lov'd sire would make

      Confusion worse than death, and shake

The pillars of domestic peace.

Ah dear, but come thou back to me:

      Whatever change the years have wrought,

      I find not yet one lonely thought

That cries against my wish for thee.