Sonnets from the Portuguese 40

Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!

I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth:

I have heard love talked in my early youth,

And since, not so long back but that the flowers

Then gathered, smell still.  Mussulmans and Giaours

Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth

For any weeping.  Polypheme’s white tooth

Slips on the nut if, after frequent showers,

The shell is over-smooth,—and not so much

Will turn the thing called love, aside to hate

Or else to oblivion.  But thou art not such

A lover, my Belovëd! thou canst wait

Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch,

And think it soon when others cry “Too late.”