Helen Hunt Jackson - Fealty lyrics

The thing I count and hold as fealty-- The only fealty to give or take-- Doth never reckoning keep, and coldly make Bond to itself with this or that to be Content as wage; the wage unpaid, to free Its hand from service, and its love forsake, Its faith cast off, as one from dreams might wake At morn, and smiling watch the vision flee. Such fealty is treason in disguise, Who trusts it, his d**h-warrant sealed doth bear. Love looks at it with angry, wondering eyes; Love knows the face true fealty doth wear, The pulse that beats unchanged by alien air, Or hurts, or crimes, until the loved one dies.