Let me believe you, love, or let me die!
If on your faith I may not rest secure,
Beyond all chance of peradvenure sure,
Trusting your half avowals sweet and shy,
As trusts the lark the pallid, dawn-lit sky
Then would I rather in some grave obscure
Repose forlorn, than, living on, endure
A question each dear transport to belie.
It is a pain to thirst and do without
A pain to suffer what we deem unjust,
To win a joy and lay it in the dust;
But there's a fiercer pain,—the pain of doubt:
From other griefs d**h sets the spirit free:
Doubt steals the light from immortality!