He desired supreme grief, and grief fled from his lure; and rhymes and images thronged his brain; and the poem that oftenest rose in his mind, seemingly complete in cadence and idea, was so cruel, that Lily, looking out of heaven, seemed to beg him to refrain.  But though he erased the lines on the paper, he could not erase them on his brain, and baffled, he pondered over the phenomena of the antagonism of desired aspirations and intellectual instincts.  He desired a poem full of the divine grace of grief; a poem beautiful, tender and pure, fresh and wild as a dove crossing in the dawn from wood to wood.  He desired the picturesqueness of a young man’s grief for a dead girl, an Adonais going forth into the glittering morning, and weeping for his love that has passed out of the sun into the shadow.  This is what he wrote: 

        A UNE POETRENAIRE.

  We are alone! listen, a little while,
  And hear the reason why your weary smile
  And lute-toned speaking is so very sweet
  To me, and how my love is more complete
  Than any love of any lover.  They
  Have only been attracted by the gray
  Delicious softness of your eyes, your slim
  And delicate form, or some such whimpering whim,
  The simple pretexts of all lovers;—­I
  For other reasons.  Listen whilst I try
  And say.  I joy to see the sunset slope
  Beyond the weak hours’ hopeless horoscope,
  Leaving the heavens a melancholy calm,
  Of quiet colour chaunted like a psalm,
  In mildly modulated phrases; thus
  Your life shall fade like a voluptuous
  Vision beyond the sight, and you shall die
  Like some soft evening’s sad serenity ... 
  I would possess your dying hours; indeed
  My love is worthy of the gift, I plead
  For them.

         Although I never loved as yet,
  Methinks that I might love you; I would get
  From out the knowledge that the time was brief,
  That tenderness whose pity grows to grief,
  My dream of love, and yea, it would have charms
  Beyond all other passions, for the arms
  Of death are stretched you-ward, and he claims
  You as his bride.  Maybe my soul misnames
  Its passion; love perhaps it is not, yet
  To see you fading like a violet,
  Or some sweet thought away, would be a strange
  And costly pleasure, far beyond the range
  Of common man’s emotion.  Listen, I
  Will choose a country spot where fields of rye
  And wheat extend in waving yellow plains,
  Broken with wooded hills and leafy lanes,
  To pass our honeymoon; a cottage where
  The porch and windows are festooned with fair
  Green wreaths of eglantine, and look upon
  A shady garden where we’ll walk alone
  In the autumn sunny evenings; each will see
  Our walks grow shorter, till at length to thee
  The garden’s length is far, and thou wilt rest
  From time to time, leaning upon my breast