Page:Erotica.djvu/34

I pray you, Sweetheart, to be wise in time.
You cannot change the Ethiop's dusky skin!
The leopard's spots! So leave him with his sin
Ere his contagion drags you through more slime.

The false God whom you worshipp'd shall lie dead,
His groves hewn down, his altar overthrown;
Peace, happiness, and love shall be your own,
Three golden halos hung above your head.

For you have eaten of the tree of life
After the tree of knowledge, and shall live
Another life, and all the past shall give
Its blackness up, its sorrow, sin, and strife,

To form a background for the fair "to be,"
Which we'll embroider with love's golden skein
The story of your past, of false love slain
And true love shrined upon its memory.

The past shall be a dream; you will awake
And wonder could such things have ever been.
Your scars of slavery which now are green
Shall be no more. You will arise and take

Within your grasp that fellow hand which Fate
At length has guided to its destined end.
We grope the whole world round until we bend
Our steps predoom'd through Love's celestial gate.