A man in armor is his armor's slave. - Robert Browning

O woman-country! wooed not wed,
Loved all the more by earth's male-lands,
Laid to their hearts instead.

Life In Love

Escape me?
Never — -
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear:
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,
And, baffled, get up and begin again, — -
So the chace takes up one's life ' that's all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope goes to ground
Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark,
I shape me — -
Ever
Removed!

time fleets, youth fades, life is an empty dream,