The Star and the Garter

XV WILL you not learn to separate The essential from the accidental, Love from desire, caprice from fate, The inmost from the merely mental? Our star, the sun, gives life and light: Let that decay, the aeons drown Sense in stagnation ; death and night Smite the fallen fragments of the crown Of spring: but serves the garter so? What wandering meteor is this Across the archipelago Luminous of our starry bliss ? Let that be lost : the smile disputes The forehead’s temple with the frown, When gravitation’s arrow shoots, And stockings happen to slip down. You are my heart: the central fire Whereby my being burns and moves, The mainspring of my life’s desire, The essential engine that approves 35