Thomas MacDonagh

To My Lady

You with all gifts of grace, have this one gift--
Or simple power -- your way of life to lift
For way of love out of the common way
Of manner and conduct where with all it lay.
Your love, although your life now, is apart
From these, and not by will so but by heart.
You hold no secrets of yourself from you:
You have no vanity, no doubt to do
What 'tis your way to do; and as you live
Not in yourself alone, you take and give:
You hold no secrets of yourself from me,
Nor fail to see in me what is to see.
So you, surrendering every defence,
Yield not, but hold the perfect reticence
Of intimate love. We have no need of speech
(Though I speak this) our equal trust to reach.
Our acts we guard not, and we go our ways
Free, though together now for all our days.