Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Happy Husband. A Fragment
Oft, oft methinks, the while with thee,
 I breathe, as from the heart, thy dear
 And dedicated name, I hear
A promise and a mystery,
 A pledge of more than passing life,
 Yea, in that very name of Wife!
A pulse of love, that ne'er can sleep!
 A feeling that upbraids the heart
 With happiness beyond desert,
That gladness half requests to weep!
 Nor bless I not the keener sense
 And unalarming turbulence
Of transient joys, that ask no sting
 From jealous fears, or coy denying;
 But born beneath Love's brooding wing,
And into tenderness soon dying,
 Wheel out their giddy moment, then
 Resign the soul to love again;—
A more precipitated vein
 Of notes, that eddy in the flow
 Of smoothest song, they come, they go,
And leave their sweeter understrain,
 Its own sweet self—a love of Thee
 That seems, yet cannot greater be!