My Comrade

The love of man and woman is as fire, To warm, to light, but surely to consume And self-consuming die. There is no room For constancy and passionate desire. We stand at last beside a wasted pyre, Touch its dead embers, groping in the gloom; And where an altar stood, erect a tomb, And sing a requiem to a broken lyre. But comrade-love is as a welding blast Of candid flame and ardent temperature: Glowing most fervent, it doth bind more fast; And melting both, but makes the union sure. The dross alone is burnt—till at the last The steel, if cold, is one, and strong and pure.