GIVE ME NOT LOVE, a poem

GIVE me not love that would enthrall
     A spirit panting to be free;
But give me love which more than all
     Would find it sweet to soar with me!
The bird that close to earth doth cling,
May, darkling, be content to sing,
But full the sunlight shines afar—
And there be heights where eagles are.

Give me not love which hour by hour,
     Like to the rose, doth pale its hue;
But love still constant as the flower
     That opens to each morn anew;
Not love which, shadowed by the tomb,
A little space doth languid bloom,
But love that draws its deeper breath
From altitudes that know not death.

"Give Me Not Love" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Atlantic Monthly (June 1903), Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume I.