Cor Cordium
By Algernon Charles Swinburne
O heart of hearts, the chalice of loves fire,
Hid round with flowers and all the bounty of bloom;
O wonderful and perfect heart, for whom
The lyrist liberty made life a lyre;
O heavenly heart, at whose most dear desire
Dead love, living and singing, cleft his tomb,
And with him risen and regent in deaths room
All day thy choral pulses rang full choir;
O heart whose beating blood was running song,
O sole thing sweeter than thine own songs were,
Help us for thy free loves sake to be free,
True for thy truths sake, for thy strengths sake strong,
Till very liberty make clean and fair
The nursing earth as the sepulchral sea.