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The Bibelot
VOLUME I
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From The Bibelot, A Reprint of Poetry and Prose for Book Lovers, chosen in part from scarce editions and sources not generally known, Volume I, Number V, Testimonial Edition, Edited and Originally Published by Thomas B. Mosher, Portland, Maine; Wm. Wise & Co.; New York; 1895; pp. 140-141.
Now Love masters my limbs and shakes me,
fatal creature, bitter-sweet.
Lo, Love once more, the limb-dissolving King,
The bitter-sweet impracticable thing,
Wild-beast-like rends me with fierce quivering.
J. ADDINGTON SYMONDS, 1883.
Compare —
O Love, Love, Love! O withering might!
TENNYSON, Fatima.
O bitterness of things too sweet!
SWINBURNE, Fragoletta .
Sweet Love, that art so bitter.
SWINBURNE, Tristram of Lyonesse.
and the song in Bothwell, act i. sc. 1: —
Surely most bitter of all sweet things thou art,
And sweetest thou of all things bitter, love.