Die, die, my soule, and neuer taste of ioy,
If sighes, nor teares, nor vowes, nor prayers can moue;
If fayth and zeale be but esteemd a toy,
And kindnes be vnkindnes in my loue.
Then, with vnkindnes, Loue, reuenge thy wrong:
O sweet'st reuenge that ere the heauens gaue!
And with the swan record thy dying song,
And praise her still to thy vntimely graue.
So in loues death shall loues perfection proue
That loue diuine which I haue borne to you,
By doome concealed to the heauens aboue,
That yet the world vnworthy neuer knew;
    Whose pure Idea neuer tongue exprest:
    I feele, you know, the heauens can tell the rest.

Kiss me, sweetheart.    One by one
Swift and sure the moments run.

Soon, too soon, for you and me
Gone for aye the day will be.

Do not let time cheat us then,
Kiss me often and again.

Every time a moment slips
Let us count it on our lips

While we're kissing, strife and pain
Cannot come between us twain.

If we pause too long a space,
Who can tell what may take place?

You may pout, and I may scold,
Souls be sundered, hearts grow cold;

Death may come, and love take wings;
Oh! a thousand cruel things

May creep in to spoil the day,
If we throw the time away.

Let us time, the cheater, cheat,
Kiss me, darling, kiss me, sweet.

        A miner in California mine,
        For his distant home he did repine,
        In a far off Eastern state,
        Where did live his own dear mate.

        And one great source of all his joy,
        His little darling baby boy,
        One night to drive his cares away
        To concert hall his footsteps stray.

        And loud resounding o'er the hall,
        He heard a little boy squall,
        The sweetest music he e'er heard,
        Sweeter far than singing bird.

        For his thoughts it caused to roam,
        To his distant eastern home,
        Near to the mine there were no trace
        Of baby dear or woman's face.

        When violinist with his bow
        Did make exquisite music flow,
        ...

Sweet bottle-shaped flower of lushy red,
Born when the summer wakes her warmest breeze,
Among the meadow's waving grasses spread,
Or 'neath the shade of hedge or clumping trees,
Bowing on slender stem thy heavy head;
In sweet delight I view thy summer bed,
And list the drone of heavy humble-bees
Along thy honey'd garden gaily led,
Down corn-field, striped balks, and pasture-leas.
Fond warmings of the soul, that long have fled,
Revive my bosom with their kindlings still,
As I bend musing o'er thy ruddy pride;
Recalling days when, dropt upon a hill,
I cut my oaten trumpets by thy side.

O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
Even into thine own soft-conched ear:
Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see
The winged Psyche with awaken’d eyes?
I wander’d in a forest thoughtlessly,
And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side
In deepest grass, beneath the whisp’ring roof
Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
A brooklet, scarce espied:
’Mid hush’d, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,
Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,
They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;
Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;
Their lips touch’d not, but had not bade adieu,
As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,
A...

Time beckons on the hours: the expiring year
    Already feels old Winter's icy breath;
As with cold hands, he scatters on her bier
    The faded glories of her Autumn wreath.
As fleetly as the Summer's sunshine past,
    The Winter's snow must melt; and the young Spring,
Strewing the earth with flowers, will come at last,
    And in her train the hour of parting bring.
But, though I leave the harbour, where my heart
    Sometime had found a peaceful resting-place,
Where it lay calmly moored; though I depart,
    Yet, let not time my memory quite efface.
'Tis true, I leave no void, the happy home
    To which you welcomed me, will be as gay,
As bright, as cheerful, when I've turned to roam,
    Once more, upon life's weary onward way.
But oh! if ever by the wa...

        Chloe found Amyntas lying,
            All in tears upon the plain;
        Sighing to himself, and crying,
            Wretched I, to love in vain!
        Kiss me, dear, before my dying;
            Kiss me once, and ease my pain!

        Sighing to himself, and crying,
            Wretched I, to love in vain!
        Ever scorning and denying
            To reward your faithful swain:
        Kiss me, dear, before my dying;
            Kiss me once, and ease my pain:

        Ever scorning, and denying
            To reward your faithful swain:
        Chloe, laughing at his crying,
            Told him, that he loved in vain:
        Kiss me, dear, before my dying;
            Kiss me once, and ease my pain!

        Chloe...

I.

So far as our story approaches the end,
Which do you pity the most of us three?
My friend, or the mistress of my friend
With her wanton eyes, or me?

II.

My friend was already too good to lose,
And seemed in the way of improvement yet,
When she crossed his path with her hunting-noose
And over him drew her net.

III.

When I saw him tangled in her toils,
A shame, said I, if she adds just him
To her nine-and-ninety other spoils,
The hundredth for a whim!

IV.

And before my friend be wholly hers,
How easy to prove to him, I said,
An eagle’s the game her pride prefers,
Though she snaps at a wren instead!

V.

So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take,
My hand sought hers as in earnest n...

What strong allurement draws, what spirit guides,
Thee, Vesper! brightening still, as if the nearer
Thou com'st to man's abode the spot grew dearer
Night after night? True is it Nature hides
Her treasures less and less. Man now presides
In power, where once he trembled in his weakness;
Science advances with gigantic strides;
But are we aught enriched in love and meekness?
Aught dost thou see, bright Star! of pure and wise
More than in humbler times graced human story;
That makes our hearts more apt to sympathise
With heaven, our souls more fit for future glory,
When earth shall vanish from our closing eyes,
Ere we lie down in our last dormitory?

When I bought you for a song,
Years ago Lord knows how long!
I was struck I may be wrong
By your features,
And a something in your air
That I couldn’t quite compare
To my other plain or fair
Fellow creatures.

In your simple, oval frame
You were not well known to fame,
But to me ’twas all the same
Whoe’er drew you;
For your face I can’t forget,
Though I oftentimes regret
That, somehow, I never yet
Saw quite through you.

Yet each morning, when I rise,
I go first to greet your eyes;
And, in turn, you scrutinize
My presentment.
And when shades of evening fall,
As you hang upon my wall,
You’re the last thing I recall
With contentment.

It is weakness, yet I know
That I never turned to go
Anywhere, f...

In the long run fame finds the deserving man.
    The lucky wight may prosper for a day,
But in good time true merit leads the van,
    And vain pretense, unnoticed, goes its way.
There is no Chance, no Destiny, no Fate,
But Fortune smiles on those who work and wait,
    In the long run.

In the long run all goodly sorrow pays,
    There is no better thing than righteous pain,
The sleepless nights, the awful thorn-crowned days,
    Bring sure reward to tortured soul and brain.
Unmeaning joys enervate in the end.
But sorrow yields a glorious dividend
    In the long run.

In the long run all hidden things are known,
    The eye of truth will penetrate the night,
And good or ill, thy secret shall be known,
    However well 'tis guarded from the li...

Sequestered in their calm domestic bower,
    They sat together.    He in manhood's prime
And she a matron in her fullest flower.
    The mantel clock gave forth a warning chime.
She put her work aside; his bright cigar
    Grew pale, and crumbled in an ashen heap.
The lights went out, save one remaining star
    That watched beside the children in their sleep.
She hummed a little song and nestled near,
    As side by side they went to their repose.
His arm about her waist, he whispered "Dear,"
    And pressed his lips upon her mouth's full rose -
The sacred sweetness of their wedded life
    Breathed in that kiss of husband and of wife.

    Given, not lent,
    And not withdrawn - once sent -
This Infant of mankind, this One,
Is still the little welcome Son.

    New every year,
    New-born and newly dear,
He comes with tidings and a song,
The ages long, the ages long.

    Even as the cold
    Keen winter grows not old;
As childhood is so fresh, foreseen,
And spring in the familiar green;

    Sudden as sweet
    Come the expected feet.
All joy is young, and new all art,
And He, too, Whom we have by heart.

And Ellen, when the graybeard years
Have brought us to life's evening hour,
And all the crowded Past appears
A tiny scene of sun and shower,

Then, if I read the page aright
Where Hope, the soothsayer, reads our lot,
Thyself shalt own the page was bright,
Well that we loved, woe had we not,

When Mirth is dumb and Flattery's fled,
And mute thy music's dearest tone,
When all but Love itself is dead
And all but deathless Reason gone.

Thou who singest through the earth,
    All the earth's wild creatures fly thee,
Everywhere thou marrest mirth.
    Dumbly they defy thee.
There is something they deny thee.

Pines thy fallen nature ever
For the unfallen Nature sweet.
But she shuns thy long endeavour,
    Though her flowers and wheat
Throng and press thy pausing feet.

Though thou tame a bird to love thee,
Press thy face to grass and flowers,
All these things reserve above thee
    Secrets in the bowers,
Secrets in the sun and showers.

Sing thy sorrow, sing thy gladness.
In thy songs must wind and tree
Bear the fictions of thy sadness,
    Thy humanity.
For their truth is not for thee.

Wait, and many a secret nest,
Many a hoarded winter-store

Intense young soul, that takest hearts by storm,
And chills them into sorrow with a look!
Some minds are open as a well-read book;
But here the leaves are still uncut - unscanned,
The volume clasped and sealed, and all the warm
And passionate exuberance of love
Held in submission to these threadbare flaws
And creeds of weaknesses, poor human laws.
Stand up erect - nay kneel - for from above
God's light is streaming on thee. Fashion's daws
May fawn and natter like a cringing pack
Of servile hounds beneath the keeper's hand,
But these are not thy peers; they drive thee back:
Urge on the car of Thought, and take a higher stand!

Lucilla, wedded to Lucretius, found
Her master cold; for when the morning flush
Of passion and the first embrace had died
Between them, tho' he loved her none the less,
Yet often when the woman heard his foot
Return from pacings in the field, and ran
To greet him with a kiss, the master took
Small notice, or austerely, for his mind
Half buried in some weightier argument,
Or fancy-borne perhaps upon the rise
And long roll of the hexameter -- he past
To turn and ponder those three hundred scrolls
Left by the Teacher, whom he held divine.
She brook'd it not, but wrathful, petulant
Dreaming some rival, sought and found a witch
Who brew'd the philtre which had power, they said
To lead an errant passion home again.
And this, at times, she mingled with his drink...

nulla tuum nobis subducet femina lectum, etc., Lib. iv. Carm. 13.


"Never shall woman's smile have power
    "To win me from those gentle charms!"--
Thus swore I, in that happy hour,
    When Love first gave thee to my arms.

And still alone thou charm'st my sight--
    Still, tho' our city proudly shine
With forms and faces, fair and bright,
    I see none fair or bright but thine.

Would thou wert fair for only me,
    And couldst no heart but mine allure!--
To all men else unpleasing be,
    So shall I feel my prize secure.

Oh, love like mine ne'er wants the zest
    Of others' envy, others' praise;
But, in its silence safely blest,
    Broods o'er a bliss it ne'er betrays.

Charm of my life! by whose sweet power<...