As when the old moon lighted by the tender
    And radiant crescent of the new is seen,
And for a moment's space suggests the splendor
    Of what in its full prime it once has been,
So on my waning years you cast the glory
    Of youth and pleasure, for a little hour;
And life again seems like an unread story,
    And joy and hope both stir me with their power.

Can blooming June be fond of bleak December?
    I dare not wait to hear my heart reply.
I will forget the question -and remember
    Alone the priceless feast spread for mine eye,
That radiant hair that flows across the pillows,
    Like shimmering sunbeams over drifts of snow;
Those heaving breasts, like undulating billows,
    Whose dangers or delights but Love can know.

That crimson mou...

Dear absurd child - too dear to my cost I've found -
God made your soul for pleasure, not for use:
It cleaves no way, but angled broad obtuse,
Impinges with a slabby-bellied sound
Full upon life, and on the rind of things
Rubs its sleek self and utters purr and snore
And all the gamut of satisfied murmurings,
Content with that, nor wishes anything more.

A happy infant, daubed to the eyes in juice
Of peaches that flush bloody at the core,
Naked you bask upon a south-sea shore,
While o'er your tumbling bosom the hair floats loose.

The wild flowers bloom and die; the heavens go round
With the song of wheeling planetary rings:
You wriggle in the sun; each moment brings
Its freight for you; in all things pleasures abound.

You taste and smile, then...

Thou rear'st thy beauteous head, sweet flow'r
Gemm'd by the soft and vernal show'r;
Its drops still round thee shine:
The florist views thee with delight;
And, if so precious in his sight,
Oh! what art thou in mine?

For she, who nurs'd thy drooping form
When Winter pour'd her snowy storm,
Has oft consol'd me too;
For me a fost'ring tear has shed, -
She has reviv'd my drooping head,
And bade me bloom anew.

When adverse Fortune bade us part,
And grief depress'd my aching heart,
Like yon reviving ray,
She from behind the cloud would move,
And with a stolen look of love
Would melt my cares away.

Sweet flow'r! supremely dear to me,
Thy lovely mistress blooms in thee,
For, tho' the garden's pride,
In beauty's ...

Twin lilies in the river floating,
    Two lilies pure and white;
And one is pale and faintly drooping,
    The other glad and bright.

Twin lilies in the silvery waters,
    Two lilies white and frail;
And one is ever laughing gladly,
    The other, still and pale.

Upon the peaceful gleaming waters,
    They linger side by side;
And one, her head is drooping sadly;
    The other glows with pride.

Twin stars are o'er the river beaming,
    Two stars with silvery light;
And now they look with glances loving
    Upon the lilies white.

Two lilies now are drooping lowly
    Unto the river tide;
While in the wave the stars reflected
    Are floating side by side.

And now the stars are bending slowly
    To kiss ...

    There is something about
    Death Like love itself!
    If with some one with whom you have known passion
    And the glow of youthful love,
    You also, after years of life
    Together, feel the sinking of the fire
    And thus fade away together,
    Gradually, faintly, delicately,
    As it were in each other's arms,
    Passing from the familiar room -
    That is a power of unison between souls
    Like love itself!

Two lights on a lowly altar;
Two snowy cloths for a Feast;
Two vases of dying roses;
The morning comes from the east,
With a gleam for the folds of the vestments
And a grace for the face of the priest.

The sound of a low, sweet whisper
Floats over a little bread,
And trembles around a chalice,
And the priest bows down his head!
O'er a sign of white on the altar --
In the cup -- o'er a sign of red.

As red as the red of roses,
As white as the white of snows!
But the red is a red of a surface
Beneath which a God's blood flows;
And the white is the white of a sunlight
Within which a God's flesh glows.

Ah! words of the olden Thursday!
Ye come from the far-away!
Ye bring us the Friday's victim
In His own love's olden way;

    There is no soul of anguish or repining,
        That doubts and trembles in the shades of gloom,
    But love can lead where softest suns are shining
        And fill his days with beauty and its bloom.
            Live life with love!

    There is no bosom dark with lonely caring,
        That sadly sorrows in the nights of woe,
    But love can soothe his torture and despairing,
        And scatter gladness where his feet may go.
            Live life with love!

    There is no scene of misery or sorrow
        That droops and withers in the dark of night,
    But love can bring fond yearnings for the morrow
        And heap the heart with hope's unfading light.
            Live life with love!

    There is in all the world no sinful creatu...

The Desert sands are heated, parched and dreary,
    The tigers rend alive their quivering prey
In the near Jungle; here the kites rise, weary,
    Too gorged with living food to fly away.

All night the hungry jackals howl together
    Over the carrion in the river bed,
Or seize some small soft thing of fur or feather
    Whose dying shrieks on the night air are shed.

I hear from yonder Temple in the distance
    Whose roof with obscene carven Gods is piled,
Reiterated with a sad insistence
    Sobs of, perhaps, some immolated child.

Strange rites here, where the archway's shade is deeper,
    Are consummated in the river bed;
Parias steal the rotten railway sleeper
    To burn the bodies of their cholera dead.

But yet, their lust, thei...

There are two Loves, the poet sings,
    Both born of Beauty at a birth:
The one, akin to heaven, hath wings,
    The other, earthly, walks on earth.
With this thro' bowers below we play,
    With that thro' clouds above we soar;
With both, perchance, may lose our way:--
        Then, tell me which,
    Tell me which shall we adore?

The one, when tempted down from air,
    At Pleasure's fount to lave his lip,
Nor lingers long, nor oft will dare
    His wing within the wave to dip.
While plunging deep and long beneath,
    The other bathes him o'er and o'er
In that sweet current, even to death:--
        Then, tell me which,
    Tell me which shall we adore?

The boy of heaven, even while he lies
    In Beauty's lap, reca...

When Love is kind,
    Cheerful and free,
Love's sure to find
    Welcome from me.

But when Love brings
    Heartache or pang,
Tears, and such things--
    Love may go hang!

If Love can sigh
    For one alone,
Well pleased am I
    To be that one,

But should I see
    Love given to rove
To two or three,
    Then--good by Love!

Love must, in short,
    Keep fond and true,
Thro' good report,
    And evil too.

Else, here I swear,
    Young Love may go.
For aught I care--
    To Jericho.

The holy boy
Went from his mother out in the cool of the day
Over the sun-parched fields
And in among the olives shining green and shining grey.

There was no sound,
No smallest voice of any shivering stream.
Poor sinless little boy,
He desired to play and to sing; he could only sigh and dream.

Suddenly came
Running along to him naked, with curly hair,
That rogue of the lovely world,
That other beautiful child whom the virgin Venus bare.

The holy boy
Gazed with those sad blue eyes that all men know.
Impudent Cupid stood
Panting, holding an arrow and pointing his bow.

(Will you not play?
Jesus, run to him, run to him, swift for our joy.
Is he not holy, like you?
Are you afraid of his arrows, O beautiful dreaming boy?)
...

Young mother! proudly throbs thine heart, and well may it rejoice,
Well may'st thou raise to Heaven above in grateful prayer thy voice:
A gift hath been bestowed on thee, a gift of priceless worth,
Far dearer to thy woman's heart than all the wealth of earth.

What store of deep and holy joy is opened to thy thought -
Glad, sunny dreams of future days, with bliss and rapture fraught;
Of hopes as varied, yet as bright, as beams of April sun,
And plans and wishes centred all within thy darling one!

While others seek in changing scenes earth's happiness to gain,
In fashion's halls to win a joy as dazzling as 'tis vain -
A bliss more holy far is thine, far sweeter and more deep,
To watch beside thine infant's couch and bend above his sleep.

What joy for thee to ling'...

Lullaby on the wing
Of my song, O my own!
Soft airs of evening
Join my song's murmuring tone.

Lullaby, O my love!
Close your eyes, lake-like clear;
Lullaby, while above
Wake the stars, with heaven near.

Lullaby, sweet, so still
In arms of death; I alone
Sing lullaby, like a rill,
To your form, cold as a stone.

Lullaby, O my heart!
Sleep in peace, all alone;
Night has come, and your part
For loving is wholly done!

Serious but smiling, stately and serene,
And dreamier than a flower;
A girl in whom all sympathies convene
As perfumes in a bower;
Through whom one feels what soul and heart may mean,
And their resistless power.

Eyes, that commune with the frank skies of truth,
Where thought like starlight curls;
Lips of immortal rose, where love and youth
Nestle like two sweet pearls;
Hair, that suggests the Bible braids of RUTH,
Deeper than any girl's.

When first I saw you, 't was as if within
My soul took shape some song -
Played by a master of the violin -
A music pure and strong,
That rapt my soul above all earthly sin
To heights that know no wrong.

If thou be in a lonely place,
If one hour's calm be thine,
As Evening bends her placid face
O'er this sweet day's decline;
If all the earth and all the heaven
Now look serene to thee,
As o'er them shuts the summer even,
One moment, think of me!

Pause, in the lane, returning home;
'Tis dusk, it will be still:
Pause near the elm, a sacred gloom
Its breezeless boughs will fill.
Look at that soft and golden light,
High in the unclouded sky;
Watch the last bird's belated flight,
As it flits silent by.

Hark! for a sound upon the wind,
A step, a voice, a sigh;
If all be still, then yield thy mind,
Unchecked, to memory.
If thy love were like mine, how blest
That twilight hour would seem,
When, back from the regretted Past,

Beauty and love let no one separate,
Whom exact Nature did to each other fit,
Giving to Beauty love as finishing fate
And to Love beauty as true colour of it.
Let he but friend be who the soul finds fair,
But let none love outside the body's thought,
So the seen couple's togetherness shall bear
Truth to the beauty each in the other sought.
I could but love thee out of mockery
Of love and thee and mine own ugliness;
Therefore thy beauty I sing and wish not thee,
Thanking the Gods I long not out of place,
    Lest, like a slave that for kings' robes doth long,
    Obtained, shall with mere wearing do them wrong.

How many times, like lotus lilies risen
Upon the surface of a river, there
Have risen floating on my blood the rare
Soft glimmers of my hope escaped from prison.

So I am clothed all over with the light
And sensitive beautiful blossoming of passion;
Till naked for her in the finest fashion
The flowers of all my mud swim into sight.

And then I offer all myself unto
This woman who likes to love me: but she turns
A look of hate upon the flower that burns
To break and pour her out its precious dew.

And slowly all the blossom shuts in pain,
And all the lotus buds of love sink over
To die unopened: when my moon-faced lover,
Kind on the weight of suffering, smiles again.

Beauty, the Gift of Gifts, I give to thee.
Pleasure and love shall spring around thy feet
As through the lake the lotuses arise
Pinkly transparent and divinely sweet.

I give thee eyes aglow like morning stars,
Delicate brows, a mist of sable tresses,
That all the journey of thy lie may be
Lit up by love and softened by caresses.

For those who once were proud and softly bred
Shall, kneeling, wait thee as thou passest by,
They who were pure shall stretch forth eager hands
Crying, "Thy pity, Lord, before we die!"

And one shall murmur, "If the sun at dawn
Shall open and caress a happy flower,
What blame to him, although the blossom fade
In the full splendour of his noontide power?"

And one, "If aloes close together grow
It well may cha...