Thou wouldst be loved? then let thy heart
From its present pathway part not!
Being everything which now thou art,
Be nothing which thou art not.
So with the world thy gentle ways,
Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
Shall be an endless theme of praise,
And love, a simple duty.

1.

When I hear you express an affection so warm,
Ne'er think, my belov'd, that I do not believe,
For your lip, would the soul of suspicion disarm,
And your eye beams a ray, which can never deceive.

2.

Yet still, this fond bosom regrets whilst adoring,
That love like the leaf, must fall into the sear,
That age will come on, when remembrance deploring,
Contemplates the scenes of her youth, with a tear.

3.

That the time must arrive, when no longer retaining
Their auburn, these locks must wave thin to the breeze.
When a few silver hairs of those tresses remaining,
Prove nature a prey to decay, and disease.

4.

'Tis this, my belov'd, which spreads gloom o'er my features
Tho' I ne'er shall presume to arraign the decree;<...

Immortal love, forever full,
Forever flowing free,
Forever shared, forever whole,
A never ebbing sea!

Our outward lips confess the name
All other names above;
Love only knoweth whence it came,
And comprehendeth love.

Blow, winds of God, awake and blow
The mists of earth away:
Shine out, O Light divine, and show
How wide and far we stray.

We may not climb the heavenly steeps
To bring the Lord Christ down;
In vain we search the lowest deeps,
For Him no depths can drown.

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet,
A present help is He;
And faith still has its Olivet,
And love its Galilee.

The healing of His seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain;
We touch Him in life’s throng and press,
And we are whole again...

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead;
And there reigns Love, and all Love’s loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye,
As interest of the dead, which now appear
But things remov’d that hidden in thee lie!
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give,
That due of many now is thine alone:
Their images I lov’d, I view in thee,
And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.

That morn our hearts were like artesian wells,
Both deep and calm, and brimming with pure love.
And in each one, like to an April day,
Truth smiled and wept, while Courage wound his horn,
Dispatching echoes that are whispering still
Through all the vacant chambers of our souls;
While Sorrow sat with drooped and aimless wing,
Within the solitary fane of thought.
We wished some warlike Joshua were there
To make the sun stand still, or to put back
The dial to the brighter side of time.
A cloud hung over Couchiching; a cloud
Eclipsed the merry sunshine of our hearts.
We needed no philosopher to teach
That laughter is not always born of joy.
"All's for the best," the fair Eliza said;
And we derived new courage from her lips,
That spake the maxim of her trustin...

Two words there 'are, both short, of beauty rare,

Whose sounds our lips so often love to frame,

But which with clearness never can proclaim
The things whose own peculiar stamp they bear.

'Tis well in days of age and youth so fair,

One on the other boldly to inflame;

And if those words together link'd we name,
A blissful rapture we discover there.

But now to give them pleasure do I seek,

And in myself my happiness would find;

I hope in silence, but I hope for this:

Gently, as loved one's names, those words to speak

To see them both within one image shrin'd,

Both in one being to embrace with bliss.

It is not very long since first we met,
    Thy path and mine lay very far apart;
We are not of one nation, dear one, yet
    Thou hast awakened love within my heart.

It is a love that sorrow never tried,
    And yet, like tested love, it is as true
As love that stood in dark hours by your side,
    If hours were ever dark or sad to you.

Not for your beauty, though I think you fair,
    Not for the kind heart or the tender word;
But for the kindredship,--because you were
    One who both knew and loved my gracious Lord.

One who had often met with Him alone;
    One over whom His garment had been laid;
Clothed on with beauty that was not your own,
    Bought with a price no other could have paid,

Divided by the ridge of time are we,

("O douleur! j'ai voulu savoir.")

[XXXIV. i., October, 183-.]


I have wished in the grief of my heart to know
If the vase yet treasured that nectar so clear,
And to see what this beautiful valley could show
Of all that was once to my soul most dear.
In how short a span doth all Nature change,
How quickly she smoothes with her hand serene -
And how rarely she snaps, in her ceaseless range,
The links that bound our hearts to the scene.

Our beautiful bowers are all laid waste;
The fir is felled that our names once bore;
Our rows of roses, by urchins' haste,
Are destroyed where they leap the barrier o'er.
The fount is walled in where, at noonday pride,
She so gayly drank, from the wood descending;
In her fairy hand was transformed the...

The sunlight fell with a golden gleam
    On the waves of the rippling rill;
The pansies nodded their purple heads;
    But the proud queen-rose stood still.
She loved the light and she loved the sun,
And the peaceful night when the day was done,
But the faithless sun in his careless way
Had broken her heart on that summer's day.

She had bathed her soul in his warm sweet, rays,
    She had given her life to him;
And her crimson heart--it was his alone--
    Of love it was full to the brim.
But a fairer bud in the garden of love
Had conquered the heart of the king above;
And the proud queen-rose on that summer's day
Had given a love that was thrown away.

The pansies laughed in the summer breeze,
    For they were so happy and free;
And the...

When I see you, who were so wise and cool,
Gazing with silly sickness on that fool
You've given your love to, your adoring hands
Touch his so intimately that each understands,
I know, most hidden things; and when I know
Your holiest dreams yield to the stupid bow
Of his red lips, and that the empty grace
Of those strong legs and arms, that rosy face,
Has beaten your heart to such a flame of love,
That you have given him every touch and move,
Wrinkle and secret of you, all your life,
Oh! then I know I'm waiting, lover-wife,
For the great time when love is at a close,
And all its fruit's to watch the thickening nose
And sweaty neck and dulling face and eye,
That are yours, and you, most surely, till you die!
Day after day you'll sit with him and note
The gr...

Sweet as the tender fragrance that survives,
When martyred flowers breathe out their little lives,
Sweet as a song that once consoled our pain,
But never will be sung to us again,
Is thy remembrance.    Now the hour of rest
Hath come to thee.    Sleep, darling; it is best.

    Throb, throb, throb,
Far away in the blue transparent Night,
On the outer horizon of a dreaming consciousness,
She hears the sound of her lover's nearing boat
    Afar, afloat
On the river's loneliness, where the Stars are the only light;
    Hear the sound of the straining wood
    Like a broken sob
    Of a heart's distress,
    Loving misunderstood.

She lies, with her loose hair spent in soft disorder,
On a silken sheet with a purple woven border,
Every cell of her brain is latent fire,
Every fibre tense with restrained desire.
    And the straining oars sound clearer, clearer,
    The boat is approaching nearer, nearer;
    "How to wait through the moments' space
    Till I see the light of my lover's face?"

    Throb, throb, thro...

I
Airy, Fairy Lilian,
Flitting, fairy Lilian,
When I ask her if she love me,
Claps her tiny hands above me,
Laughing all she can;
She 'll not tell me if she love me,
Cruel little Lilian.


II
When my passion seeks
Pleasance in love-sighs,
She, looking thro' and thro' me
Thoroughly to undo me,
Smiling, never speaks:
So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple,
From beneath her gathered wimple
Glancing with black-bearded eyes,
Till the lightning laughters dimple
The baby-roses in her cheeks;
Then away she flies.


III
Prythee weep, May Lilian!
Gaiety without eclipse
Whearieth me, May Lilian;
Thro' my every heart it thrilleth
When from crimson-threaded lips
Silver-treble laughter trilleth:
Prythee...

I

Dearest, when I left your side,
I stood a moment, hesitating,
And plunged. The boiling tide
Of darkness took me, and down I went
Swift as a bird with folded wing,
And upward sent
The bubbles of my vital breath
That shuddered from my secret deeps
To freedom and light;
Then, dimly, on my sight
Opened the still abode of living death.
Amid the mire,
In which invisibly sightless horror creeps,
Sat, each intent on his own woe,
The host that burns with inward fire,
Crowded like monuments of memorial stone
Beneath a pitchy sky
Where even the flash of tempest dare not show,
Yet each of them alone;
And each was I.

II

Breathless I struggled up,
As if the gloom had arms to clutch at me
And drag and hold,
Unt...

Here's to Hope,
the child of Care,
And pretty sister
of Despair!
Here's hoping that
Hope's children shan't
Take after their Grandma
or Aunt!

Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes,
Which, star-like, sparkle in their skies;
Nor be you proud, that you can see
All hearts your captives, yours, yet free;
Be you not proud of that rich hair
Which wantons with the love-sick air;
When as that ruby which you wear,
Sunk from the tip of your soft ear,
Will last to be a precious stone,
When all your world of beauty's gone.

"Lucy." - The old familiar name
Is now, as always, pleasant,
Its liquid melody the same
Alike in past or present;
Let others call you what they will,
I know you'll let me use it;
To me your name is Lucy still,
I cannot bear to lose it.

What visions of the past return
With Lucy's image blended!
What memories from the silent urn
Of gentle lives long ended!
What dreams of childhood's fleeting morn,
What starry aspirations,
That filled the misty days unborn
With fancy's coruscations!

Ah, Lucy, life has swiftly sped
From April to November;
The summer blossoms all are shed
That you and I remember;
But while the vanished years we share
With mingling recollections,
How all their shadowy features wear
The hue of old affect...

Yearning upon the faint rose-curves that flit
About her child-sweet mouth and innocent cheek,
And in her eyes watching with eyes all meek
The light and shadow of laughter, I would sit
Mute, knowing our two souls might never knit;
As if a pale proud lily-flower should seek
The love of some red rose, but could not speak
One word of her blithe tongue to tell of it.

For oh, my Love was sunny-lipped and stirred
With all swift light and sound and gloom not long
Retained; I, with dreams weighed, that ever heard
Sad burdens echoing through the loudest throng
She, the wild song of some May-merry bird;
I, but the listening maker of a song.