There is a warm and gentle atmosphere
About the form of one we love, and thus
As in a tender mist our spirits are
Wrapped in the ... of that which is to us
The health of life's own life -

("Le parfum d'un lis.")

[Bk. V. xiii.]


The lily's perfume pure, fame's crown of light,
The latest murmur of departing day,
Fond friendship's plaint, that melts at piteous sight,
The mystic farewell of each hour at flight,
The kiss which beauty grants with coy delay, -

The sevenfold scarf that parting storms bestow
As trophy to the proud, triumphant sun;
The thrilling accent of a voice we know,
The love-enthralled maiden's secret vow,
An infant's dream, ere life's first sands be run, -

The chant of distant choirs, the morning's sigh,
Which erst inspired the fabled Memnon's frame, -
The melodies that, hummed, so trembling die, -
The sweetest gems that 'mid thought's treasures lie,
Have naught of sweetness that can match HER N...

I have been wandering where the daisies grow,
    Great fields of tall, white daisies, and I saw
    Them bend reluctantly, and seem to draw
Away in pride when the fresh breeze would blow
    From timothy and yellow buttercup,
    So by their fearless beauty lifted up.

Yet must they bend at the strong breeze's will,
    Bright, flawless things, whether in wrath he sweep
    Or, as oftimes, in mood caressing, creep
Over the meadows and adown the hill.
    So Love in sport or truth, as Fates allow,
    Blows over proud young hearts, and bids them bow.

So beautiful is it to live, so sweet
    To hear the ripple of the bobolink,
    To smell the clover blossoms white and pink,
To feel oneself far from the dusty street,
    From dusty souls, from all th...

To our Sweethearts and Wives,
The joy of our lives!
May our Wives be our Sweethearts--
Our Sweethearts, our Wives.

Like clouds that flit across the sky,
    So follow hopes and fears.
What in these clouds see you and me
    Dear Sweetheart, smiles or tears?

This little airy fleecy wing,
    That flits across the blue,
What message Sweetheart does it bring
    Of hope or fear to you?

Pray God it brings you sunny hours
    And haply some few tears
To bless like showers your summer flowers
    In the long coming years.

It is not blasphemy to hope that Heaven
More perfectly will give those nameless joys
Which throb within the pulses of the blood
And sweeten all that bitterness which Earth
Infuses in the heaven-born soul. O thou
Whose dear love gleamed upon the gloomy path
Which this lone spirit travelled, drear and cold,
Yet swiftly leading to those awful limits
Which mark the bounds of Time and of the space
When Time shall be no more; wilt thou not turn
Those spirit-beaming eyes and look on me,
Until I be assured that Earth is Heaven,
And Heaven is Earth? - will not thy glowing cheek,
Glowing with soft suffusion, rest on mine,
And breathe magnetic sweetness through the frame
Of my corporeal nature, through the soul
Now knit with these fine fibres? I would give
The longe...

Your birthday, sweetheart, is my birthday too,
For, had you not been born,
I who began to live beholding you
Up early as the morn,
That day in June beside the rose-hung stream,
Had never lived at all -
We stood, do you remember? in a dream
There by the water-fall.

You were as still as all the other flowers
Under the morning's spell;
Sudden two lives were one, and all things "ours" -
How we can never tell.
Surely it had been fated long ago -
What else, dear, could we think?
It seemed that we had stood for ever so,
There by the river's brink.

And all the days that followed seemed as days
Lived side by side before,
Strangely familiar all your looks and ways,
The very frock you wore;
Nothing seemed strange, yet all divinely new;

My Horse's feet beside the lake,
Where sweet the unbroken moonbeams lay,
Sent echoes through the night to wake,
Each glistening strand, each heath-fringed bay.

The poplar avenue was pass’d,
And the roofed bridge that spans the stream,
Up the steep street I hurried fast,
Led by thy taper’s starlike beam.

I came! I saw thee rise:, the blood
Poured flushing to thy languid cheek.
Locked in each other’s arms we stood,
In tears, with hearts too full to speak.

Days flew; ah, soon I could discern
A trouble in thine altered air.
Thy hand lay languidly in mine,
Thy cheek was grave, thy speech grew rare.

I blame thee not:, This heart, I know,
To be long lov’d was never fram’d,
For something in its depths doth glow
Too strange, too r...

The old dead flowers of bygone summers,
The old sweet songs that are no more sung,
The rose-red dawns that were welcome comers
When you and I and the world were young,

Are lost, O love, to the light for ever,
And seen no more of the moon or sun,
For seas divide, and the seasons sever,
And twain are we that of old were one.

O fair lost love, when the ship went sailing
Across the seas in the years agone,
And seaward-set were the eyes unquailing,
And landward-looking the faces wan,

My heart went back as a dove goes homeward
With wings aweary to seek its nest,
While fierce sea-eagles are flying foamward
And storm-winds whiten the surge’s crest;

And far inland for a farewell pardon
Flew on and on, while the ship went South,
The ros...

At last, dear love, the day is gone,
    The doors are barred--the lamps are lit,
The couch beside the fire is drawn,
    The nook whore thou wert wont to sit;

The book is open at the place,
    And half its leaves are still uncut,
And yet without thy listening face,
    I cannot read, the book I shut,

And muse, and dream:--it is the day
    When lovers, silent all the year,
Find tongues in floral tokens gay,
    To whisper all they long to hear.

Ah, many a time, and many a time
    I saw the question in thine eyes,
Where is the silver-sounding rhyme,
    The simple household melodies,

The harp that trembled to thy touch;
    Hast thou forgot thine early lore?
And know'st not that I love so much,
    That song contents my...

        Love it is the precious loom,
            Whose shuttle weaves each tangled thread,
        And works flowers of exquisite bloom,
            Shedding their perfume where we tread.

Can I find True-Love a gift
    In this dark hour to restore her,
When body's vessel breaks adrift,
    When hope and beauty fade before her?
But in this plight I cannot think
    Of song or music, that would grieve her,
Or toys or meat or snow-cooled drink;
    Not this way can her sadness leave her.
    She lies and frets in childish fever,
All I can do is but to cry
"Sleep, sleep, True-Love and lullaby!"

Lullaby, and sleep again.
    Two bright eyes through the window stare,
A nose is flattened on the pane
    And infant fingers fumble there.
"Not yet, not yet, you lovely thing,
    But count and come nine weeks from now,
When winter's tail has lost the sting,
    When buds come striking through the bough,
    Then here's True-Love will...

HALF vex'd, half pleased, thy love will feel,
Shouldst thou her knot or ribbon steal;
To thee they're much I won't conceal;

Such self-deceit may pardon'd be;
A veil, a kerchief, garter, rings,
In truth are no mean trifling things,

But still they're not enough for me.

She who is dearest to my heart,
Gave me, with well dissembled smart,
Of her own life, a living part,

No charm in aught beside I trace;
How do I scorn thy paltry ware!
A lock she gave me of the hair

That wantons o'er her beauteous face.

If, loved one, we must sever'd be,
Wouldst thou not wholly fly from me,
I still possess this legacy,

To look at, and to kiss in play.
My fate is to the hair's allied,
We used to woo her with like pride,
<...

Within thine eyes two spirits dwell,
The sweetest and the purest
That ever wove Love's mystic spell,
Or plied his arts the surest:
        No smile of morn,
        Though heaven-born,
Nor sunshine earthward straying,
        E'er charmed the sight
        With half the light
That round thy lips is playing.

The stars may shine, the moon may smile,
The earth in beauty languish,
Life's sorrows these can but beguile,
But thou canst heal its anguish.
        Thy voice, like rills
        Of silver, trills
Such sounds of liquid sweetness,
        Each accent rolls
        Along our souls,
In lyrical completeness.

If Friendship lend thee such a grace,
That men nor gods may slight it,
How blest the one who views thy face

Why above others was I so blessed
    And honoured? to be chosen one
To hold you, sleeping, against my breast,
    As now I may hold your only son.

Twelve months ago; that wonderful night!
    You gave your life to me in a kiss;
Have I done well, for that past delight,
    In return, to have given you this?

Look down at his face, your face, beloved,
    His eyes are azure as yours are blue.
In every line of his form is proved
    How well I loved you, and only you.

I felt the secret hope at my heart
    Turned suddenly to the living joy,
And knew that your life and mine had part
    As golden grains in a brass alloy.

And learning thus, that your child was mine,
    Thrilled by the sense of its stirring life,
I held myself as a...

When first I saw you, felt you take my hand,
I could not speak for happiness to find
How more than all they said your heart was kind,
How strong you were, and quick to understand,
I dared not say: "I who am least of those
Who call you friend, I love you, and I crave
A little love that I may be more brave
Because one watches me who cares and knows."
So, silent, long ago I used to look
High up along the shelves at one great book,
And longed to see its contents, childishwise,
And now I know it for my Poet's own,,
So sometime shall I know you and be known,
And looking upward, I shall find your eyes.

The sun is lying on the garden-wall,
The full red rose is sweetening all the air,
The day is happier than a dream most fair;
The evening weaves afar a wide-spread pall,
And lo! sun, day, and rose, no longer there!

I have a lover now my life is young,
I have a love to keep this many a day;
My heart will hold it when my life is gray,
My love will last although my heart be wrung.
My life, my heart, my love shall fade away!

O lover loved, the day has only gone!
In death or life, our love can only go;
Never forgotten is the joy we know,
We follow memory when life is done:
No wave is lost in all the tides that flow.

I do not resemble your other lovers, my lady
should another give you a cloud
I give you rain
Should he give you a lantern, I
will give you the moon
Should he give you a branch
I will give you the trees
And if another gives you a ship
I shall give you the journey.