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;<...

Nay, not to-night; - the slow, sad rain is falling
Sorrowful tears, beneath a grieving sky,
Far off a famished jackal, faintly calling,
Renders the dusk more lonely with its cry.

The mighty river rushes, sobbing, seawards,
The shadows shelter faint mysterious fears,
I turn mine eyes for consolation theewards,
And find thy lashes tremulous with tears.

If some new soul, asearch for incarnation,
Should, through our kisses, enter Life again,
It would inherit all our desolation,
All the soft sorrow of the slanting rain.

When thou desirest Love's supreme surrender,
Come while the morning revels in the light,
Bulbuls around us, passionately tender,
Singing among the roses red and white.

Thus, if it be my sweet and sacred duty,
Subservient...

These lines, which on this leaf I write,
I trace with friendly thoughts of thee,
And hope, when o'er this page you glance,
You'll think a kindly thought of me.

And why should I this tribute ask?
Why crave from you this humble boon?
Because I knew you through life's morn,
And hope to know you in its noon.

Because the path of life we trod,
With youthful hearts so free from pain,
When both together went to school,
And wander'd gaily home again.

This, then, is why I ask of you,
As on this little page you look,
To think of me, with other friends,
Whose names are written in your book.

Of sweethearts I have had a score,
    And time may bring as many more;
Tho' I remember all the rest,
    Just now I worship dear Céleste;
Hers may not be the greatest love,
    But ah! it is the latest love.

        For little Cupid's never stupid,
        As I've found out;
        And love is truest when 'tis newest,
        Beyond a doubt, beyond a doubt.

Of sweethearts I have had a score,
    Céleste says I deserve no more;
I take revenge on dear Céleste,
    By telling her I love her best;
Hers may not be the greatest love,
    But ah! it is the latest love.

        For little Cupid's never stupid,
        As I've found out;
        And love is truest when 'tis newest,
        Beyond a doubt, beyond a doubt.

Rose, when I remember you,
Little lady, scarcely two,
I am suddenly aware
Of the angels in the air.
All your softly gracious ways
Make an island in my days
Where my thoughts fly back to be
Sheltered from too strong a sea.
All your luminous delight
Shines before me in the night
When I grope for sleep and find
Only shadows in my mind.

Rose, when I remember you,
White and glowing, pink and new,
With so swift a sense of fun
Altho' life has just begun;
With so sure a pride of place
In your very infant face,
I should like to make a prayer
To the angels in the air:
"If an angel ever brings
Me a baby in her wings,
Please be certain that it grows
Very, very much like Rose."

O Sweetheart, hear you
Your lover’s tale;
A man shall have sorrow
When friends him fail.

For he shall know then
Friends be untrue
And a little ashes
Their words come to.

But one unto him
Will softly move
And softly woo him
In ways of love.

His hand is under
Her smooth round breast;
So he who has sorrow
Shall have rest.

Listen, dearest! you must love me more,
More than you did before!
Hark, what a beating here of wings!
Never at rest,
Dear, in your breast!
Is it your heart with its flutterings,
Making a music, love, for us both?
Or merely a moth, a velvet-winged moth,
Which out of the garden's fragrance swings,
Weaving a spell,
That holds the rose and the moon in thrall?
I love you more than I can tell;
And no recall
How long ago
Our quarrel and all!
You say, you know,
A perfect pearl grows out of well,
A little friction; tiny grain
Of sand or shell
So love grew out of that moment's pain,
The heart's disdain
Since then I have thought of no one but you,
And how your heart would beat on mine,
Like light on dew.
And I thought how foolish t...

I wore my heart upon my sleeve,
Tis most unwise, they say, to do -
But then how could I but believe
The foolish thing was safe with you?
Yet, had I known, 'twas safer far
With wolves and tigers, the wild sea
Were kinder to it than you are -
Sweetheart, how you must laugh at me!

Yet am I glad I did not know
That creatures of such tender bloom,
Beneath their sanctuary snow,
Were such cold ministers of doom;
For had I known, as I began
To love you, ere we flung apart,
I had not been so glad a man
As holds his lady to his heart.

And am I lonely here to-night
With empty eyes, the cause is this,
Your face it was that gave me sight,
My heart ran over with your kiss.
Still do I think that what I laid
Before the altar of your face,<...

Indeed, my Phaedra, if to find
That wealth can female wishes gain
Had e'er disturb'd your thoughtful mind,
Or cost one serious moment's pain,
I should have said that all the rules,
You learn'd of moralists and schools,
Were very useless, very vain.

Yet I perhaps mistake the case,
Say, though with this heroic air,
Like one that holds a nobler chace,
You try the tender loss to bear,
Does not your heart renounce your tongue?
Seems not my censure strangely wrong
To count it such a slight affair?
When Hesper gilds the shaded sky,
Oft as you seek the well-known grove,
Methinks I see you cast your eye
Back to the morning scenes of love:
Each pleasing word you heard her say,
Her gentle look, her graceful way,
Again your struggling fancy move....

Ah, happy air that, rough or soft,
May kiss that face and stay;
And happy beams that from above
May choose to her their way;
And happy flowers that now and then
Touch lips more sweet than they!

But it were not so blest to be
Or light or air or rose;
Those dainty fingers tear and toss
The bloom that in them glows;
And come or go, both wind and ray
She heeds not, if she knows.

But if I come thy choice should be
Either to love or not
For if I might I would not kiss
And then be all forgot;
And it were best thy love to lose
If love self-scorn begot.

I.

Gone, O gentle heart and true,
Friend of hopes foregone,
Hopes and hopeful days with you
Gone?

Days of old that shone
Saw what none shall see anew,
When we gazed thereon.

Soul as clear as sunlit dew,
Why so soon pass on,
Forth from all we loved and knew
Gone?

II.

Friend of many a season fled,
What may sorrow send
Toward thee now from lips that said
'Friend'?

Sighs and songs to blend
Praise with pain uncomforted
Though the praise ascend?

Darkness hides no dearer head:
Why should darkness end
Day so soon, O dear and dead
Friend?

III.

Dear in death, thou hast thy part
Yet in life, to cheer
Hearts that held thy gentle heart
Dear.

Time and...

Chorus Sacerdotum. From the temple to your home
May a thousand blessings come!
And a sweet concurring stream
Of all joys to join with them.

Chorus Juvenum. Happy Day,
Make no long stay
        Here
        In thy sphere;
        But give thy place to Night,
        That she,
        As thee,
        May be
Partaker of this sight.
And since it was thy care
To see the younglings wed,
'Tis fit that Night the pair
Should see safe brought to bed.

Chorus Senum. Go to your banquet then, but use delight,
So as to rise still with an appetite.
Love is a thing most nice, and must be fed
To such a height, but never surfeited.
What is beyond the mean is ever ill:
'Tis best to feed Love, but not overfill;...

With her soft face half turned to me,
Like an arrested moonbeam, she
Stood in the cirque of that deep tree.

I took her by the hands; she raised
Her face to mine; and, half amazed,
Remembered; and we stood and gazed.

How good to kiss her throat and hair,
And say no word! - Her throat was bare;
As some moon-fungus white and fair.

Had God not giv'n us life for this?
The world-old, amorous happiness
Of arms that clasp, and lips that kiss!

The eloquence of limbs and arms!
The rhetoric of breasts, whose charms
Say to the sluggish blood what warms!

Had God or Fiend assigned this hour
That bloomed, - where love had all of power, -
The senses' aphrodisiac flower?

The dawn was far away. Nude night
Hung savage stars of s...

The world may rage without,
Quiet is here;
Statesmen may toil and shout,
Cynics may sneer;
The great world, - let it go, -
June warmth be March's snow,
I care not, - be it so
Since I am here.

Time was when war's alarm
Called for a fear,
When sorrow's seeming harm
Hastened a tear.
Naught care I now what foe
Threatens, for scarce I know
How the year's seasons go
Since I am here.

This is my resting-place
Holy and dear,
Where pain's dejected face
May not appear;
This is the world to me,
Earth's woes I will not see,
But rest contentedly
Since I am here.

Is't your voice chiding, Love,
My mild career,
My meek abiding, Love,
Daily so near? -
"Danger and loss," to me?
Ah, Sweet, I fear t...

It was a sultry day of summer time.
The sun pour'd down upon the ripen'd grain
With quivering heat, and the suspended leaves
Hung motionless. The cattle on the hills
Stood still, and the divided flock were all
Laying their nostrils to the cooling roots,
And the sky look'd like silver, and it seem'd
As if the air had fainted, and the pulse
Of nature had run down, and ceas'd to beat.

'Haste thee, my child!' the Syrian mother said,
'Thy father is athirst' - and from the depths
Of the cool well under the leaning tree,
She drew refreshing water, and with thoughts
Of God's sweet goodness stirring at her heart,
She bless'd her beautiful boy, and to his way
Committed him. And he went lightly on,
With his soft hands press'd closely to the cool
Stone vessel, ...

AN OLD SWEETHEART.



As one who cons at evening o'er an album all alone,
And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,
So I turn the leaves of fancy till, in shadowy design,
I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.

The lamplight seems to glimmer with a flicker of surprise,
As I turn it low to rest me of the dazzle in my eyes,
And light my pipe in silence, save a sigh that seems to yoke
Its fate with my tobacco and to vanish with the smoke.

'Tis a fragrant retrospection - for the loving thoughts that start
Into being are like perfumes from the blossom of the heart;
And to dream the old dreams over is a luxury divine -
When my truant fancy wanders with that old sweeheart of mine.

Though I hear, beneath my study, lik...

    In bloom and bud the bees are busily
        Storing against the winter their sweet hoard
    That shall be rifled ere the autumn be
        Past, or the winter comes with silver sword
    To fright the bees, until the merry round
    Tells them that sweets again are to be found.

    The lusty tide is flowing by in ease,
        Telling of joy along its brimming way;
    Far in its waters is an isle of trees
        Whereto the sun will go at end of day,
    As who in secret place and dear is hid,
    And scarce can rouse him thence tho' he be chid.

    Now justice comes all trouble to repair,
        And cheeks that had been wan are coloured well,
    The untilled moor is comely, and the air
        Hath a great round of song from bird in dell,

A'a, Willie, lad, aw'm fain to hear
Tha's won a wife at last;
Tha'll have a happier time next year,
Nor what tha's had i'th' past.
If owt can lend this life a charm,
Or mak existence sweet,
It is a lovin woman's arm
Curled raand yor neck at neet.

An if shoo's net an angel,
Dooant grummel an find fault,
For eearth-born angels, lad, tha'll find
Are seldom worth ther salt.
They're far too apt to flee away,
To spreead ther bonny wings;
They'd nivver think o'th' weshin day
Nor th' duties wifehood brings.

A wife should be a woman,
An if tha's lucky been;
Tha'il find a honest Yorksher lass,
Is equal to a Queen.
For if her heart is true to thee,
An thine to her proves true, -
Tha's won th' best prize 'at's under th' skies,