Love

The lad came to the door at night,
When lovers crown their vows,
And whistled soft and out of sight
In shadow of the boughs.

"I shall not vex you with my face
Henceforth, my love, for aye;
So take me in your arms a space
Before the east is grey."

"When I from hence away am past
I shall not find a bride,
And you shall be the first and last
I ever lay beside."

She heard and went and knew not why;
Her heart to his she laid;
Light was the air beneath the sky
But dark under the shade.

"Oh do you breathe, lad, that your breast
Seems not to rise and fall,
And here upon my bosom prest
There beats no heart at all?"

"Oh loud, my girl, it once would knock,
You should have felt it then;
But since for you I stoppe...

You ask me what--since we must part--
You shall bring home to me;
Bring back a pure and faithful heart,
As true as mine to thee.
I ask not wealth nor fame,
I only ask for thee,
Thyself--and that dear self the same--
My love, bring back to me!

You talk of gems from foreign lands,
Of treasure, spoil, and prize.
Ah, love! I shall not search your hands,
But look into your eyes.
I ask not wealth nor fame,
I only ask for thee,
Thyself--and that dear self the same--
My love, bring back to me!

You speak of glory and renown,
With me to share your pride,
Unbroken faith is all the crown
I ask for as your bride.
I ask not wealth nor fame,
I only ask for thee,
Thyself--and that dear self the same--
My love, bring back to me!

When Cupid sees how thickly now,
The snows of Time fall o'er my brow,
Upon his wing of golden light.
He passes with an eaglet's flight,
And flitting onward seems to say,
"Fare thee well, thou'st had thy day!"

Cupid, whose lamp has lent the ray,
That lights our life's meandering way,
That God, within this bosom stealing,
Hath wakened a strange, mingled feeling.
Which pleases, though so sadly teasing,
And teases, though so sweetly pleasing!

            *            *            *            *            *

Let me resign this wretched breath
    Since now remains to me
No other balm than kindly death,
    To soothe my misery!

            *            *            *            *            *

I know thou lovest a brimming meas...

I asked my heart to say
Some word whose worth my love's devoir might pay
Upon my Lady's natal day.

Then said my heart to me:
`Learn from the rhyme that now shall come to thee
What fits thy Love most lovingly.'

This gift that learning shows;
For, as a rhyme unto its rhyme-twin goes,
I send a rose unto a Rose.


Philadelphia, 1876.

When life looks drear and lonely, love,
    And pleasant fancies flee,
Then will the Muses only, love,
    Bestow a thought on me!
Mine is a harp which Pleasure, love,
    To waken strives in vain;
To Joy's entrancing measure, love,
    It ne'er can thrill again!--
            Why mock me, Bessy Bell?

Oh, do not ask me ever, love,
    For rapture-woven rhymes;
For vain is each endeavor, love,
    To sound Mirth's play-bell chimes!
Yet still believe me, dearest love,
    Though sad my song may be,
This heart still dotes sincerest, love,
    And grateful turns to thee--
            My once fond Bessy Bell!

Those eyes still rest upon me, love!
    I feel their magic spell!
With that same look you won me, love,
    Fair, gentle...

Prelude To "Illustrated Poems"

Full well I know the frozen hand has come
That smites the songs of grove and garden dumb,
And chills sad autumn's last chrysanthemum;

Yet would I find one blossom, if I might,
Ere the dark loom that weaves the robe of white
Hides all the wrecks of summer out of sight.

Sometimes in dim November's narrowing day,
When all the season's pride has passed away,
As mid the blackened stems and leaves we stray,

We spy in sheltered nook or rocky cleft
A starry disk the hurrying winds have left,
Of all its blooming sisterhood bereft.

Some pansy, with its wondering baby eyes
Poor wayside nursling! - fixed in blank surprise
At the rough welcome of unfriendly skies;

Or golden daisy, - will it dare disclaim

    Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
        Eat I must, and sleep I will,--and would that night were here!
    But ah!--to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
        Would that it were day again!--with twilight near!

    Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
        This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
    But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through,--
        There's little use in anything as far as I can see.

    Love has gone and left me,--and the neighbors knock and borrow,
        And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse,--
    And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
        There's this little street and this little house.

Quick throbb'd my heart: to norse! haste, haste,

And lo! 'twas done with speed of light;
The evening soon the world embraced,

And o'er the mountains hung the night.
Soon stood, in robe of mist, the oak,

A tow'ring giant in his size,
Where darkness through the thicket broke,

And glared with hundred gloomy eyes.

From out a hill of clouds the moon

With mournful gaze began to peer:
The winds their soft wings flutter'd soon,

And murmur'd in mine awe-struck ear;
The night a thousand monsters made,

Yet fresh and joyous was my mind;
What fire within my veins then play'd!

What glow was in my bosom shrin'd!

I saw thee, and with tender pride

Felt thy sweet gaze pour joy on me;
While all my heart ...

If chaste and pure deuotion of my youth,
Or glorie of my Aprill-springing yeeres,
Vnfained loue in naked simple truth,
A thousand vowes, a thousand sighes and teares;
Or if a world of faithful seruice done,
Words, thoughts, and deeds deuoted to her honor,
Or eyes that haue beheld her as theyr sunne,
With admiration euer looking on her:
A lyfe that neuer ioyd but in her loue,
A soule that euer hath ador'd her name,
A fayth that time nor fortune could not moue,
A Muse that vnto heauen hath raised her fame.
    Though these, nor these deserue to be imbraced,
    Yet, faire vnkinde, too good to be disgraced.

Whene'er I try to read a book,
Across the page your face will look,
And then I neither know nor care
What sense the printed words may bear.

At night when I would go to sleep,
Thinking of you, awake I keep,
And still repeat the words you said,
Like sick men murmuring prayers in bed.

And when, with weariness oppressed,
I sink in spite of you to rest,
Your image, like a lovely sprite,
Haunts me in dreams through half the night.

I wake upon the autumn morn
To find the sunrise hardly born,
And in the sky a soft pale blue,
And in my heart your image true.

When out I walk to take the air,
Your image is for ever there,
Among the woods that lose their leaves,
Or where the North Sea sadly heaves.

By what enchantment shal...

A battered swordsman, slashed and scarred,
I scarce had thought to fight again,
But love of the old game dies hard,
So to't, my lady, if you're fain!
I'm scarce the mettle to refrain,
I'll ask no quarter from your art -
But what if we should both be slain!
I fight you, darling, for your heart.

I warn you, though, be on your guard,
Nor an old swordsman's craft disdain,
He jests at scars - what saith the Bard?
Love's wounds are real, and fierce the pain;
If we should die of love, we twain!
You laugh - en garde then - so we start;
Cyrano-like, here's my refrain:
I fight you, darling, for your heart.

If compliments I interlard
Twixt feint and lunge, you'll not complain
Lacking your eyes, the night's un-starred,
The rose is beautif...

Come, walk with me,
There's only thee
To bless my spirit now
We used to love on winter nights
To wander through the snow;
Can we not woo back old delights?
The clouds rush dark and wild
They fleck with shade our mountain heights
The same as long ago
And on the horizon rest at last
In looming masses piled;
While moonbeams flash and fly so fast
We scarce can say they smiled

Come walk with me, come walk with me;
We were not once so few
But Death has stolen our company
As sunshine steals the dew
He took them one by one and we
Are left the only two;
So closer would my feelings twine
Because they have no stay but thine

'Nay call me not, it may not be
Is human love so true?
Can Friendship's flower droop on for years

Sweet friend, the world, like some fair infant blessed,
Radiant with sportive grace, around thee plays;
Yet 'tis not as depicted in thy breast
Not as within thy soul's fair glass, its rays
Are mirrored. The respectful fealty
That my heart's nobleness hath won for thee,
The miracles thou workest everywhere,
The charms thy being to this life first lent,
To it, mere charms to reckon thou'rt content,
To us, they seem humanity so fair.
The witchery sweet of ne'er-polluted youth,
The talisman of innocence and truth
Him I would see, who these to scorn can dare!
Thou revellest joyously in telling o'er
The blooming flowers that round thy path are strown,
The glad, whom thou hast made so evermore,
The souls that thou hast conquered for thine own.
In thy deceit so b...

Pleasures newly found are sweet
When they lie about our feet:
February last, my heart
First at sight of thee was glad;
All unheard of as thou art,
Thou must needs, I think, have had,
Celandine! and long ago,
Praise of which I nothing know.

I have not a doubt but he,
Whosoe'er the man might be,
Who the first with pointed rays
(Workman worthy to be sainted)
Set the sign-board in a blaze,
When the rising sun he painted,
Took the fancy from a glance
At thy glittering countenance.

Soon as gentle breezes bring
News of winter's vanishing,
And the children build their bowers,
Sticking 'kerchief-plots of mould
All about with full-blown flowers,
Thick as sheep in shepherd's fold!
With the proudest thou art there,
Mantling i...

Love that is dead and buried, yesterday
Out of his grave rose up before my face,
No recognition in his look, no trace
Of memory in his eyes dust-dimmed and grey.
While I, remembering, found no word to say,
But felt my quickened heart leap in its place;
Caught afterglow thrown back from long set days,
Caught echoes of all music passed away.
Was this indeed to meet? - I mind me yet
In youth we met when hope and love were quick,
We parted with hope dead, but love alive:
I mind me how we parted then heart sick,
Remembering, loving, hopeless, weak to strive: -
Was this to meet? Not so, we have not met.

The sun was streaming in: I woke, and said,
"Where is my wife, - that has been made my wife
Only this year?" The casement stood ajar:
I did but lift my head: The pear-tree dropped,
The great white pear-tree dropped with dew from leaves
And blossom, under heavens of happy blue.

My wife had wakened first, and had gone down
Into the orchard. All the air was calm;
Audible humming filled it. At the roots
Of peony bushes lay in rose-red heaps,
Or snowy, fallen bloom. The crag-like hills
Were tossing down their silver messengers,
And two brown foreigners, called cuckoo-birds,
Gave them good answer; all things else were mute;
An idle world lay listening to their talk,
They had it to themselves.
    What ails my wife?
I know not if aught ails her; though her...

The night would sadden us with wind and rain
Let's to sweet Comedy and scorn the night!
Let's read together: how, by silver light,
The fairies went, a most enchanting train.
Amid those clowns and lovers; how the twain,
Celia and Rosalind, as shepherds dight.
Frolicked through Arden; or of that rare sprite,
That Ariel, who could trick the mortal brain
To strange beliefs. What! wilt have nothing glad?
Wilt read, while winds are moaning out regret.
The fate of Desdemona, Juliet?
Lovest the rain to come and make thee sad?
Ah, well!, I know!, How sweet the tragic part!
I am grown old, but once, was what thou art I

There is dew for the flow'ret[1]
And honey for the bee,
And bowers for the wild bird,
And love for you and me.

There are tears for the many
And pleasures for the few;
But let the world pass on, dear,
There's love for me and you.

There is care that will not leave us,
And pain that will not flee;
But on our hearth unalter'd
Sits Love - 'tween you and me.

Our love it ne'er was reckon'd,
Yet good it is and true,
It's half the world to me, dear,
It's all the world to you.