Content Primroses,
    With hearts at rest in your thick leaves' soft care,
    Peeping as from his mother's lap the child
    Who courts shy shelter from his own open air!--
    Hanging Harebell,
    Whose blue heaven to no wanderer ever closes,
    Though thou still lookest earthward from thy domed cell!--
    Fluttering-wild
    Anemone, so well
    Named of the Wind, to whom thou, fettered-free,
    Yieldest thee, helpless--wilfully,
    With Take me or leave me,
    Sweet Wind, I am thine own Anemone!--
    Thirsty Arum, ever dreaming
    Of lakes in wildernesses gleaming!--
    Fire-winged Pimpernel,
    Communing with some hidden well,
    And secrets with the sun-god holding,
    At fixed hour folding and unfolding!--
    How ...

Why do eyes that were tender,
    Averted, turn away?
Why has our dear love's splendour
    All faded into gray?
Why is it that lips glow not
    That late were all aglow?
I know not, dear, I know not,
    I only know 'tis so.

Why do you no more tremble
    Now when I kiss your cheek?
Why do we both dissemble
    The thoughts we used to speak?
Why is it that words flow not
    That used to fondly flow?
I know not, dear, I know not,
    I only know 'tis so.

Have we outlived the passion
    That late lit earth and sky?
And is this but the fashion
    A fond love takes to die?
Is it, that we shall know not
    Again love's rapture glow?
I trust not, sweet, I trust not -
    And yet it may be so.

Why turn from me thus with such petulant pride,
When I ask thee, sweet Edith, to be my bride;
When I offer the gift of heart fond and true,
And with loyalty seek thy young love to woo?
With patience I've waited from week unto week,
And at length I must openly, candidly speak.

But why dost thou watch me in doubting surprise,
Why thus dost thou raise thy dark, deep, melting eyes?
Can'st thou wonder I love thee, when for the last year
We have whispered and flirted - told each hope and fear;
When I've lavished on thee presents costly and gay,
And kissed thy fair hands at least six times each day?

What! Do I hear right? So those long sunny hours
Spent wand'ring in woods or whispering in bowers,
Our love-making ardent in prose and in rhyme,
Was just only a me...

Fate now allows us,

'Twixt the departing

And the upstarting,
Happy to be;
And at the call of

Memory cherish'd,

Future and perish'd
Moments we see.

Seasons of anguish,

Ah, they must ever

Truth from woe sever,
Love and joy part;
Days still more worthy

Soon will unite us,

Fairer songs light us,
Strength'ning the heart.

We, thus united,

Think of, with gladness,

Rapture and sadness,
Sorrow now flies.
Oh, how mysterious

Fortune's direction!

Old the connection,

New-born the prize!

Thank, for this, Fortune,

Wavering blindly!

Thank all that kindly
Fate may bestow!
Revel in change's

Impulses cl...

Good-bye, Pierrette. The new moon waits
Like some shy maiden at the gates
Of rose and pearl, to watch us stand
This little moment, hand in hand--
Nor one red rose its watch abates.

The low wind through your garden prates
Of one this twilight desolates.
Ah, was it this your roses planned?
Good-bye, Pierrette.

Oh, merriest of little mates,
No sadder lover hesitates
Beneath this moon in any land;
Nor any roses, watchful, bland,
Look on a sadder jest of Fate's.
Good-bye, Pierrette.

I said - I care not if I can
    But look into her eyes again,
But lay my hand within her hand
    Just once again.

Though all the world be filled with snow
    And fire and cataclysmal storm,
I'll cross it just to lay my head
    Upon her bosom warm.

Ah! bosom made of April flowers,
    Might I but bring this aching brain,
This foolish head, and lay it down
    On April once again!

(From The "Garland Of Rachel.")


How shall I sing you, Child, for whom
So many lyres are strung;
Or how the only tone assume
That fits a Maid so young?

What rocks there are on either hand!
Suppose--'tis on the cards--
You should grow up with quite a grand
Platonic hate for bards!

How shall I then be shamed, undone,
For ah! with what a scorn
Your eyes must greet that luckless One
Who rhymed you, newly born,--

Who o'er your "helpless cradle" bent
His idle verse to turn;
And twanged his tiresome instrument
Above your unconcern!

Nay,--let my words be so discreet,
That, keeping Chance in view,
Whatever after fate you meet
A part may still be true.

Let others wish you mere good looks,--
Your sex ...

1

New Year met me somewhat sad:
    Old Year leaves me tired,
Stripped of favourite things I had
    Baulked of much desired:
Yet farther on my road to-day
God willing, farther on my way.

New Year coming on apace
    What have you to give me?
Bring you scathe, or bring you grace,
Face me with an honest face;
    You shall not deceive me:
Be it good or ill, be it what you will,
It needs shall help me on my road,
My rugged way to heaven, please God.

2

Watch with me, men, women, and children dear,
You whom I love, for whom I hope and fear,
Watch with me this last vigil of the year.
Some hug their business, some their pleasure-scheme;
Some seize the vacant hour to sleep or dream;
Heart locked in heart some kneel and...

Of all the blessings which my life has known,
I value most, and most praise God for three:
Want, Loneliness, and Pain, those comrades true,

Who masqueraded in the garb of foes
For many a year, and filled my heart with dread.
Yet fickle joys, like false, pretentious friends,
Have proved less worthy than this trio.    First,

Want taught me labour, led me up the steep
And toilsome paths to hills of pure delight,
Trod only by the feet that know fatigue,
And yet press on until the heights appear.

Then loneliness and hunger of the heart
Sent me upreaching to the realms of space,
Till all the silences grew eloquent,
And all their loving forces hailed me friend.

Last, pain taught prayer! placed in my hand the staff
Of close communion with the o...

When a man is in love
how can he use old words?
Should a woman
desiring her lover
lie down with
grammarians and linguists?

I said nothing
to the woman I loved
but gathered
love's adjectives into a suitcase
and fled from all languages.

Nell' età sua più bella e più fiorita.

HE DESIRES TO DIE, THAT HIS SOUL MAY BE WITH HER, AS HIS THOUGHTS ALREADY ARE.


    E'en in youth's fairest flower, when Love's dear sway
Is wont with strongest power our hearts to bind,
Leaving on earth her fleshly veil behind,
My life, my Laura, pass'd from me away;
Living, and fair, and free from our vile clay,
From heaven she rules supreme my willing mind:
Alas! why left me in this mortal rind
That first of peace, of sin that latest day?
As my fond thoughts her heavenward path pursue,
So may my soul glad, light, and ready be
To follow her, and thus from troubles flee.
Whate'er delays me as worst loss I rue:
Time makes me to myself but heavier grow:
Death had been sweet to-day three years ago!
<...

(PROVENCAL BURDEN.)

Leave go my hands, let me catch breath and see;
Let the dew-fall drench either side of me;
Clear apple-leaves are soft upon that moon
Seen sidelong like a blossom in the tree;
Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.

The grass is thick and cool, it lets us lie.
Kissed upon either cheek and either eye,
I turn to thee as some green afternoon
Turns toward sunset, and is loth to die;
Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.

Lie closer, lean your face upon my side,
Feel where the dew fell that has hardly dried,
Hear how the blood beats that went nigh to swoon;
The pleasure lives there when the sense has died;
Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.

O my fair lord, I charge you leave me this:
Is it not sweet...

Show me the noblest Youth of present time,
Whose trembling fancy would to love give birth;
Some God or Hero, from the Olympian clime
Returned, to seek a Consort upon earth;
Or, in no doubtful prospect, let me see
The brightest star of ages yet to be,
And I will mate and match him blissfully.
I will not fetch a Naiad from a flood
Pure as herself, (song lacks not mightier power)
Nor leaf-crowned Dryad from a pathless wood,
Nor Sea-nymph glistening from her coral bower;
Mere Mortals bodied forth in vision still,
Shall with Mount Ida's triple lustre fill
The chaster coverts of a British hill.
"Appear! obey my lyre's command!
Come, like the Graces, hand in hand!
For ye, though not by birth allied,
Are Sisters in the bond of love;
Nor shall the tongue of e...

The noon was shady, and soft airs
Swept Ouse’s silent tide,
When, ‘scaped from literary cares,
I wander’d on his side.


My spaniel, prettiest of his race,
And high in pedigree
(Two nymphs[1] adorn’d with every grace
That spaniel found for me),


Now wanton’d lost in flags and reeds,
Now starting into sight,
Pursued the swallow o’er the meads
With scarce a slower flight.


It was the time when Ouse display’d
His lilies newly blown;
Their beauties I intent survey’d,
And one I wish’d my own.


With cane extended far I sought
To steer it close to land;
But still the prize, though nearly caught,
Escaped my eager hand.


Beau mark’d my unsuccessful pains
With fix’d considerate fac...

Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come,
For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom,
And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest,
And love is burning diamonds in my true lover’s breast;
She sits beneath the whitethorn a-plaiting of her hair,
And I will to my true lover with a fond request repair;
I will look upon her face, I will in her beauty rest,
And lay my aching weariness upon her lovely breast.

The clock-a-clay is creeping on the open bloom of May,
The merry bee is trampling the pinky threads all day,
And the chaffinch it is brooding on its grey mossy nest
In the whitethorn bush where I will lean upon my lover’s breast;
I’ll lean upon her breast and I’ll whisper in her ear
That I cannot get a wink o’sleep for thinking of my d...

Who is Lydia, pray, and who
Is Hypatia? Softly, dear,
Let me breathe it in your ear--
They are you, and only you.
And those other nameless two
Walking in Arcadian air--
She that was so very fair?
She that had the twilight hair?--
They were you, dear, only you.
If I speak of night or day,
Grace of fern or bloom of grape,
Hanging cloud or fountain spray,
Gem or star or glistening dew,
Or of mythologic shape,
Psyche, Pyrrha, Daphne, say--
I mean you, dear, you, just you.

                Art thou not sweet,
Oh world, and glad to the inmost heart of thee!
        All creatures rejoice
        With one rapturous voice.
    As I, with the passionate beat
    Of my over-full heart feel thee sweet,
And all things that live, and are part of thee!

                Light, light as a cloud
Swimming, and trailing its shadow under me
        I float in the deep
        As a bird-dream in sleep,
    And hear the wind murmuring loud,
    Far down, where the tree-tops are bowed,--
And I see where the secret place of the thunders be

                Oh! the sky free and wide,
With all the cloud-banners flung out in it
        Its singing wind blows
        As a grand river flows,
    And I swim down its rhythmical tide,

    O do not leave me, mother, lest I weep;
    Till I forget, be near me in that chair.
    The mother's presence leads her down to sleep--
    Leaves her contented there.

    O do not leave me, lover, brother, friends,
    Till I am dead, and resting in my place.
    Love-compassed thus, the girl in peace ascends,
    And leaves a raptured face.

    Leave me not, God, until--nay, until when?
    Not till I have with thee one heart, one mind;
    Not till the Life is Light in me, and then
    Leaving is left behind.