Her, the worthy maid, my heart doth hold,
And I shall not forget her.
Praise, honour, virtue of her are told;
Than all I love her better.
    I seek her good,
    And if I should
    Right evil fare,
    I do not care:
With that she'll make me merry!
With love and truth that never tire
Glad she will make me very,
And do all my desire.

She wears a crown of pure gold, where
Twelve stars their rays are twining;
Her raiment like the sun is fair,
And bright from far is shining.
    Her feet the moon
    Are set upon;
    She is the bride
    By Jesus' side!
She hath sorrow, must be mother
To her fair child, the noble Son,
Of all men lord and brother,
Her king, her crowned one.

That makes the old dragon ramp and ro...

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, while 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, those 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,
Though I ne'er shall presume to ...

            "Whenever, amid bow'rs of myrtle,
                Love, summer-tressed and vernal-eyed,
            At morn or eve is seen to wander,
                A dark-haired girl is at his side."
            De La Hogue.

One morn, just as day in the far east was breaking,
    Young Love, who all night had been roving about,
A charming siesta was quietly taking,
    His strength, by his rambles, completely worn out.

Round his brow a wreath, woven of every flower
    That springs from the hillside, or valley, was bound;
In his hand was a rose he had stol'n from some bower,
    While his bow and his quiver lay near on the ground.

Wild Fancy just came from her kingdom of dreams,
    The breath of the opening day to enjoy,
And to catch the warm kiss ...

    Four little chests all in a row,
    Dim with dust, and worn by time,
    All fashioned and filled, long ago,
    By children now in their prime.
    Four little keys hung side by side,
    With faded ribbons, brave and gay
    When fastened there, with childish pride,
    Long ago, on a rainy day.
    Four little names, one on each lid,
    Carved out by a boyish hand,
    And underneath there lieth hid
    Histories of the happy band
    Once playing here, and pausing oft
    To hear the sweet refrain,
    That came and went on the roof aloft,
    In the falling summer rain.


    "Meg" on the first lid, smooth and fair.
    I look in with loving eyes,
    For folded here, with well-known care,
    A goodly gathering lies,
 ...

    You miss the touch of her dear hand,
    Her laughter gay and sweet,
    The dimpled cheek, the sunny smile,
    The patter of her feet.

    The loving glances she bestowed,
    The tender tales she told -
    The world, since she has gone away,
    Seems empty, drear and cold.

    Dear, oft you prayed that God would give
    Your darling joy and grace,
    That pain or loss might never dim
    The brightness of her face.

    That her young heart might keep its trust,
    Its purity so white,
    Its wealth of sweet unselfishness,
    Her eyes their radiant light,

    Her fair, soft face its innocence
    Of every guile and wrong,
    And nothing touch to mar the joy
    And gladness of her song.

    God he...

It comes not in such wise as she had deemed,
    Else might she still have clung to her despair.
More tender, grateful than she could have dreamed,
    Fond hands passed pitying over brows and hair,
    And gentle words borne softly through the air,
Calming her weary sense and wildered mind,
By welcome, dear communion with her kind.


Ah! she forswore all words as empty lies;
    What speech could help, encourage, or repair?
Yet when she meets these grave, indulgent eyes,
    Fulfilled with pity, simplest words are fair,
    Caressing, meaningless, that do not dare
To compensate or mend, but merely soothe
With hopeful visions after bitter Truth.


One who through conquered trouble had grown wise,
    To read the grief unspoken, unexpressed,

I saw her first when she was old,
Her form devoid of grace;
Her locks that once were yellow gold
Were white, and on her face
Were furrows deep, which told of pain,
And toil, and worldly fret,
Which all, alas, had been in vain,
But nature claimed the debt.

Her eyes were gray and lacked in glow,
Her voice some thought was gruff,
And when excited was not slow
To use a sharp rebuff;
For she in speech was free from art;
Men feared her verbal stroke,
And yet they said, "She has a heart;
She never wears a cloak."

Her creed, perhaps, was heterodox,
If creed she ever had.
She knew far more of pans and crocks,
But this was not her fad;
Her light, I fear, did not shine out
In pious talk and airs,
In fact I entertain a doubt
...

The touches of her hands are like the fall
    Of velvet snowflakes; like the touch of down
The peach just brushes 'gainst the garden wall;
The flossy fondlings of the thistle-wisp
    Caught in the crinkle of a leaf of brown
The blighting frost hath turned from green to crisp.

Soft as the falling of the dusk at night,
The touches of her hands, and the delight -
    The touches of her hands!
The touches of her hands are like the dew
That falls so softly down no one e'er knew
The touch thereof save lovers like to one
Astray in lights where ranged Endymion.

O rarely soft, the touches of her hands,
As drowsy zephyrs in enchanted lands;
    Or pulse of dying fay; or fairy sighs,
Or - in between the midnight and the dawn,
When long unrest and tears...

I

O heart that vainly follows
The flight of summer swallows,
Far over holts and hollows,
O'er frozen buds and flowers;
To violet seas and levels,
Where Love Time's locks dishevels
With merry mimes and revels
Of aphrodisiac Hours.


II

O Love who, dreaming, borrows
Dead love from sad to-morrows,
The broken heart that sorrows,
The blighted hopes that weep;
Pale faces pale with sleeping;
Red eyelids red with weeping;
Dead lips dead secrets keeping,
That shake the deeps of sleep!


III

O Memory that showers
About the withered hours
White, ruined, sodden flowers,
Dead dust and bitter rain;
Dead loves with faces teary;
Dead passions wan and dreary;
The weary, weary, weary,
Dead h...

I cannot tell what I would tell thee,
What I would say, what thou shouldst hear:
Words of the soul that should compell thee,
Words of the heart to draw thee near.

For when thou smilest, thou, who fillest
My life with joy, and I would speak,
'T is then my lips and tongue are stillest,
Knowing all language is too weak.

Look in my eyes: read there confession:
The truest love has least of art:
Nor needs it words for its expression
When soul speaks soul and heart speaks heart.

I sat within the temple of her heart,
And watched the living Soul as it passed through,
Arrayed in pearly vestments, white and pure.
The calm, immortal Presence made me start.
It searched through all the chambers of her mind
With one mild glance of love, and smiled to view
The fastnesses of feeling, strong - secure,
And safe from all surprise. It sits enshrined
And offers incense in her heart, as on
An altar sacred unto God. The dawn
Of an imperishable love passed through
The lattice of my senses, and I, too,
Did offer incense in that solemn place -
A woman's heart made pure and sanctified by Grace.

I

How warm this woodland wild Recess!
Love surely hath been breathing here;
And this sweet bed of heath, my dear!
Swells up, then sinks with faint caress,
As if to have you yet more near.

II

Eight springs have flown, since last I lay
On sea-ward Quantock's heathy hills,
Where quiet sounds from hidden rills
Float hear and there, like things astray,
And high o'er head the sky-lark shrills.

III

No voice as yet had made the air
Be music with your name; yet why
That asking look? that yearning sigh?
That sense of promise every where?
Belovéd! flew your spirit by?

IV

As when a mother doth explore
The rose-mark on her long-lost child,
I met, I loved you, maiden mild!
As whom I long had loved befor...

Good-bye, sweet friend, good-bye,
And all the world must be
Between my friend and me;
And nothing is, dear heart,
But hands that meet to part;
Good-bye, sweet friend, good-bye.

Good-bye, sweet love, good-bye,
And one long grave must be
Between my love and me;
What comfort there, dear heart,
For hands that meet to part?
Good-bye, sweet love, good-bye.

Do you remember the wood, love,
That skirted the meadow so green;
Where the cooing was heard of the stock-dove,
And the sunlight just glinted between.
The trees, that with branches entwining
Made shade, where we wandered in bliss,
And our eyes with true love-light were shining, -
When you gave me the first loving kiss?

The ferns grew tall, graceful and fair,
But none were so graceful as you;
Wild flow'rs in profusion were there,
But your eyes were a lovelier blue;
And the tint on your cheek shamed the rose,
And your brow as the lily was white,
And your curls, bright as gold, when it glows,
In the crucible, liquid and bright.

And do you remember the stile,
Where so cosily sitting at eve,
Breathing forth ardent love-vows the while,
We ...

Like music heard in mellow chime,
The charm of her transforming time
    Upon my senses steals
As softly as from sunny walls,
In day's decline, their shadow falls
    Across the sleeping fields.

A fair, illumined book
Is nature's page whereon I look
    While "autumn turns the leaves;"
And many a thought of her designs
Between those rare, resplendent lines
    My fancy interweaves.

I dream of aborigines,
Who must have copied from the trees
    The fashions of the day:
Those gorgeous topknots for the head,
Of yellow tufts and feathers red,
    With beads and sinews gay.

I wonder if the saints behold
Such pageantry of colors bold
    Beyond the radiant sky;
And if the tints of Paradise
Are heightened by the strange...

Unbind thee, love, unbind thee, love,
    From those dark ties unbind thee;
Tho' fairest hand the chain hath wove,
    Too long its links have twined thee.
Away from earth!--thy wings were made
    In yon mid-sky to hover,
With earth beneath their dove-like shade,
    And heaven all radiant over.

Awake thee, boy, awake thee, boy,
    Too long thy soul is sleeping;
And thou mayst from this minute's joy
    Wake to eternal weeping.
Oh, think, this world is not for thee;
    Tho' hard its links to sever;
Tho' sweet and bright and dear they be,
    Break or thou'rt lost for ever.

I met her, as we had privily planned,
Where passing feet beat busily:
She whispered: "Father is at hand!
He wished to walk with me."

His presence as he joined us there
Banished our words of warmth away;
We felt, with cloudings of despair,
What Love must lose that day.

Her crimson lips remained unkissed,
Our fingers kept no tender hold,
His lack of feeling made the tryst
Embarrassed, stiff, and cold.

A cynic ghost then rose and said,
"But is his love for her so small
That, nigh to yours, it may be read
As of no worth at all?

"You love her for her pink and white;
But what when their fresh splendours close?
His love will last her in despite
Of Time, and wrack, and foes."

WEYMOUTH.

Thou, lamp! the gods benignly gave,
To light a lover on his way;
Thou, Moon! along the silv'ry wave,
Ah! safe this flutt'ring heart convey: -

Sweet is thy light, and sweet thy shade,
The guide and guardian of our bliss,
A lover's panting lips to lead,
Or veil him in the ravish'd kiss.

Her white robe floats upon the air;
My Lyra hears the dashing oar:
Ye floods, oh! speed me to my fair!
My soul is with her long before.

Oh! lightly haste, thy lover view,
And ev'ry anxious fear resign;
Ye tow'rs, no longer fear'd, adieu!
The treasure which ye held is mine!