I


Yea, why I love thee let my heart repeat:
I look upon thy face and then divine
How men could die for beauty, such as thine,--
Deeming it sweet
To lay my life and manhood at thy feet,
And for a word, a glance,
Do deeds of old romance.


II


Yea, why I love thee let my heart unfold:
I look into thy heart and then I know
The wondrous poetry of the long-ago,
The Age of Gold,
That speaks strange music, that is old, so old,
Yet young, as when 't was born,
With all the youth of morn.


III


Yea, why I love thee let my heart conclude:
I look into thy soul and realize
The undiscovered meaning of the skies,--
That long have wooed
The world with far ideals that elude,--
Out of whose dre...

Ben mi credea passar mio tempo omai.

HE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT SEEING HER, BUT WOULD NOT DIE THAT HE MAY STILL LOVE HER.


    As pass'd the years which I have left behind,
To pass my future years I fondly thought,
Amid old studies, with desires the same;
But, from my lady since I fail to find
The accustom'd aid, the work himself has wrought
Let Love regard my tempter who became;
Yet scarce I feel the shame
That, at my age, he makes me thus a thief
Of that bewitching light
For which my life is steep'd in cureless grief;
In youth I better might
Have ta'en the part which now I needs must take,
For less dishonour boyish errors make.

Those sweet eyes whence alone my life had health
Were ever of their high and heavenly charms
So kind ...

        1.

        WHAT though my words glance sideways from the thing
        Which I would utter in thine ear, my sire!
        Truth in the inward parts thou dost desire--
        Wise hunger, not a fitness fine of speech:
        The little child that clamouring fails to reach
        With upstretched hand the fringe of her attire,
        Yet meets the mother's hand down hurrying.

        2.

        Even when their foolish words they turned on him,
        He did not his disciples send away;
        He knew their hearts were foolish, eyes were dim,
        And therefore by his side needs must they stay.
        Thou will not, Lord, send me away from thee.
        When I am foolish, make thy cock crow grim;
        If that is not enough, turn,...

Come away, the clouds are high,
Put the flashing needles by.
Many days are not to spare,
Or to waste, my fairest fair!
All is ready. Come to-day,
For the nightingale her lay,
When she findeth that the whole
Of her love, and all her soul,
Cannot forth of her sweet throat,
Sobs the while she draws her breath,
And the bravery of her note
In a few days altereth.

Come, ere she despond, and see
In a silent ecstasy
Chestnuts heave for hours and hours
All the glory of their flowers
To the melting blue above,
That broods over them like love.
Leave the garden walls, where blow
Apple-blossoms pink, and low
Ordered beds of tulips fine.
Seek the blossoms made divine
With a scent that is their soul.
These are soulless. Bring the whit...

The twilight's inner flame grows blue and deep,
And in my Lesbos, over leagues of sea,
The temples glimmer moon-wise in the trees.
Twilight has veiled the little flower-face
Here on my heart, but still the night is kind
And leaves her warm sweet weight against my breast.
Am I that Sappho who would run at dusk
Along the surges creeping up the shore
When tides came in to ease the hungry beach,
And running, running till the night was black,
Would fall forespent upon the chilly sand
And quiver with the winds from off the sea?
Ah quietly the shingle waits the tides
Whose waves are stinging kisses, but to me
Love brought no peace, nor darkness any rest.
I crept and touched the foam with fevered hands
And cried to love, from whom the sea is sweet,
From whom the ...

Dost thou hear the tom-toms throbbing,
Like a lonely lover sobbing
For the beauty that is robbing him of all his life's delight?
Plaintive sounds, restrained, enthralling,
Seeking through the twilight falling
Something lost beyond recalling, in the darkness of the night.

Oh, my little, loved Firoza,
Come and nestle to me closer,
Where the golden-balled Mimosa makes a canopy above,
For the day, so hot and burning,
Dies away, and night, returning,
Sets thy lover's spirit yearning for thy beauty and thy love.

Soon will come the rosy warning
Of the bright relentless morning,
When, thy soft caresses scorning, I shall leave thee in the shade.
All the day my work must chain me,
And its weary bonds restrain me,
For I may not re-attain thee till the li...

Imitated from Théophile Gautier


We are in love’s land to-day;
Where shall we go?
Love, shall we start or stay,
Or sail or row?
There’s many a wind and way,
And never a May but May;
We are in love’s hand to-day;
Where shall we go?

Our landwind is the breath
Of sorrows kissed to death
And joys that were;
Our ballast is a rose;
Our way lies where God knows
And love knows where.
We are in love’s hand to-day

Our seamen are fledged Loves,
Our masts are bills of doves,
Our decks fine gold;
Our ropes are dead maids’ hair,
Our stores are love-shafts fair
And manifold.
We are in love’s land to-day

Where shall we land you, sweet?
On fields of strange men’s feet,
Or fields near home?
Or...

"Sweetheart, take this," a soldier said,
"And bid me brave good-by;
It may befall we ne'er shall wed,
But love can never die.
Be steadfast in thy troth to me,
And then, whate'er my lot,
'My soul to God, my heart to thee,'--
Sweetheart, forget me not!"

The maiden took the tiny flower
And nursed it with her tears:
Lo! he who left her in that hour
Came not in after years.
Unto a hero's death he rode
'Mid shower of fire and shot;
But in the maiden's heart abode
The flower, forget-me-not.

And when he came not with the rest
From out the years of blood,
Closely unto her widowed breast
She pressed a faded bud;
Oh, there is love and there is pain,
And there is peace, God wot,--
And these dear three do live again
In ...

Oh lady! thou, who in the olden time
Hadst been the star of many a poet's dream!
Thou, who unto a mind of mould sublime,
Weddest the gentle graces that beseem
Fair woman's best! forgive the darling line
That falters forth thy praise! nor let thine eye
Glance o'er the vain attempt too scornfully;
But, as thou read'st, think what a love was mine,
That made me venture on a theme, that none
Can know thee, and not feel a hopeless one.
Thou art most fair, though sorrow's chastening wing
Hath past, and left its shadow on thy brow,
And solemn thoughts are gently mellowing
The splendour of thy beauty's summer now.
Thou art most fair! but thine is loveliness
That dwells not only on the lip, or eye;
Thy beauty, is thy pure heart's holiness;
Thy grace, thy lofty spir...

My mother's kiss, my mother's kiss,
    I feel its impress now;
As in the bright and happy days
    She pressed it on my brow.

You say it is a fancied thing
    Within my memory fraught;
To me it has a sacred place -
    The treasure house of thought.

Again, I feel her fingers glide
    Amid my clustering hair;
I see the love-light in her eyes,
    When all my life was fair.

Again, I hear her gentle voice
    In warning or in love.
How precious was the faith that taught
    My soul of things above.

The music of her voice is stilled,
    Her lips are paled in death.
As precious pearls I'll clasp her words
    Until my latest breath.

The world has scattered round my path
    Honor and wealth and fame;
B...

Never enlivened with the liveliest ray
That fosters growth or checks or cheers decay,
Nor by the heaviest rain-drops more deprest,
This Flower, that first appeared as summer's guest,
Preserves her beauty 'mid autumnal leaves
And to her mournful habits fondly cleaves.
When files of stateliest plants have ceased to bloom,
One after one submitting to their doom,
When her coevals each and all are fled,
What keeps her thus reclined upon her lonesome bed?

The old mythologists, more impressed than we
Of this late day by character in tree
Or herb, that claimed peculiar sympathy,
Or by the silent lapse of fountain clear,
Or with the language of the viewless air
By bird or beast made vocal, sought a cause
To solve the mystery, not in Nature's laws
But in Man'...

Rightly said, Schlosser! Man loves what he has; what he has not, desireth;
None but the wealthy minds love; poor minds desire alone.

Dal dolcie pianto.


From happy tears to woeful smiles, from peace
        Eternal to a brief and hollow truce,
        How have I fallen!--when 'tis truth we lose,
        Sense triumphs o'er all adverse impulses.
I know not if my heart bred this disease,
        That still more pleasing grows with growing use;
        Or else thy face, thine eyes, which stole the hues
        And fires of Paradise--less fair than these.
Thy beauty is no mortal thing; 'twas sent
        From heaven on high to make our earth divine:
        Wherefore, though wasting, burning, I'm content;
For in thy sight what could I do but pine?
        If God himself thus rules my destiny,
        Who, when I die, can lay the blame on thee?

How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
The disembodied spirits of the dead,
When all of thee that time could wither sleeps
And perishes among the dust we tread?

For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain
If there I meet thy gentle presence not;
Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again
In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.

Will not thy own meek heart demand me there?
That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given?
My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,
Shall it be banished from thy tongue in heaven?

In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind,
In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,
And larger movements of the unfettered mind,
Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?

The love that lived through all the...

On these green banks, where falls too soon
The shade of Autumn's afternoon,
The south wind blowing soft and sweet,
The water gliding at nay feet,
The distant northern range uplit
By the slant sunshine over it,
With changes of the mountain mist
From tender blush to amethyst,
The valley's stretch of shade and gleam
Fair as in Mirza's Bagdad dream,
With glad young faces smiling near
And merry voices in my ear,
I sit, methinks, as Hafiz might
In Iran's Garden of Delight.
For Persian roses blushing red,
Aster and gentian bloom instead;
For Shiraz wine, this mountain air;
For feast, the blueberries which I share
With one who proffers with stained hands
Her gleanings from yon pasture lands,
Wild fruit that art and culture spoil,
The harvest o...

When these eyes, long dimmed with weeping,
In the silent dust are sleeping;
When above my narrow bed
The breeze shall wave the thistle's head--
                    Thou wilt think of me, love!

When the queen of beams and showers
Comes to dress the earth with flowers;
When the days are long and bright,
And the moon shines all the night--
                    Thou wilt think of me, love!

When the tender corn is springing,
And the merry thrush is singing;
When the swallows come and go,
On light wings flitting to and fro--
                    Thou wilt think of me, love!

When laughing childhood learns by rote
The cuckoo's oft-repeated note;
When the meads are fresh and green,
And the hawthorn buds are seen--
                    Thou...

O your hands - they are strangely fair!
Fair - for the jewels that sparkle there, -
Fair - for the witchery of the spell
That ivory keys alone can tell;
But when their delicate touches rest
Here in my own do I love them best,
As I clasp with eager acquisitive spans
My glorious treasure of beautiful hands!

Marvelous - wonderful - beautiful hands!
They can coax roses to bloom in the strands
Of your brown tresses; and ribbons will twine,
Under mysterious touches of thine,
Into such knots as entangle the soul,
And fetter the heart under such a control
As only the strength of my love understands -
My passionate love for your beautiful hands.

As I remember the first fair touch
Of those beautiful hands that I love so much,
I seem to thrill as I ...

Ask nothing more of me, sweet;
All I can give you I give.
Heart of my heart, were it more,
More would be laid at your feet:
Love that should help you to live,
Song that should spur you to soar.

All things were nothing to give
Once to have sense of you more,
Touch you and taste of you sweet,
Think you and breathe you and live,
Swept of your wings as they soar,
Trodden by chance of your feet.

I that have love and no more
Give you but love of you, sweet:
He that hath more, let him give;
He that hath wings, let him soar;
Mine is the heart at your feet
Here, that must love you to live.