Part 2

Quit, quit, for shame, this will not move: This cannot take her. If for herself she will not love, Nothing can make her: The devil take her! --_Sir John Suckling_

Unless with my Amanda blest, In vain I twine the woodbine bower; Unless to deck her sweeter breast, In vain I rear the breathing flower:

Awaken'd by the genial year, In vain the birds around me sing; In vain the freshening fields appear: _Without my love there is no Spring_. --_James Thomson_

Once did my thoughts both ebb and flow, As passion did them move, Once did I hope, straight fear again,-- And then I was in love.

Once did I waking spend the night, And tell how many minutes move, Once did I wishing waste the day,-- And then I was in love.

Once, by my carving true love's knot, The weeping trees did prove That wounds and tears were both our lot,-- And then I was in love.

Once did I breathe another's breath, And in my mistress move, Once was I not mine own at all,-- And then I was in love.

Once wore I bracelets made of hair, And collars did approve, Once wore my clothes made out of wax,-- And then I was in love.

Once did I sonnet to my saint, My soul in numbers move, Once did I tell a thousand lies,-- And then I was in love.

Once in my ear did dangling hang A little turtle-dove, Once, in a word, I was a fool,-- And then I was in love. --_Robert Jones_

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying: And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun, The higher he's a-getting, The sooner will his race be run, And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time. And while ye may go marry: For having lost but once your prime You may forever tarry. --_Robert Herrick_

My Kate

She was not as pretty as women I know, And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow Drop to shade, melt to naught in the long-trodden ways, While she's still remember'd on warm and cold days-- My Kate.

Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace; You turn'd from the fairest to gaze on her face: And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth, You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth-- My Kate.

Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke, You look'd at her silence and fancied she spoke: When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone, Tho' the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone-- My Kate.

I doubt if she said to you much that could act As a thought or suggestion: she did not attract In the sense of the brilliant or wise: I infer Twas her thinking of others, made you think of her-- My Kate.

She never found fault with you, never implied Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side Grew nobler, girls purer, as thro' the whole town The children were gladder that pull'd at her gown-- My Kate.

None knelt at her feet confess'd lovers in thrall; They knelt more to God than they used,--that was all: If you praised her as charming, some ask'd what you meant. But the charm of her presence was felt when she went-- My Kate.

The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude, She took as she found them, and did them all good; It always was so with her--see what you have! She has made the grass greener even here with her grave-- My Kate.

My dear one!--When thou wast alive with the rest, I held thee the sweetest and loved thee the best: And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part As thy smiles used to do for thyself, my sweet Heart-- My Kate? --_Elizabeth Barrett Browning_

There is no friend like an old friend Who has shared our morning days, No greeting like his welcome, No homage like his praise. Fame is the scentless sunflower, With gaudy crown of gold; But friendship is the breathing rose With sweets in every fold. --_Oliver Wendell Holmes_

Grief

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless; That only men incredulous of despair, Half taught in anguish, through the midnight air Beat upward to God's throne in loud excess Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness In soul as countries lieth silent-bare Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death-- Most like a monumental statue set In everlasting watch and moveless woe Till itself crumble to the dust beneath. Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet: If it could weep, it could arise and go. --_Elizabeth Barrett Browning_

Love

_Totus est Inermis Idem_...

No show of bolts and bars Can keep the foeman out, Or 'scape his secret mine Who enter'd with the doubt That drew the line. No warder at the gate Can let the friendly in; But, like the sun, o'er all He will the castle win, And shine along the wall.

Implacable is Love-- Foes may be bought or teased From their hostile intent, But he goes unappeased Who is on kindness bent. --_Henry David Thoreau_

Trust Thou Thy Love

Trust thou thy Love: if she be proud, is she not sweet? Trust thou thy Love: if she be mute, is she not pure? Lay thou thy soul full in her hands, low at her feet; Fail, Sun and Breath!--yet, for thy peace, She shall endure. --_John Ruskin_

Spiritual Love

What care I tho' beauty fading Die ere Time can turn his glass? What tho' locks the Graces braiding Perish like the summer grass? Tho' thy charms should all decay, Think not my affections may!

For thy charms--tho' bright as morning-- Captured not my idle heart; Love so grounded ends in scorning, Lacks the barb to hold the dart. My devotion more secure Woos thy spirit high and pure. --_William Caldwell Roscoe_

Woman

She can be as wise as we And wiser when she wishes; She can knit with cunning wit, And dress the homely dishes, She can flourish staff or pen, And deal a wound that lingers; She can talk the talk of men, And touch with thrilling fingers. --_George Meredith_

To Spring: On the Banks of the Cam

O Thou that from the green vales of the West Com'st in thy tender robes with bashful feet, And to the gathering clouds Liftest thy soft blue eye:

I woo thee. Spring!--Tho' thy dishevell'd hair In misty ringlets sweep thy snowy breast, And thy young lips deplore Stern Boreas' ruthless rage:

While morn is stee'd in dews, and the dank show'r Drops from the green boughs of the budding trees; And the thrush tunes his song Warbling with unripe throat:

Thro' the deep wood where spreads the sylvan oak I follow thee, and see thy hands unfold The love-sick primrose pale And moist-eyed violet:

While in the central grove, at thy soft voice, The Dryads start forth from their wintry cells, And from their oozy waves The Naiads lift their heads

In sedgy bonnets trimm'd with rushy leaves And water-blossoms from the forest stream, To pay their vows to thee, Their thrice adored queen!

The stripling shepherd wand'ring thro' the wood Startles the linnet from her downy nest, Or wreathes his crook with flowers, The sweetest of the fields.

From the grey branches of the ivied ash The stock-dove pours her vernal elegy, While further down the vale Echoes the cuckoo's note.

Beneath this trellis'd arbour's antique roof, When the wild laurel rustles in the breeze, By Cam's slow murmuring stream I waste the live-long day;

And bid thee. Spring, rule fair the infant year, Till my loved Maid in russet stole approach: O yield her to my arms, Her red lips breathing love!

So shall the sweet May drink thy falling tears, And on thy blue eyes pour a beam of joy; And float thy azure locks Upon the western wind.

So shall the nightingale rejoice thy woods, And Hesper early light his dewy star; And oft at eventide Beneath the rising moon.

May lovers' whispers soothe thy list'ning ear, And as they steal the soft impassion'd kiss, Confess thy genial reign, O love-inspiring Spring! --_William Stanley Roscoe_

I pr'y thee send me back my heart, Since I cannot have thine; For if from yours you will not part, Why then shouldst thou have mine?

Yet now I think on't, let it lie; To find it were in vain, For thou'st a thief in either eye Would steal it back again.

Why should two hearts in one breast lie, And yet not lodge together? O love! where is thy sympathy, If thus our breasts you sever?

But love is such a mystery I cannot find it out; For when I think I'm best resolved, I then am most in doubt.

Then farewell love, and farewell woe, I will no longer pine; For I'll believe I have her heart As much as she hath mine. --_Sir John Suckling_

Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage, If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free,-- Angels alone, that soar above, Enjoy such liberty. --_Richard Lovelace_

Appelles' Song

Cupid and my Campaspe played At cards for kisses,--Cupid paid; He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows, His mother's doves, and teams of sparrows: Loses them, too; then down he throws The coral of his lip, the rose Growing on's cheek (but none knows how); With these the crystal of his brow, And then the dimple of his chin: All these did my Campaspe win. At last he set her both his eyes; She won, and Cupid blind did rise; O Love, has she done this to thee? What shall, alas! become of me? --_John Lyly_

To Althea, from Prison

When love, with unconfined wings, Hovers within my gates, And my divine Althea brings To whisper at the grates; When I lie tangled in her hair, And fetter'd to her eye-- The birds that wanton in the air, Know no such liberty. --_Richard Lovelace_

On the Life of Man

Like to the falling of a star, Or as the flights of eagles are, Or like the fresh Spring's gaudy hue, Or silver drops of morning dew, Or like the wind that chafes the flood, Or bubbles which on water stood; Even such is man, whose borrowed light Is straight called in and paid tonight The wind blows out, the bubble dies, The spring entombed in autumn lies, The dew's dried up, the star is shot, The flight is past, and man forgot. --_Henry King_

Of A' the Airts the Wind Can Blaw

I see her in the dewy flowers, I see her sweet and fair: I hear her in the tunefu' birds, I hear her charm the air: There's not a bonnie flower that springs By fountain, shaw, or green, There's not a bonnie bird that sings, But minds me o' my Jean. --_Robert Burns_

O Mistress Mine, Where Are You Roaming?

O Mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear; your true love's coming, That can sing both high and low: Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in Lovers' meeting, Every wise man's son doth know.

What is love? 'Tis not hereafter: Present mirth hath present laughter; What's to come is still unsure: In delay there lies no plenty; Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty Youth's a stuff will not endure. --_Shakespeare_

Thrice toss these oaken ashes in the air, Thrice sit thou mute in this enchanted chair, Then thrice three times tie up this true love's knot, And murmur soft, "She will or she will not."

Go, burn these poisonous weeds in yon blue fire, These screech owls' feathers and this prickling briar, This cypress gathered at a dead man's grave, That all my fears and cares an end may have.

Then come, you Fairies! dance with me a round! Melt her hard heart with your melodious sound! In vain are all the charms I can devise: She hath an art to break them with her eyes. --_Thomas Campion_

Come, O come, my life's delight! Let me not in languor pine! Love loves no delay; thy sight The more enjoyed, the more divine! O come, and take from me The pain of being deprived of thee!

Thou all sweetness dost enclose, Like a little world of bliss; Beauty guards thy looks, the rose In them pure and eternal is: Come, then, and make thy flight As swift to me as heavenly light! --_Thomas Campion_

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-gray, And Winter's dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled vine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seem'd to be The Century's corpse outleant, His crypt the cloudy canopy, The wind his death-lament. The ancient pulse of germ and birth Was shrunken hard and dry, And every spirit upon earth Seem'd fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited; An aged thrush, frail, quant, and small, In blast-beruffled plume. Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carollings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware. --_Thomas Hardy_

To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars

Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind, That from the nunnery Of your chaste breast and quiet mind To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase, The first foe in the field; And with a stronger faith embrace A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such As you too shall adore; I could not love thee, dear, so much Loved I not honour more! --_Richard Lovelace_

A Japanese Love Song

The young moon is white, But the willows are blue: Your small lips are red, But the great clouds are gray: The waves are so many That whisper to you; But my love is only One flight of spray.

The bright drops are many, The dark wave is one: The dark wave subsides, And the bright sea remains! And wherever, O singing Maid, you may run, You are one with the world For all your pains.

Tho' the great skies are dark, And your small feet are white, Tho' your wide eyes are blue And the closed poppies red, Tho' the kisses are many, That colour the night, They are linked like pearls On one golden thread.

Were the gray clouds not made For the red of your mouth; The ages for flight Of the butterfly years; The sweet of the peach For the pale lips of drouth, The sunlight of smiles For the shadow of tears?

Love, Love is the thread That has pierced them with bliss! All their hues are but notes In one world-wide tune: Lips, willows and waves, We are one as we kiss, And your face and the flowers Faint away in the moon. --_Alfred Noyes_

Wishes

Go, little book, and wish to all Flowers in the garden, meat in the hall, A bin of wine, a spice of wit, A house with lawns enclosing it, A living river by the door, A nightingale in the sycamore. --_Robert Louis Stevenson_

Evanescence

I saw, I saw the lovely child I watch'd her by the way, I learnt her gestures sweet and wild Her loving eyes and gay.

Her name?--I heard not, nay, nor care; Enough it was for me To find her innocently fair And delicately free.

O cease and go ere dreams be done, Nor trace the angel's birth, Nor find the Paradisal one A blossom of the earth!

Thus is it with our subtlest joys,-- How quick the soul's alarm! How lightly deed or word destroys That evanescent charm!

It comes unbidden, comes unbought, Unfetter'd flees away; His swiftest and his sweetest thought Can never poet say. --_Frederic William Henry Myers_

Romance

I will make you brooches and toys for your delight Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night. I will make a palace fit for you and me, Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room, Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom, And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.

And this shall be for music when no one else is near, The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear! That only I remember, that only you admire, Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire. --_Robert Louis Stevenson_

Her hair the net of golden wire, Wherein my heart, led by my wandering eyes, So fast entangled is that in no wise It can, nor will, again retire; But rather will in that sweet bondage die Than break one hair to gain her liberty. --_Thomas Bateson_

Celia's Homecoming

Maidens kilt your skirts and go Down the stormy garden-ways. Pluck the last sweet pinks that blow, Gather roses, gather bays, Since our Celia comes to-day, That has been so long away.

Crowd her chamber with your sweets-- Not a flower but grows for her! Make her bed with linen sheets That have lain in lavender: Light a fire before she come, Lest she find us chill at home.

Ah, what joy when Celia stands By the leaping blaze at last, Stooping low to warm her hands All benumbed with the blast, While we hide her cloak away, To assure us she shall stay!

Cyder bring and cowslip wine, Fruits and flavours from the East, Pears and pippins too, and fine Saffron loaves to make a feast; China dishes, silver cups, For the board where Celia sups!

Then, when all the feasting's done, She shall draw us round the blaze, Laugh, and tell us every one Of her far triumphant days-- Celia, out of doors a star, By the hearth a holier Lar! --_Agnes Mary Frances Dudaux_

Love in the Valley

Under yonder beech-tree single on the green-sward, Couch'd with her arms behind her golden head, Knees and tresses folded to slip and ripple idly, Lies my young love sleeping in the shade. Had I the heart to slide an arm beneath her, Press her parting lips as her waist I gather slow, Waking in amazement she could not but embrace me: Then would she hold me and never let me go?

Shy as the squirrel and wayward as the swallow, Swift as the swallow along the river's light Circleting the surface to meet his mirror'd winglets, Fleeter she seems in her stay than in her flight. Shy as the squirrel that leaps among the pine-tops, Wayward as the swallow overhead at set of sun, She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer, Hard, but O the glory of the winning were she won! --_George Meredith_

Lucifer in Starlight

On a starr'd night Prince Lucifer uprose. Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend Above the rolling ball in cloud part screen'd, Where sinners hugg'd their sceptre of repose. Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those. And now upon his western wing he lean'd, Now his huge bulk o'er Afric's sands careen'd, Now the black planet shadow'd Arctic snows. Soaring through wider zones that prick'd his scars With memory of the old revolt from Awe, He reach'd a middle height, and at the stars, Which are the brain of heaven, he look'd, and sank Around the ancient track march'd, rank on rank, The army of unalterable law. --_George Meredith_

The maid I love ne'er thought of me Amid the scenes of gaiety; But when her heart or mine sank low, Ah, then it was no longer so! From the slant palm she rais'd her head, And kiss'd the cheek whence youth had fled. Angels! some future day for this, Give her as sweet and pure a kiss. --_Walter Savage Landor_

To Anthea

Bid me to live, and I will live Thy Protestant to be; Or bid me love, and I will give A loving heart to thee.

A heart as soft, a heart as kind, A heart as sound and free As in the whole world thou shalt find, That heart I'll give to thee.

Bid that heart stay, and it will stay To honour thy decree; Or bid it languish quite away, And it shalt do so for thee.

Bid me to weep, and I will weep, While I have eyes to see; And having none, yet I will keep A heart to weep for thee.

Thou art my life, my love, my heart The very eyes of me; And hast command of every part, To live and die for thee. --_Robert Herrick_

The Fair Circassian

Forty Viziers saw I go Up to the Seraglio, Burning, each and every man, For the fair Circassian.

Ere the morn had disappear'd, Every Vizier wore a beard; Ere the afternoon was born Every Vizier came back shorn.

'Let the man that woos to win Woo with an unhairy chin:' Thus she said, and as she bid Each devoted Vizier did.

From the beards a cord she made, Loop'd it to the balustrade, Glided down and went away To her own Circassia.

When the Sultan heard, wax'd he Somewhat wroth, and presently In the noose themselves did lend Every Vizier did suspend.

Sages all, this rhyme who read, Of your beards take prudent heed, And beware the wily plans Of the fair Circassians. --_Richard Garnett_

The Constant Lover

Out upon it, I have loved Three whole days together; And am like to love three more, If it prove fair weather.

Time shall moult away his wings Ere he shall discover In the whole wide world again Such a constant lover.

But the spite on't is, no praise Is due at all to me: Love with me had made no stays Had it any been but she.

Had it any been but she, And that very face, There had been at least ere this A dozen dozen in her place. --_John Suckling_

Farewell

It is buried and done with, The love that we knew: Those cobwebs we spun with Are beaded with dew.

I loved thee; I leave thee: To love thee was pain: I dare not believe thee To love thee again.

Like spectres unshriven Are the years that I lost; To thee they were given Without count of cost.

I cannot revive them By penance or prayer; Hell's tempest must drive them Thro' turbulent air.

Farewell, and forget me; For I, too, am free From the shame that beset me, The sorrow of thee. --_John Addington Symonds_

Song

How blest has my time been, what days have I known, Since wedlock's soft bondage made Jessie my own! So joyful my heart is, so easy my chain, That freedom is tasteless and roving a pain.