Chapter 19

When, full of warm and eager love, I clasp you in my fond embrace, You gently push me back and say, "Take care, my dear, you'll spoil my lace."

You kiss me just as you would kiss Some woman friend you chanced to see; You call me "dearest." - All love's forms Are yours, not its reality.

Oh, Annie! cry, and storm, and rave! Do anything with passion in it! Hate me an hour, and then turn round And love me truly, just one minute.

William Wetmore Story [1819-1895]

WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN

When the Sultan Shah-Zaman Goes to the city Ispahan, Even before he gets so far As the place where the clustered palm-trees are, At the last of the thirty palace-gates, The flower of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom, Orders a feast in his favorite room - Glittering squares of colored ice, Sweetened with syrop, tinctured with spice, Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates, Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces, Limes, and citrons, and apricots, And wines that are known to Eastern princes; And Nubian slaves, with smoking pots Of spiced meats and costliest fish And all that the curious palate could wish, Pass in and out of the cedarn doors; Scattered over mosaic floors Are anemones, myrtles, and violets, And a musical fountain throws its jets Of a hundred colors into the air. The dusk Sultana loosens her hair, And stains with the henna-plant the tips Of her pointed nails, and bites her lips Till they bloom again; but, alas, that rose Not for the Sultan buds and blows, Not for the Sultan Shah-Zaman When he goes to the city Ispahan.

Then at a wave of her sunny hand The dancing-girls of Samarcand Glide in like shapes from fairy-land, Making a sudden mist in air Of fleecy veils and floating hair And white arms lifted. Orient blood Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes. And there, in this Eastern Paradise, Filled with the breath of sandal-wood, And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh, Sits Rose-in-Bloom on a silk divan, Sipping the wines of Astrakhan; And her Arab lover sits with her. That's when the Sultan Shah-Zaman Goes to the city Ispahan.

Now, when I see an extra light, Flaming, flickering on the night From my neighbor's casement opposite, I know as well as I know to pray, I know as well as a tongue can say, That the innocent Sultan Shah-Zaman Has gone to the city Ispahan.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich [1837-1907]

THE SHADOW DANCE

She sees her image in the glass, - How fair a thing to gaze upon! She lingers while the moments run, With happy thoughts that come and pass,

Like winds across the meadow grass When the young June is just begun: She sees her image in the glass, - How fair a thing to gaze upon!

What wealth of gold the skies amass! How glad are all things 'neath the sun! How true the love her love has won! She recks not that this hour will pass, - She sees her image in the glass.

Louise Chandler Moulton [1835-1908]

"ALONG THE FIELD AS WE CAME BY"

Along the field as we came by A year ago, my love and I, The aspen over stile and stone Was talking to itself alone. "Oh, who are these that kiss and pass? A country lover and his lass; Two lovers looking to be wed; And time shall put them both to bed, But she shall lie with earth above, And he beside another love."

And sure enough beneath the tree There walks another love with me, And overhead the aspen heaves Its rainy-sounding silver leaves; And I spell nothing in their stir, But now perhaps they speak to her, And plain for her to understand They talk about a time at hand When I shall sleep with clover clad, And she beside another lad.

Alfred Edward Housman [1859-1936]

"WHEN I WAS ONE-AND-TWENTY"

When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, "Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free." But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again, "The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain; 'Tis paid with sighs a plenty And sold for endless rue." And I am two-and-twenty, And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

Alfred Edward Housman [1859-1936]

"GRIEVE NOT, LADIES"

Oh, grieve not, Ladies, if at night Ye wake to feel your beauty going; It was a web of frail delight, Inconstant as an April snowing.

In other eyes, in other lands, In deep fair pools new beauty lingers; But like spent water in your hands It runs from your reluctant fingers.

You shall not keep the singing lark That owes to earlier skies its duty. Weep not to hear along the dark The sound of your departing beauty.

The fine and anguished ear of night Is tuned to hear the smallest sorrow: Oh, wait until the morning light! It may not seem so gone to-morrow.

But honey-pale and rosy-red! Brief lights that make a little shining! Beautiful looks about us shed - They leave us to the old repining.

Think not the watchful, dim despair Has come to you the first, sweet-hearted! For oh, the gold in Helen's hair! And how she cried when that departed!

Perhaps that one that took the most, The swiftest borrower, wildest spender, May count, as we would not, the cost - And grow more true to us and tender.

Happy are we if in his eyes We see no shadow of forgetting. Nay - if our star sinks in those skies We shall not wholly see its setting.

Then let us laugh as do the brooks, That such immortal youth is ours, If memory keeps for them our looks As fresh as are the springtime flowers.

So grieve not, Ladies, if at night Ye wake to feel the cold December! Rather recall the early light, And in your loved one's arms, remember.

Anna Hempstead Branch [18

SUBURB

Dull and hard the low wind creaks Among the rustling pampas plumes. Drearily the year consumes Its fifty-two insipid weeks.

Most of the gray-green meadow land Was sold in parsimonious lots; The dingy houses stand Pressed by some stout contractor's hand Tightly together in their plots.

Through builded banks the sullen river Gropes, where its houses crouch and shiver. Over the bridge the tyrant train Shrieks, and emerges on the plain.

In all the better gardens you may pass, (Product of many careful Saturdays), Large red geraniums and tall pampas grass Adorn the plots and mark the gravelled ways.

Sometimes in the background may be seen A private summer-house in white or green. Here on warm nights the daughter brings Her vacillating clerk, To talk of small exciting things And touch his fingers through the dark.

He, in the uncomfortable breach Between her trilling laughters, Promises, in halting speech, Hopeless immense Hereafters.

She trembles like the pampas plumes. Her strained lips haggle. He assumes The serious quest. . . .

Now as the train is whistling past He takes her in his arms at last.

It's done. She blushes at his side Across the lawn - a bride, a bride.

. . . . . . . .

The stout contractor will design, The lazy laborers will prepare, Another villa on the line; In the little garden-square Pampas grass will rustle there.

Harold Monro [1879-1932]

THE BETROTHED "You must choose between me and your cigar" - Breach of Promise case, circa 1885.

Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout, For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.

We quarreled about Havanas - we fought o'er a good cheroot - And I know she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.

Open the old cigar-box - let me consider a space, In the soft blue veil of the vapor, musing on Maggie's face.

Maggie is pretty to look at - Maggie's a loving lass. But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.

There's peace in a Laranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay, But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away -

Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown - But I never could throw away Maggie for fear o' the talk o' the town!

Maggie, my wife at fifty - gray and dour and old - With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold.

And the light of Days that have Been, the dark of the Days that Are, And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar -

The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket - With never a new one to light, though it's charred and black to the socket.

Open the old cigar-box - let me consider awhile; Here is a mild Manilla - there is a wifely smile.

Which is the better portion - bondage bought with a ring, Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?

Counselors cunning and silent - comforters true and tried, And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride.

Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes, Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close.

This will the fifty give me, asking naught in return, With only a Suttee's passion - to do their duty and burn.

This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead, Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.

The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main, When they hear that my harem is empty, will send me my brides again.

I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal, So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.

I will scent'em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides, And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.

For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o' Teen.

And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear, But I have been Priest of Partagas a matter of seven year;

And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light Of stumps that I burned to Friendship, and Pleasure, and Work, and Fight.

And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove, But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o'-the-Wisp of Love.

Will it see me safe through my journey, or leave me bogged in the mire? Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?

Open the old cigar-box - let me consider anew - Old friends, and who is Maggie, that I should abandon you?

A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke; And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke.

Light me another Cuba - I hold to my first-sworn vows, If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for spouse!

Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936]

LOVE'S SADNESS

"THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES"

The night has a thousand eyes, And the day but one; Yet the light of the bright world dies With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes, And the heart but one; Yet the light of a whole life dies When love is done.

Francis William Bourdillon [1852-1921]

"I SAW MY LADY WEEP"

I saw my Lady weep, And Sorrow proud to be advanced so In those fair eyes where all perfections keep. Her face was full of Woe, But such a Woe (believe me) as wins more hearts Than Mirth can do with her enticing parts.

Sorrow was there made fair, And Passion, wise; Tears, a delightful thing; Silence, beyond all speech, a wisdom rare: She made her sighs to sing, And all things with so sweet a sadness move As made my heart at once both grieve and love.

O fairer than aught else The world can show, leave off in time to grieve! Enough, enough: your joyful look excels: Tears kill the heart, believe. O strive not to be excellent in Woe, Which only breeds your beauty's overthrow.

Unknown

LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM

Oh! the days are gone, when Beauty bright My heart's chain wove; When my dream of life, from morn till night, Was love, still love. New hope may bloom, And days may come, Of milder, calmer beam, But there's nothing half so sweet in life As love's young dream; No, there's nothing half so sweet in life As love's young dream.

Though the bard to purer fame may soar, When wild youth's past; Though he win the wise, who frowned before, To smile at last; He'll never meet A joy so sweet, In all his noon of fame, As when first he sung to woman's ear His soul-felt flame, And, at every close, she blushed to hear The one loved name.

No, - that hallowed form is ne'er forgot Which first love traced; Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot On memory's waste. 'Twas odor fled As soon as shed; 'Twas morning's winged dream; 'Twas a light that ne'er can shine again On life's dull stream; Oh! 'twas light that ne'er can shine again On life's dull stream.

Thomas Moore [1779-1852]

"NOT OURS THE VOWS"

Not ours the vows of such as plight Their troth in sunny weather, While leaves are green, and skies are bright, To walk on flowers together.

But we have loved as those who tread The thorny path of sorrow, With clouds above, and cause to dread Yet deeper gloom to-morrow.

That thorny path, those stormy skies, Have drawn our spirits nearer; And rendered us, by sorrow's ties, Each to the other dearer.

Love, born in hours of joy and mirth, With mirth and joy may perish; That to which darker hours gave birth Still more and more we cherish.

It looks beyond the clouds of time, And through death's shadowy portal; Made by adversity sublime, By faith and hope immortal.

Bernard Barton [1784-1849]

THE GRAVE OF LOVE

I dug, beneath the cypress shade, What well might seem an elfin's grave; And every pledge in earth I laid, That erst thy false affection gave.

I pressed them down the sod beneath; I placed one mossy stone above; And twined the rose's fading wreath Around the sepulcher of love.

Frail as thy love, the flowers were dead Ere yet the evening sun was set: But years shall see the cypress spread, Immutable as my regret.

Thomas Love Peacock [1785-1866]

"WE'LL GO NO MORE A ROVING"

So, we'll go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And Love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we'll go no more a roving By the light of the moon.

George Gordon Byron [1788-1824]

SONG

Sing the old song, amid the sounds dispersing That burden treasured in your hearts too long; Sing it, with voice low-breathed, but never name her: She will not hear you, in her turrets nursing High thoughts, too high to mate with mortal song - Bend o'er her, gentle Heaven, but do not claim her!

In twilight caves, and secret lonelinesses, She shades the bloom of her unearthly days; And the soft winds alone have power to woo her: Far off we catch the dark gleam of her tresses; And wild birds haunt the wood-walks where she strays, Intelligible music warbling to her.

That Spirit charged to follow and defend her, - He also, doubtless, suffers this love-pain; And she, perhaps, is sad, hearing his sighing: And yet that face is not so sad as tender; Like some sweet singer's, when her sweetest strain From the heaved heart is gradually dying!

Aubrey Thomas De Vere [1814-1902]

THE QUESTION

I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way, Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring; And gentle odors led my steps astray, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets; Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets - Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth - Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, Green cowbind and the moonlight-colored may, And cherry-blossoms, and white cups whose wine Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, With its dark buds and leaves wandering astray; And flowers, azure, black, and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.

And nearer to the river's trembling edge There grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked with white, And starry river-buds among the sedge, And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge With moonlight beams of their own watery light; And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

Methought that of these visionary flowers I made a nosegay, bound in such a way That the same hues which in their natural bowers Were mingled or opposed, the like array Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours Within my hand; - and then, elate and gay, I hastened to the spot whence I had come, That I might there present it - O! to whom?

Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822]

THE WANDERER

Love comes back to his vacant dwelling, - The old, old Love that we knew of yore! We see him stand by the open door, With his great eyes sad, and his bosom swelling.

He makes as though in our arms repelling, He fain would lie as he lay before; - Love comes back to his vacant dwelling, - The old, old Love that we knew of yore!

Ah, who shall keep us from over-spelling That sweet forgotten, forbidden lore! E'en as we doubt in our hearts once more, With a rush of tears to our eyelids welling, Love comes back to his vacant dwelling.

Austin Dobson [1840-1921]

EGYPTIAN SERENADE

Sing again the song you sung When we were together young - When there were but you and I Underneath the summer sky.

Sing the song, and o'er and o'er Though I know that nevermore Will it seem the song you sung When we were together young.

George William Curtis [1824-1892]

THE WATER LADY

Alas, the moon should ever beam To show what man should never see! I saw a maiden on a stream, And fair was she!

I stayed awhile, to see her throw Her tresses back, that all beset The fair horizon of her brow With clouds of jet.

I stayed a little while to view Her cheek, that wore, in place of red, The bloom of water, tender blue, Daintily spread.

I stayed to watch, a little space, Her parted lips if she would sing; The waters closed above her face With many a ring.

And still I stayed a little more: Alas, she never comes again! I throw my flowers from the shore, And watch in vain.

I know my life will fade away, I know that I must vainly pine, For I am made of mortal clay, But she's divine!

Thomas Hood [1799-1845]

"TRIPPING DOWN THE FIELD-PATH"

Tripping down the field-path, Early in the morn, There I met my own love 'Midst the golden corn; Autumn winds were blowing, As in frolic chase, All her silken ringlets Backward from her face; Little time for speaking Had she, for the wind, Bonnet, scarf, or ribbon, Ever swept behind.

Still some sweet improvement In her beauty shone; Every graceful movement Won me, - one by one! As the breath of Venus Seemed the breeze of morn, Blowing thus between us, 'Midst the golden corn. Little time for wooing Had we, for the wind Still kept on undoing What we sought to bind.

Oh! that autumn morning In my heart it beams, Love's last look adorning With its dream of dreams: Still, like waters flowing In the ocean shell, Sounds of breezes blowing In my spirit dwell; Still I see the field-path; - Would that I could see Her whose graceful beauty Lost is now to me!

Charles Swain [1801-1874]

LOVE NOT

Love not, love not, ye hapless sons of clay! Hope's gayest wreaths are made of earthly flowers - Things that are made to fade and fall away, When they have blossomed but a few short hours. Love not, love not!

Love not, love not! The thing you love may die - May perish from the gay and gladsome earth; The silent stars, the blue and smiling sky, Beam on its grave as once upon its birth. Love not, love not!

Love not, love not! The thing you love may change, The rosy lip may cease to smile on you; The kindly beaming eye grow cold and strange; The heart still warmly beat, yet not be true. Love not, love not!

Love not, love not! O warning vainly said In present years, as in the years gone by! Love flings a halo round the dear one's head, Faultless, immortal - till they change or die! Love not, love not!

Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton [1808-1877]

"A PLACE IN THY MEMORY"

A place in thy memory, Dearest! Is all that I claim: To pause and look back when thou hearest The sound of my name. Another may woo thee, nearer; Another may win and wear: I care not though he be dearer, If I am remembered there.

Remember me, not as a lover Whose hope was crossed, Whose bosom can never recover The light it hath lost! As the young bride remembers the mother She loves, though she never may see, As a sister remembers a brother, O Dearest, remember me!

Could I be thy true lover, Dearest! Couldst thou smile on me, I would be the fondest and nearest That ever loved thee: But a cloud on my pathway is glooming That never must burst upon thine; And heaven, that made thee all blooming, Ne'er made thee to wither on mine.

Remember me then! O remember My calm light love! Though bleak as the blasts of November My life may prove. That life will, though lonely, be sweet If its brightest enjoyment should be A smile and kind word when we meet, And a place in thy memory.

Gerald Griffin [1803-1840]

INCLUSIONS

Oh, wilt thou have my hand, Dear, to lie along in thine? As a little stone in a running stream, it seems to lie and pine. Now drop the poor pale hand, Dear, unfit to plight with thine.

Oh, wilt thou have my cheek, Dear, drawn closer to thine own? My cheek is white, my check is worn, by many a tear run down. Now leave a little space, Dear, lest it should wet thine own.

Oh, must thou have my soul, Dear, commingled with thy soul? - Red grows the cheek, and warm the hand; the part is in the whole; Nor hands nor cheeks keep separate, when soul is joined to soul.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning [1806-1861]

MARIANA Mariana in the moated grange. - Measure For Measure

With blackest moss the flower-plots Were thickly crusted, one and all: The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the pear to the gable-wall. The broken sheds looked sad and strange: Unlifted was the clinking latch; Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange. She only said, "My life is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!"

Her tears fell with the dews at even; Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide. After the flitting of the bats, When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her casement-curtain by, And glanced athwart the glooming flats. She only said, "The night is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!"

Upon the middle of the night, Waking she heard the night-fowl crow: The cock sung out an hour ere light: From the dark fen the oxen's low Came to her: without hope of change, In sleep she seemed to walk forlorn, Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn About the lonely moated grange. She only said, "The day is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!"

About a stone-cast from the wall A sluice with blackened waters slept, And o'er it many, round and small, The clustered marish-mosses crept. Hard by a poplar shook alway, All silver-green with gnarled bark: For leagues no other tree did mark The level waste, the rounding gray. She only said, "My life is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!"

And ever when the moon was low, And the shrill winds were up and away, In the white curtain, to and fro, She saw the gusty shadow sway. But when the moon was very low, And wild winds bound within their cell, The shadow of the poplar fell Upon her bed, across her brow. She only said, "The night is dreary He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!"