love poem

I was reading a letter of yours to-day,
The date--O a thousand years ago!
The postmark is there--the month was May:
How, in God's name, did I let you go?
What wonderful things for a girl to say!
And to think that I hadn't the sense to know--
What wonderful things for a man to hear!
O still beloved, O still most dear.

"Duty" I called it, and hugged the word
Close to my side, like a shirt of hair;
You laughed, I remember, laughed like a bird,
And somehow I thought that you didn't care.

Had I the gold that some so vainly spend,
For my lost loves a temple would I raise,
A shrine for each dear name: there should ascend
Incense for ever, and hymns of golden praise;
And I would live the remnant of my days,
Where hallowed windows cast their painted gleams,
At prayer before each consecrated face,
Kneeling within that cloister of old dreams.

And each fair altar, like a priest, I'd tend,
Trimming the tapers to a constant blaze,
And to each lovely and beloved friend

The human heart will never change,
The human dream will still go on,
The enchanted earth be ever strange
With moonlight and the morning sun,
And still the seas shall shout for joy,
And swing the stars as in a glass,
The girl be angel for the boy,
The lad be hero for the lass.

The fashions of our mortal brains
New names for dead men's thoughts shall give,
But we find not for all our pains
Why 'tis so wonderful to live;
The beauty of a meadow-flower
Shall make a mock of all our skill,

I am too proud of loving thee, too proud
Of the sweet months and years that now have end,
To feign a heart indifferent to this loss,
Too thankful-happy that the gods allowed
Our orbits cross,
Beloved and lovely friend;
And though I wend
Lonely henceforth along a road grown gray,
I shall not be all lonely on the way,
Companioned with the attar of thy rose,
Though in my garden it no longer blows.

Thou canst not give elsewhere thy gifts to me,
Or only seem to give;
Yea, not so fugitive

Shadows! the only shadows that I know
Are happy shadows of the light of you,
The radiance immortal shining through
Your sea-deep eyes up from the soul below;
Your shadow, like a rose's, on the grass
Where your feet pass.

The shadow of the dimple in your chin,
The shadow of the lashes of your eyes,
As on your cheek, soft as a moth, it lies;
And, as a church, I softly enter in
The solemn twilight of your mighty hair,
Down falling there.

These are Love's shadows, Love knows none but these:

Thou shall not me persuade
This love of ours
Can in a moment fade,
Like summer flowers;

That a swift word or two,
In angry haste,
Our heaven shall undo,
Our hearts lay waste.

For a poor flash of pride,
A cold word spoken,
Love shall not be denied,
Or long troth broken.

Yea; wilt thou not relent?
Be mine the wrong,
No more the argument,
Dear love, prolong.

The summer days go by,
Cease that sweet rain,
Those angry crystals dry,
Be friends again.

I will walk down to the valley
And lay my head in her breast,
Where are two white doves,
The Queen of Love's,
In a silken nest;
And, all the afternoon,
They croon and croon
The one word "Rest!"
And a little stream
That runs thereby
Sings "Dream!"
Over and over
It sings--
"O lover,
Dream!"

You often ask me, love, how much I love you,
Bidding my fancy find
An answer to your mind;
I say: "Past count, as there are stars above you."
You shake your head and say,
"Many and bright are they,
But that is not enough."

Again I try:
"If all the leaves on all the trees
Were counted over,
And all the waves on all the seas,
More times your lover,
Yea! more than twice ten thousand times am I."
"'Tis not enough," again you make reply.

"How many blades of grass," one day I said,

Deem not my love is only for the bloom,
The honey and the marble, that is You;
Tis so, Belovéd, common loves consume
Their treasury, and vanish like the dew.
Nay, but my love's a thing that's far more true;
For little loves a little hour hath room,
But not for us their brief and trivial doom,
In a far richer soil our loving grew,
From deeper wells of being it upsprings;
Nor shall the wildest kiss that makes one mouth,
Draining all nectar from the flowered world,
Slake its divine unfathomable drouth;

I.

Oh, fair apple tree, and oh, fair apple tree,
As heavy and sweet as the blossoms on thee,
My heart is heavy with love.
It wanteth but a little wind
To make the blossoms fall;
It wanteth but a young lover
To win me heart and all.

II.

I send my love letters
By larks on the wing;
My love sends me letters
When nightingales sing.

Without reading or writing,
Their burden we know:
They only say, "Love me,
Who love you so."

III.

And if they ask for me, brother,