When every spur of whin's a spike of ice,
Each grassy tussock bristling blades of steel,
Each withered bracken-frond a rare device
Of sparkling crystal crackling under-heel
With brittle tinkling, then it is the time,
O Love, to leave the chilly hearth and climb
The sunlit Beacon, where the live airs blow
Along the clean wave-edge of drifted snow.

Love, let us go
And scale the ridge: I long to see you there
Breathing the eager air
With cheeks aglow,
The sunlight on your hair:
O Love, I long to share

Suppose the stars
Fall and break? — Do they ever sound
Like my own love song?

After Hadewijch of Anvers, thirteenth century

If your days swirled to chaos, wouldn't you turn
to someone on whose shoulder you could weep?
St. Paul says it's better to marry than to burn.
Wouldn't you choose the solace of escape
into the brief banquet of tenderness?
My widowed minister, with three motherless
children; my dear, whom my friends think is odd
(some even think my Calvin may be mad):

What is gentlest in love is love's violence.
Losing yourself in love, you reach love's goal.
Love makes you suffer, as love makes you whole.

Thomas Edison loved a doll
with a tiny phonograph inside
because he made her speak.

Is there any other reason
to love a woman? Did she say
the ghost of my conception.

or something equally demure?
It's hard to be sure how he feels
when he holds me, I fall apart.

I'm projecting here. He didn't feel
her first transgression
was in having no expression.

Rene Descartes, too, traveled alone
with a doll-in-a-box
he called his daughter. Francine ,

Francine ...is it better to be silent
and wait for everything

O Thou whose boundless love bestows
The joy of life, the hope of Heaven;
Thou whose unchartered mercy flows
O'er all the blessings Thou hast given;
Thou by whose light alone we see;
Thou by whose truth our souls set free
Are made imperishably strong;
Hear Thou the solemn music of our song.

Grant us the knowledge that we need
To solve the questions of the mind;
Light Thou our candle while we read,
And keep our hearts from going blind;
Enlarge our vision to behold
The wonders Thou hast wrought of old;

Years are coming, years are going, creeds may change and pass away,
But the power of love is growing stronger, surer, day by day,
Be ye as the light of morning, like the beauteous dawn unfold,
With your radiant lives adorning all the world in hues of gold.
Selfish claims will soon no longer raise their harsh, discordant sounds,
For the law of love will conquer, bursting hatred's narrow bounds;
Human love will spread a glory filling men with gladsome mirth,
Songs of joy proclaim the story of a fair, transfigured earth.

Domestic love sits brooding o'er th' hearth,
Like the fair cushat o'er the forest-boughs;
And happiness unto thy home is bound
Close as the fragrance to the summer rose:
For woman's angel purity is there,
And woman's hand so soft and face so fair,
And woman's heart of love, and voice of song
Soft as the linnet's hedgerow leaves among.
This heart so glad with thee in moments past,
Can wish for thee no better than thou hast:
But in this silent hour, when earth is gray,

To ward off Time's abuses
The name is set above,
By one who loves the Muses,
Of one the Muses love.

All night under the moon
Plovers are flying
Over the dreaming meadows of silvery light,
Over the meadows of June
Flying and crying —
Wandering voices of love in the hush of the night.

All night under the moon
Love, though we're lying
Quietly under the thatch, in the silvery light
Over the meadows of June
Together we're flying —
Rapturous voices of love in the hush of the night.

Among the windy spaces
The star-buds grow to light;
With pale and weeping faces
The day-hours bow to night;
Where down the gusty valleys
A blast of thunder dies,
And in the forest alleys
A startled night-bird cries.

Not pain but bitter pleasure
Surrounds my spirit here,
For life's supernal treasure
Is garlanded with fear;
Bright trees delight the garden
About my love's glad home,
But all the flower-roots harden
Under the frost of doom.

Like the bright stars above me
My youthful hopes were set!