love poem

If this be love, to draw a weary breath,
To paint on floods till the shore cry to th'air;
With downward looks, still reading on the earth
The sad memorials of my love's despair:
If this be love, to war against my soul,
Lie down to wail, rise up to sigh and grieve,
The never-resting stone of care to roll,
Still to complain my griefs whilst none relieve:

If this be love, to clothe me with dark thoughts,
Haunting untrodden paths to wail apart;
My pleasures horror, music tragic notes,
Tears in mine eyes and sorrow at my heart.

How still she was! She only knew
His love. She saw no life beyond.
She loved with love that only lives
Outside itself and selfishness,—
A love that glows in its excess;
A love that melts pure gold, and gives
Thenceforth to all who come to woo
No coins but this face stamped thereon,—
Ay, this one image stamped upon
Pure gold, with some dim date long gone.

It was frosty winter-season,
And fair Flora's wealth was geason.
Meads that erst with green were spread,
With choice flowers diaper'd,
Had tawny veils; cold had scanted
What the springs and nature planted.
Leafless boughs there might you see,
All except fair Daphne's tree;
On their twigs no birds perch'd,
Warmer coverts now they search'd;
And by nature's secret reason.
Fram'd their voices to the season,
With their feeble tunes bewraying,
How they griev'd the spring's decaying.
Frosty winter thus had gloom'd

Sitting by a river side,
Where a silent stream did glide,
Muse I did of many things,
That the mind in quiet brings.
I gan think how some men deem
Gold their god, and some esteem
Honour is the chief content,
That to man in life is lent;
And some others do contend,
Quiet none, like to a friend.
Others hold, there is no wealth
Compared to a perfect health;
Some man's mind in quiet stands,
When he is lord of many lands.
But I did sigh, and said all this
Was but a shade of perfect bliss.

Product of reason and of faith combin'd,
The life, the health, the beauty of the mind;
God's image on an human soul imprest,
The source of joy, and glory of the blest;
That makes 'em lovely, and that makes 'em love,
Brings heaven to earth, and forms their heaven above:
O how I do thy god-like charms admire!
O how I to thy god-like joys aspire!

I 've a letter from mother today, boys,
A letter of love untold,
Tho' t'was hard to read all the words, boys,
For the dear eyes are dim and old;
Ah! sometimes, boys, when I read, I fear
My eyes grow dim, for I felt the tears
Springing up like rain from the words so clear,
For she said, she said she was praying for me.
Mother said she was praying for me, boys,
She said that she loved me still,
And she asked was I true to my words, boys,
All my promises to fulfill;
I promised, boys, when I said good-by,

Loved, on a sudden thou didst come to me
On our own doorstep, still I see thee stand
In thy bleared welcome, with the grim command
From Heaven that we must sever presently;
And no farewell was in the misery …
So you condemned me; did not understand
O lovely and gay-coloured tulip-land,
I would not break on thee my wrathful sea;
Back to the flood-gates, firm to my defence—
So hard, as thou complainest, so apart;
But had I not held tight from thee my sense,
My memory, my will against my heart,

What shall we do now, Mary being dead,
Or say or write that shall express the half?
What can we do but pillow that fair head,
And let the Spring-time write her epitaph!—

As it will soon, in snowdrop, violet,
Wind-flower and columbine and maiden's tear;
Each letter of that pretty alphabet,
That spells in flowers the pageant of the year.

She was a maiden for a man to love;
She was a woman for a husband's life;
One that has learned to value, far above
The name of love, the sacred name of wife.

I am that Adam who, with Snake for guest,
Hid anguished eyes upon Eve's piteous breast.
I am that Adam who, with broken wings,
Fled from the Seraph's brazen trumpetings.
Betrayed and fugitive, I still must roam
A world where sin, and beauty, whisper of Home.

Oh, from wide circuit, shall at length I see
Pure daybreak lighten again on Eden's tree?
Loosed from remorse and hope and love's distress,
Enrobe me again in my lost nakedness?
No more with wordless grief a loved one grieve,
But to Heaven's nothingness re-welcome Eve?

I HAVE ransacked the encyclopedias
And slid my fingers among topics and titles
Looking for you.

And the answer comes slow.
There seems to be no answer.

I shall ask the next banana peddler the who and the why of it.

Or—the iceman with his iron tongs gripping a clear cube in summer sunlight—maybe he will know.