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Perhaps you think me stooping
I'm not ashamed of that
Christ—stooped until He touched the Grave—
Do those at Sacrament
Commemorative Dishonor
Or love annealed of love
Until it bend as low as Death
Redignified, above?
I love him so, this creature I pray
was treated kindly. I will pay
as much as pig-lovers see fit
to guarantee him that. As for his fat,
I’d give up years yes years of my
own life for such
a gulpable semblable.
(My life! Such as it is! This
liberality of leaves! The world
won’t need those seventeen more
poems, after all, there being
so few subjects to be treated. Three
if by subject we mean anyone
submitted to another’s
will. Two if by subject we mean
IN the merry month of May,
In a morn by break of day,
Forth I walk'd by the wood-side
When as May was in his pride:
There I spied all alone
Phillida and Coridon.
Much ado there was, God wot!
He would love and she would not.
She said, Never man was true;
He said, None was false to you.
He said, He had loved her long;
She said, Love should have no wrong.
Coridon would kiss her then;
She said, Maids must kiss no men
Till they did for good and all;
Then she made the shepherd call
(from "The Sprightly Pilgrim")
I sat and read Anacreon.
Moved by the gay, delicious measure
I mused that lips were made for love,
And love to charm a poet's leisure.
And as I mused a maid came by
With something in her look that caught me.
Forgotten was Anacreon's line,
But not the lesson he had taught me.
ALL my life I have loved where I was not loved,
And always those whom I did not love loved me;
Only the God who made my wild heart knows
Why this should be.
Oh, I am strange, inscrutable, and proud;
You cannot prove me though you try and try.
I'll keep your love alive and wondering
Until you die.
I am a pagan and a worshiper of love: the creed (of Muslims) I do not need;
Every vein of mine has become taunt like a wire,
the (Brahman's) girdle I do not need.
Leave from my bedside, you ignorant physician!
The only cure for the patient of love is the sight of his beloved -
other than this no medicine does he need.
If there be no pilot in our boat, let there be none:
We have god in our midst: the sea we do not need.
The people of the world say that Khusrau worships idols.
Beloved, those who moan of love's brief day
Shall find but little grace with me, I guess,
Who know too well this passion's tenderness
To deem that it shall lightly pass away,
A moment's interlude in life's dull play;
Though many loves have lingered to distress,
So shall not ours, sweet Lady, ne'ertheless,
But deepen with us till both heads be grey.
For perfect love is like a fair green plant,
That fades not with its blossoms, but lives on,
And gentle lovers shall not come to want,
How can a moonless night
Offer anything to the full moon?
Why would a camel leave the desert,
For the ocean?
Tell me, how can the henna of good fortune
Color a hand,
If fate crushes pepper leaves
Upon ones palm?
Grief, like a cataract
Descended right into my eyes.
It is a terrible journey thru the valley of love
How can I live my life like this?
Who takes care
Of acacia flowers?
Does the gardener prune
A jujube bush?
My songs have turned bitter
Love, like a wind, shook wide your blosmy eyes,
You trembled, and your breath came sobbing-wise
For that you loved me.
You were so kind, so sweet, none could withhold
To adore, but that you were so strange, so cold;
For that you loved me.
Like to a box of spikenard did you break
Your heart about my feet. What words you spake!
For that you loved me.
Life fell to dust without me; so you tried
All carefullest ways to drive me from your side,
For that you loved me.
He. Dear, I must be gone
While night Shuts the eyes
Of the household spies;
That song announces dawn.
She. No, night's bird and love's
Bids all true lovers rest,
While his loud song reproves
The murderous stealth of day.
He. Daylight already flies
From mountain crest to crest
She. That light is from the moon.
He. That bird...
She. Let him sing on,
I offer to love's play
My dark declivities.
