Song

Where did you borrow that last sigh,
—And that relenting groan?
For those that sigh, and not for love,
—Usurp what 's not their own.
Love's arrows sooner armour pierce
—Than your soft snowy skin;
Your eyes can only teach us love,
—But cannot take it in.

Where did you borrow that last sigh,
—And that relenting groan?
For those that sigh, and not for love,
—Usurp what 's not their own.
Love's arrows sooner armour pierce
—Than your soft snowy skin;
Your eyes can only teach us love,

Conquistador

Who dares to say I am untrue to Spain
Loving this barren land, loving this plain
Scarlet as blood or white as sun-bleached bones,
Loving these flat-roofed mountains and these stones
Round with spring waters where now the bed gapes dry,
Loving these rainbowed storms, this turquoise sky,
Yes, even these Indians in their high mud towns
For all their sacred meal and feathered crowns?
Some of you seek for souls and some for gold
And some for lands that you may seize and hold,
But all is mine on which I set my eyes,

My Little Love

When my little love at purple dusk,
Trips out upon the lawn among the flowers,
The blushing roses quiver in their musk,
Love-smitten through: the feathery, fragrant showers
Of snow-white blossoms drift upon the grass,
Kissing her whispering footsteps as they pass.

When my little love at evening's hush,
Goes dancing down the dell with laugh and song,
The slumbering echoes waken, and a gush
Of silvery voices greet her, and along
The dewy clusters of the trailing vines
In music mingles, murmurs, and repines.

How Little Seem the Joys and Fears

How little seem the joys and fears
We shun or chase!
How foolish seem our fevered years
Of smiles and tears,
Beside the music of the spheres
And the high harmonies of Space!

Natheless the spinning dædal world,
Floats in the current of our veins;
Within our souls the stars are whirled;
We breed the planets in our brains.
From us all Being has its birth,
Of all things is our being spun;
In us are Heaven, and Hell, and Earth,
And every star, and every sun.

When hair of gold
Turns hair of grey;

The Two Loves

Smoothing soft the nestling head
Of a maiden fancy-led,
Thus a grave-eyed woman said:

“Richest gifts are those we make,
Dearer than the love we take
That we give for love's own sake.

“Well I know the heart's unrest;
Mine has been the common quest,
To be loved and therefore blest.

“Favors undeserved were mine;
At my feet as on a shrine
Love has laid its gifts divine.

“Sweet the offerings seemed, and yet
With their sweetness came regret,
And a sense of unpaid debt.

Never Farewell to Thee!

Never farewell. Though all life changes round about us,
Never farewell to thee!
The summers smile and pass. The new spring days without us
Win the same ecstasy.

Life deepens into death, and death brings new life bearing
New gifts that time may take.
Leaf saith to leaf farewell, and flower to flower despairing:—
Flower-hearts and men's hearts break.

Death seems to rule, and pain with foot alert and deadly
Treads through the ill-fated throng.
The world seems just one waste, one sorrowful vast medley

To a Tear

There is a beauty upon womans face
When smiles in sunny rapture domineers
There is on beautys cheek a winning grace
When clouded with the eloquence of tears
Sweet gem of artless loves sincerity
Womans bright eye is thy enthroning place
To mourn & sigh is every harlots forgery
But womans tears like dew down roses stealing
Are the souls essence—its most deepest feeling
That words cant utter may be read in thee
Clear looking glass of the unfolded heart
Its undissembled purity to prove

And Men Shall Kill That Which They Love

“A ND men shall kill that which they love!'
Alas! that I should prove
This sorry truth!
I, in whose eager youth,
Myself did dedicate
To true love's high estate,—
That I should bring such dread and dire fate
Upon that, which to me
Stood with the Deity!

Yours was a spirit that had never quailed,
No matter how assailed,
Yours was a heart
That would have borne the dart
Of each indignity
That had not come from me,
Nor bowed a vanquished head.
But now I see
That spirit faint and dead,

The Yellowbird

Upon the unmown grass at noon
I lay as in a dreamy swoon,
All in a lovely rhapsody,
And seeing pictures in the sky.
The little clouds above me spread
Put out white fingers overhead,
And hand in hand a space would run
Before they melted into one.
The Honeysuckle told the breeze
The very sweetest thing she knew,
And this he whispered to the trees,
Then to my side the wanton flew,
With sportive waft stole gently by,
And turned the clover heads awry.

It was the latter August time;

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