O Come, loved Spirit, come to me!

O come, loved Spirit, come to me!
My heart, my heart, invoketh thee.
Though dark and cheerless broods my night,
Thy presence fills it all with light.

O come, loved Spirit, gently come!
O make beside my heart thy home!
Look on me with endearing smile,—
That look shall all my woes beguile.

O be thou ever, ever nigh!
Bend on me thy complacent eye:
Then shall my heart swell up to thee,
My soul be large, my spirit free.

Bear me away, through sun and star,
To worlds of softest light afar:

Kisses

The kiss of friendship, kind and calm,
May fall upon the brow like balm;
A deeper tenderness may speak
In precious pledges on the cheek;
Thrice dear may be, when young lips meet,
Love's dewy pressure, close and sweet;—
But more than all the rest I prize
The faithful lips that kiss my eyes.

Smile, lady, smile, when courtly lips
Touch reverently your finger-tips;
Blush, happy maiden, when you feel
The lips which press love's glowing seal;
But as the slow years darklier roll,
Grown wiser, the experienced soul

Marriage

Going my way of old
Contented more or less
I dreamt not life could hold
Such happiness.

I dreamt not that love's way
Could keep the golden height
Day after happy day,
Night after night.

A Spirit of Love, with Love's intelligence

A SPIRIT of Love, with Love's intelligence,
Maketh his sojourn alway in my breast,
Maintaining me in perfect joy and rest;
Nor could I live an hour, were he gone thence:
Through whom my love hath such full permanence
That thereby other loves seem dispossess'd.
I have no pain, nor am with sighs oppress'd,
So calm is the benignant influence.
Because this spirit of Love, who speaks to me
Of my dear lady's tenderness and worth,
Says: ‘More than thus to love her seek thou not,
Even as she loves thee in her wedded thought;

Balm in Gilead

Heartsease I found, where Love-lies-bleeding
Empurpled all the ground:
Whatever flowers I missed unheeding,
Heartsease I found.

Yet still my garden mound
Stood sore in need of watering, weeding,
And binding growths unbound.

Ah, when shades fell to light succeeding
I scarcely dared look round:
“Love-lies-bleeding” was all my pleading,
Heartsease I found.

O! And I forsooth in love!

O! And I forsooth in love!
I, that have been love's whip;
A very beadle to a humorous sigh;
A critic, nay, a night-watch constable,
A domineering pedant o'er the boy,
Than whom no mortal so magnificent!
This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,
This signor junior, giant-dwarf, dan Cupid;
Regent of love rhymes, lord of folded arms,
The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,
Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,
Sole imperator and great general

The Dear Spot

The spot where I, upon my winding way,
That maiden met, in beauty's mould designed,
Who, passing swiftly as the hasty wind,
Gave me such bliss as beauteous looks convey;
Gladly to that loved spot I fain would stray,
There carve love-emblems on the tree's fair rind,
With fairest wreathèd flowers my temples bind,
And in cool shade—to dream—my body lay.
But so her glances bright confused my mind,
So was I blinded by her beauteous face,
That long I tottered like a drunken man;
And now, tho' strive my thoughts the best they can,

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