The Wind

Cometh the Wind from the garden, fragrant and full of sweet singing--
Under my tree where I sit cometh the Wind to confession.

"Out in the garden abides the Queen of the beautiful Roses--
Her do I love and to-night wooed her with passionate singing;
Told I my love in those songs, and answer she gave in her blushes--
She shall be bride of the Wind, and she is the Queen of the Roses!"

"Wind, there is spice in thy breath; thy rapture hath fragrance Sabaean!"

"Straight from my wooing I come--my lips are bedewed with her kisses--

The Passionate Professor

"But bending low, I whisper only this:
'Love, it is night.'"
--HARRY THURSTON PECK.


Love, it is night. The orb of day
Has gone to hit the cosmic hay.
Nocturnal voices now we hear.
Come, heart's delight, the hour is near
When Passion's mandate we obey.

I would not, sweet, the fact convey
In any crude and obvious way:
I merely whisper in your ear--
"Love, it is night!"

Candor compels me, pet, to say
That years my fading charms betray.

Rhymes On The Road: Extract XI. No--'tis not the region where Love's to be found.

Florence.


No--'tis not the region where Love's to be found--
They have bosoms that sigh, they have glances that rove,
They have language a Sappho's own lip might resound,
When she warbled her best--but they've nothing like Love.

Nor is't that pure sentiment only they want,
Which Heaven for the mild and the tranquil hath made--
Calm, wedded affection, that home-rooted plant
Which sweetens seclusion and smiles in the shade;

That feeling which, after long years have gone by,

Come, Play Me That Simple Air Again. A Ballad.

Come, play me that simple air again,
I used so to love, in life's young day,
And bring, if thou canst, the dreams that then
Were wakened by that sweet lay
The tender gloom its strain
Shed o'er the heart and brow
Grief's shadow without its pain--
Say where, where is it now?
But play me the well-known air once more,
For thoughts of youth still haunt its strain
Like dreams of some far, fairy shore
We never shall see again.

Sweet air, how every note brings back

Love And Hymen.

Love had a fever--ne'er could close
His little eyes till day was breaking;
And wild and strange enough, Heaven knows,
The things he raved about while waking.

To let him pine so were a sin;--
One to whom all the world's a debtor--
So Doctor Hymen was called in,
And Love that night slept rather better.

Next day the case gave further hope yet,
Tho' still some ugly fever latent;--
"Dose, as before"--a gentle opiate.
For which old Hymen has a patent.

After a month of daily call,

Translations From Catullus: Carm.II.

pauca nunciate meae puellae.


Comrades and friends! with whom, where'er
The fates have willed thro' life I've roved,
Now speed ye home, and with you bear
These bitter words to her I've loved.

Tell her from fool to fool to run,
Where'er her vain caprice may call;
Of all her dupes not loving one,
But ruining and maddening all.

Bid her forget--what now is past--
Our once dear love, whose rain lies
Like a fair flower, the meadow's last.
Which feels the ploughshare's edge and dies!

Then First From Love.

Then first from Love, in Nature's bowers,
Did Painting learn her fairy skill,
And cull the hues of loveliest flowers,
To picture woman lovelier still.
For vain was every radiant hue,
Till Passion lent a soul to art,
And taught the painter, ere he drew,
To fix the model in his heart.

Thus smooth his toil awhile went on,
Till, lo, one touch his art defies;
The brow, the lip, the blushes shone,
But who could dare to paint those eyes?
'Twas all in vain the painter strove;
So turning to that boy divine,

When Love, Who Ruled.

When Love, who ruled as Admiral o'er
Has rosy mother's isles of light,
Was cruising off the Paphian shore,
A sail at sunset hove in sight.
"A chase, a chase! my Cupids all,"
Said Love, the little Admiral.

Aloft the winged sailors sprung,
And, swarming up the mast like bees,
The snow-white sails expanding flung,
Like broad magnolias to the breeze.
"Yo ho, yo ho, my Cupids all!"
Said Love, the little Admiral.

The chase was o'er--the bark was caught,
The winged crew her freight explored;

Guess, Guess.

I love a maid, a mystic maid,
Whose form no eyes but mine can see;
She comes in light, she comes in shade,
And beautiful in both is she.
Her shape in dreams I oft behold,
And oft she whispers in my ear
Such words as when to others told,
Awake the sigh, or wring the tear;
Then guess, guess, who she,
The lady of my love, may be.

I find the lustre of her brow,
Come o'er me in my darkest ways;
And feel as if her voice, even now,
Were echoing far off my lays.
There is no scene of joy or woe

Unbind Thee, Love.

Unbind thee, love, unbind thee, love,
From those dark ties unbind thee;
Tho' fairest hand the chain hath wove,
Too long its links have twined thee.
Away from earth!--thy wings were made
In yon mid-sky to hover,
With earth beneath their dove-like shade,
And heaven all radiant over.

Awake thee, boy, awake thee, boy,
Too long thy soul is sleeping;
And thou mayst from this minute's joy
Wake to eternal weeping.
Oh, think, this world is not for thee;
Tho' hard its links to sever;

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