A Leave-Taking

The heavy gang-chains clatter, and the boat
Groans grievously like to some stricken knight,
A sudden yearning rises in my throat,
And unshed tears half veil you from my sight.

Your love was like an incense-bearing vase
That I have shattered, playing carelessly,
Seeing that dearer than my Lady's grace
The lay of sainted poets was to me.

As we have loved, so let us part from love,
And I shall walk into the outer night
Singing, at heart the sweet remembrance of
Those violet-scented hours of delight.

Love Cruel

Right true it is that once love's bacchanal
Had spent itself, and the devouring sea
Of passion slept, that unrelentingly
I heaped upon you bitterness, and all
That sears the heart and kills it, yea the gall
Poured down your throat, until you looked at me
With sad wan smile that was a silent plea,
Craving deliverance from the cruel thrall.

Right true it is I harass you with fears,
With sudden mood, indifference, sharp surprise:
I love you best. O sweetest, when the tears
Moisten the perfect crystal of your eyes,

Resurrection

A WAY , away, ghost of my dead desire,
Stir not again the ashes in my breast,
Of all my loves I had made one great fire,
And burned thine image even as the rest!

Now from his grave Love casts the covering,
And once again there rises through the night,
Like sudden water from a perished spring,
The murdered music of my slain delight!

Part 1

“I love the winter violet blue,”
The child said to her mother,
“With its sweet scent and purple hue,
It blossoms through the rain and snow,
And never heeds what wind may blow,
Sure earth has no such other.”
And she made answer quietly,
That lady beautiful to see,
Bending the child above,
“The likest thing in all the earth
To that sweet flowret's modest worth,
Is pure unselfish love.”

And her eyes shone with double light
Through the long silken fringe,
Around their lids so shrunk and white,


Twice Lovely

Chalk-white, light dazzled on the stone,
And there a weed, a finger high,
Bowed its silvery head with every
Breath of wind that faltered by.

Twice lovely thing! For when there drifted
A cloud across the radiant sun,
Not only that had it forsaken,
Its tiny shadow too was gone.

My beloved spake, and said unto me

My beloved spake, and said unto me,
Rise up, my love, my fair one and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone;
the flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing of birds is come,
and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
the fig tree putteth forth her green figs,
and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

Sorrows and Joys

Bury thy sorrows, and they shall rise
As souls to the immortal skies,
And there look down like mothers' eyes.

But let thy joys be fresh as flowers,
That suck the honey of the showers,
And bloom alike on huts and towers.

So shall thy days be sweet and bright;
Solemn and sweet thy starry night,
Conscious of love each change of light.

The stars will watch the flowers asleep,
The flowers will feel the soft stars weep,
And both will mix sensations deep.

With these below, with those above,

Her Father

I met her, as we had privily planned,
Where passing feet beat busily:
She whispered: ‘Father is at hand!
He wished to walk with me.’

His presence as he joined us there
Banished our words of warmth away;
We felt, with cloudings of despair,
What Love must lose that day.

Her crimson lips remained unkissed,
Our fingers kept no tender hold,
His lack of feeling made the tryst
Embarrassed, stiff, and cold.

A cynic ghost then rose and said,
‘But is his love for her so small

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