Cradle Song

FROM groves of spice,
O'er fields of rice,
Athwart the lotus-stream,
I bring for you,
Aglint with dew
A little lovely dream.


Sweet, shut your eyes,
The wild fire-fiies
Dance through the fairy neem;
From the poppy-bole
For you I stole
A little lovely dream.


Dear eyes, good-night,
In golden light
The stars around you gleam;
On you I press
With soft caress
A little lovely dream.


Courage

Carelessly over the plain away,
Where by the boldest man no path
Cut before thee thou canst discern,
Make for thyself a path!

Silence, loved one, my heart!
Cracking, let it not break!
Breaking, break not with thee!


Counterfeit

When you stay before my eyes
You make me feel your love is firm,
But out of sight how different you are!
How long does false gold shine?
Master of sweetness, I know your ways.
Your heart is counterfeit.
Your love is words.
Speech, love and humor
All are smooth
And only meant to tease
When you shed a girl,
Do you laugh?
Are your arrows always
Poisoned with honey?


Cornish Lullaby

Out on the mountain over the town,
All night long, all night long,
The trolls go up and the trolls go down,
Bearing their packs and crooning a song;
And this is the song the hill-folk croon,
As they trudge in the light of the misty moon,--
This is ever their dolorous tune:
"Gold, gold! ever more gold,--
Bright red gold for dearie!"

Deep in the hill the yeoman delves
All night long, all night long;
None but the peering, furtive elves
See his toil and hear his song;
Merrily ever the cavern rings


Coridon to his Phillis

Alas my hart, mine eye hath wrongèd thee,
Presumptious eye, to gaze on Phillis face:
Whose heavenly eye no mortall man may see
But he must die, or purchase Phillis grace.
Poor Coridon, the Nimph whose eye doth moove thee,
Dooth love to draw, but is not drawne to love thee.


Her beautie, Nature's pride, and sheepheards praise,
Her eye, the heavenly Planet of my life:
Her matchlesse wit and grace, her fame displaies,
As if that love had made her for his wife.
Onely, her eyes shoote fierie darts to kill,


Come With The Summer Leaves

Come with the summer leaves, love, to my grave,
And, if you doubt among the quiet dead,
Choose out that mound where greenest grasses wave
And where the flowers grow thickest and most red.

Come in the morning while the dews of night,
Which are fair Nature's tears in darkness shed,
Rim the sad petals nor are garnered quite,
Like my lost hopes untimely harvested.

Come to my grave--ah gather, love, those flowers!
Out of my heart they grow for your dear head.
These are its songs unwritten and all yours,


Conjugal Love of Sita and Rama

Spontaneous is the flow of River
to mingle with Sea, her own lover.
She firmly crosses pass and rock
that appear on the way to block.

With Sea, when she enjoys union,
her all previous pains plunge into oblivion.
Between the lives of the two thence
really remains not a jot of difference.

Perchance piercing up in the mid,
any huge mound of sands there
if raises high
and severs the hearts of the loving pair,
River cannot die.
Burthen of her life she bears indeed


Confined Love

Some man unworthy to be possessor
Of old or new love, himself being false or weak,
Thought his pain and shame would be lesser
If on womankind he might his anger wreak,
And thence a law did grow,
One might but one man know;
But are other creatures so?

Are Sun, Moon, or Stars by law forbidden
To smile where they list, or lend away their light?
Are birds divorced, or are they chidden
If they leave their mate, or lie abroad a-night?
Beasts do no jointures lose
Though they new lovers choose,


Complaint of a Lover that Defied Love


WHEN Summer took in hand the winter to assail,
With force of might, and virtue great, his stormy blasts to quail :
And when he clothed fair the earth about with green,
And every tree new garmented, that pleasure was to seen :
Mine heart gan new revive, and changed blood did stir,
Me to withdraw my winter woes, that kept within the dore. 1
'Abroad,' quoth my desire, 'assay to set thy foot ;
Where thou shalt find the savour sweet ; for sprung is every root.
And to thy health, if thou were sick in any case,


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