Love's Alchemy

Some that have deeper digged love's mine than I
Say, where his centric happiness doth lie:
I have loved, and got, and told,
But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,
I should not find that hidden mystery;
Oh, 'tis imposture all:
And as no chemic yet the elixir got
But glorifies his pregnant pot,
If by the way to him befall
Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,
So, lovers dream a rich and long delight,
But get a winter-seeming summer's night.

Our ease, our thrift, our honor, and our day,

To a Kiss

Soft child of love, thou balmy bliss,
Inform me, O delicious kiss,
Why thou so suddenly art gone,
Lost in the moment thou art won?

Yet go! For wherefore should I sigh?
On Delia's lips, with raptured eye,
On Delia's blushing lips I see
A thousand full as sweet as thee.

So Sweet Love Seemed

So sweet love seemed that April morn,
When first we kissed beside the thorn,
So strangely sweet, it was not strange
We thought that love could never change.

But I can tell — let truth be told —
That love will change in growing old;
Though day by day is nought to see,
So delicate his motions be.

And in the end 'twill come to pass
Quite to forget what once he was,
Nor even in fancy to recall
The pleasure that was all in all.

His little spring, that sweet we found,

The Firstborn

So fair, so dear, so warm upon my bosom,
And in my hands the little rosy feet.
Sleep on, my little bird, my lamb, my blossom;
Sleep on, sleep on, my sweet.

What is it God hath given me to cherish,
This living, moving wonder which is mine —
Mine only? Leave it with me or I perish,
Dear Lord of love divine.

Dear Lord, 'tis wonderful beyond all wonder,
This tender miracle vouchsafed to me,
One with myself, yet just so far asunder
That I myself may see.

Flesh of my flesh, and yet so subtly linking

Show Me More Love

SHOW me more love, my dearest Lord ;
Oh turn away Thy clouded face,
Give me some secret look or word
That may betoken love and grace;
No day or time is black to me
But that wherein I see not Thee.
Show me more love: a clouded face
Strikes deeper than an angry blow;
Love me and kill me by Thy grace,
I shall not much bewail my woe.
But even to be
In heaven unloved of Thee,
Were hell in heaven for to see.
Then hear my cry and help afford:
Show me more love, my dearest Lord !

April

She trips across the meadows,
The weird, capricious elf!
The buds unfold their perfumed cups
For love of her sweet self;
And silver-throated birds begin to tune their lyres,
While wind-harps lend their strains to Nature's magic choirs.

Spirit of Sadness

She loved the Autumn, I the Spring,
Sad all the songs she loved to sing;
And in her face was strangely set
Some great inherited regret.

Some look in all things made her sigh,
Yea! sad to her the morning sky:
" So sad! so sad its beauty seems " —
I hear her say it still in dreams.

But when the day grew gray and old,
And rising stars shone strange and cold,
Then only in her face I saw
A mystic glee, a joyous awe.

Spirit of Sadness, in the spheres
Is there an end of mortal tears?

Of Disdainful Daphne

Shall I say that I love you,
Daphne disdainful?
Sore it costs as I prove you,
Loving is painful.

Shall I say what doth grieve me?
Lovers lament it.
Daphne will not relieve me;
Late I repent it.

Shall I die, shall I perish,
Through her unkindness?
Love, untaught love to cherish,
Showeth his blindness.

Shall the hills, shall the valleys,
The fields, the city,
With the sound of my outcries,
Move her to pity?

The deep falls of fair rivers
And the winds turning

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