How shall I sing of Her that is
My life's long rapture and despair —
Sorrow eternal — Loveliness,
To whom each heart-beat is a prayer!

Utterly, endlessly, alone
Possessing me, yet unpossessed —
The dark, the drear beloved One
That takes the tribute of this breast:

Daemon disconsolate, in vain,
In vain petitioned and implored —
How many a midnight of disdain
Darkly and dreadfully adored!

Beauty, the virgin, evermore
Out of these arms with laughter fled —
Vanished — a voice by slope and shore

The baffled dreamer, the defeated Christ
That for your love upon the cross-tree hung —
O take Him to your bosom, give Him rest
Close at the wanton wonder of your breast,
O carnal World, forever well and young!

As when in blustring, thund'ring, wintry days,
The bully Boreas on his bagpipe plays;
When old Aquarius ducks this earthly ball,
And empties on our heads his urinal;
When rumbling clouds on grumbling clouds do dash,
And 'midst the flashing lightnings lightnings flash;
Hogs, dogs, and men, perceive the troubled sky,
Hogs, dogs, and men, away for shelter fly;
While all around, the black, dark, gloomy scene
Looks grey, looks white, looks red, looks blue, looks green;
So green, so blue, so red, so grey, so white,

O Love, let the world for once go by,
With its danger-signals & warning cry,
Or else let us dream it was swung in space
Just that we two might stand face to face,
Soul within soul, as eye within eye,
Deaf, blind to all else save the you & the me —
Ah, for once, my life, let the whole world be!
What! We had promised? The words were not ours —
What! There's a heart dead? But ours are just born —

Ay, what will it matter, when all are dead,
That we died apart, with one word unsaid?

What happy thoughts the summer yields
Like woman soft & fair
The voice of love is in the fields
While music fills the air.

As we sit, you and I, in the twilight
And breathe the soft breath of the roses
That mingled with lily and iris
Steals up from your quaint garden-closes;
In the mystical, soft evening weather
When the sunset burns amber and clear
I think that a life-time together
Would not be half long enough, dear!

I long — how I long, my heart's Lady,
To call you a name that is dearer,
To be — always your slave and your lover
And in time something fonder and nearer.
Come home to me, darling, my Lady!
Let the name that I call you be wife.

I love the Forest and its airy bounds,
Where friendly CAMPBELL takes his daily rounds;
I love the break neck hills, that headlong go,
And leave me high, and half the world below;
I love to see the Beach Hill mounting high,
The brook without a bridge, and nearly dry.
There's Bucket's Hill, a place of furze and clouds,
Which evening in a golden blaze enshrouds:
I hear the cows go home with tinkling bell,
And see the woodman in the forest dwell,
Whose dog runs eager where the rabbit's gone;
He eats the grass, then kicks and hurries on;

I

Love looked back as he took his flight,
And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.
Was it for love of lost delight
Love looked back as he took his flight?
Only I know while day grew night,
Turning still to the' vanished years,
Love looked back as he took his flight,
And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.

II

If you were Lady Beatrice
And I the Florentine,
I 'd never waste my time like this —
If you were Lady Beatrice

I will not make a sonnet from
Each little private martyrdom;
Nor out of love left dead with time
Construe a stanza or a rhyme.

We do not suffer to afford
The searched for and the subtle word:
There is too much that may not be
At the caprice of prosody.

O Love, where are the hours fled,
The hours of our young delight?
Are they forever gone and dead,
Or only vanished out of sight?

O can it be that we shall live
To know once more the joys gone by,
To feel the old, deep love revive,
And smile again before we die?

Could I but fancy it might be,
Could I the past bring back again,
And for one moment, holding thee,
Forget the present and its pain!

O Love, those hours are past away
Beyond our longing and our sighs —
Perhaps the Angels, some bright day,