The Dark Garden

When your head leans back slowly, and gazing eyes
Muse earnest upon mine and starry swim
With depths unfathomed that still well and rise,
And the words fail, and sight with love grows dim,

Whence comes that almost sadness, almost wound
Of joy, whose thoughts sink like the wearied flight
Of birds on seas, lost in love's deeps profound,
Inscrutable as odours blown through night?

We know not: and we know not whence love rose
Pouring its beauty over us, as the moon
On this dim garden rises, and none knows


The Crown Of Love

O might I load my arms with thee,
Like that young lover of Romance
Who loved and gained so gloriously
The fair Princess of France!

Because he dared to love so high,
He, bearing her dear weight, shall speed
To where the mountain touched on sky:
So the proud king decreed.

Unhalting he must bear her on,
Nor pause a space to gather breath,
And on the height she will be won;
And she was won in death!

Red the far summit flames with morn,
While in the plain a glistening Court


The Creed

Whoever was begotten by pure love,

And came desired and welcome into life,

Is of immaculate conception. He

Whose heart is full of tenderness and truth,

Who loves mankind more than he loves himself,

And cannot find room in his heart for hate,

May be another Christ. We all may be

The Saviours of the world if we believe

In the Divinity which dwells in us

And worship it, and nail our grosser selves,

Our tempers, greeds, and our unworthy aims,


The Dagger

The dagger of love has pierced my heart.
I was going to the river to fetch water,
A golden pitcher on my head.
Hariji has bound me
By the thin thread of love,
And wherever He draws me,
Thither I go.
Mira's Lord is the courtly Giridhara:
This is the nature
Of his dark and beautiful form.






The Curate To His Slippers

Take, oh take those boots away,
That so nearly are outworn;
And those shoes remove, I pray--
Pumps that but induce the corn!
But my slippers bring again,
Bring again;
Works of love, but worked in vain,
Worked in vain!


The Court of Love

With timorous heart, and trembling hand of dread,
Of cunning* naked, bare of eloquence, *skill
Unto the *flow'r of port in womanhead* *one who is the perfection
I write, as he that none intelligence of womanly behaviour*
Of metres hath, nor flowers of sentence,
Save that me list my writing to convey,
In that I can, to please her high nobley.* *nobleness

The blossoms fresh of Tullius'* garden swoot** *Cicero **sweet
Present they not, my matter for to born:* *burnish, polish
Poems of Virgil take here no root,


The Court Of Love

With timerous hert and trembling hand of drede,
Of cunning naked, bare of eloquence,
Unto the flour of port in womanhede
I write, as he that non intelligence
Of metres hath, ne floures of sentence;
Sauf that me list my writing to convey,
In that I can to please her hygh nobley.


The blosmes fresshe of Tullius garden soote
Present thaim not, my mater for to borne:
Poemes of Virgil taken here no rote,
Ne crafte of Galfrid may not here sojorne:
Why nam I cunning? O well may I morne,


The Course Of Love

Seeing Radha stand alone, Krishna came from behind and blindfolded her with his hands. But his hands could not fully cover her large and elongated vivacious eyes. They shone out from within his fingers as a serpent's gem which it had disgorged and hid between its fangs;" or as Rahu finding the sun and Mars together, had pounced and held them fast. Krishna does not have any self-interest, for there is nothing for him to desire or achieve. But he removes the grief of separation of those whom he loves. His eyes came close to Radha's, and his lips were on hers.


The Convert's Love

Blessed Light of saints on high
Who fill the mansions of the sky,
Sure defence, whose mercy still
Preserves thy subjects here from ill,
O my Jesus! make me know
How to pay the thanks I owe.

As the fond sheep that id'ly strays
With wanton play thro' winding ways,
Which never hits the road of home,
O'er Wilds of danger learns to roam,
'Till weari'd out with idle fear
And passing there and turning here,
He will for rest to covert run
And meet the wolf he wish'd to shun;


The Constant Lover

Out upon it, I have lov'd
Three whole days together;
And am like to love three more,
If it prove fair weather.

Time shall molt away his wings
Ere he shall discover
In such whole wide world again
Such a constant lover.

But the spite on't is, no praise
Is due at all to me:
Love with me had made no stays
Had it any been but she.

Had it any been but she
And that very face,
There had been at least ere this
A dozen dozen in her place.


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