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Triolets

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

Protest

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.

Song

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,

Lovely Harriote, A Crambo Song

A Crambo Song.

Great Phaebus in his vast career,
Who forms the self-succeeding year,
Thron'd in his amber chariot,
Sees not an object half so bright,
Nor gives such joy, such life, such light,
As dear delicious Harriote .

Pedants of dull phlegmatic turns,
Whose pulse not beats, whose blood not burns,
Read Malbranche, Boyle, and Marriote,
I scorn their philosophic strife,
And study Nature from the life,

The Passionate Printer to His Love

Come live with me and be my Dear;
And till that happy bond shall lapse,
I'll set your Poutings in Brevier ,
Your Praises in the largest CAPS.

There's Diamond — 'tis for your Eyes;
There's Ruby — that will match your Lips;
Pearl , for your Teeth; and Minion -size
To suit your dainty Finger-tips.

In Nonpareil I'll put your Face;
In Rubric shall your Blushes rise;
There is no Bourgeois in your Case ;

Love's Farewell

" No more!" I said to Love. " No more!
I scorn your baby-arts to know!
Not now am I as once of yore;
My brow the Sage's line can show!"
" Farewell!" he laughed. " Farewell! I go!"
And clove the air with fluttering track.
" Farewell!" he cried far off; — but lo!
He sent a Parthian arrow back!

Chorus

Vaine man, borne to noe happinesse,
but by the title of distresse,
Alli'de to a Capacitie
of Joye, only by missery;
whose pleasures are but remidies,
and best delights but the supplies
of what hee wantes, who hath noe sence
but poverty and indigence:
Is itt not paine still to desire
and carry in our breast this fyer?
is it not deadnesse to have none,
and satisfyed, are wee not stone?
Doeth not our Cheifest Blisse then lie
Betwixt thirst and satiety,
in the midd way? which is alone
in an halfe satisfaction:

Three Guests

She whispered: " Love is dead. "
She saw the raven hearse go down the street,
And closed her door.

Then Passion rose and pled,
Even more wild, even more fiery-sweet
Than Love, before,

And lingered in the room,
Out of an anguished moment to coerce
Dreams that had been:

Till forth into the gloom
Passion went following the raven hearse.
And Peace came in.