passion

Were I the poet-laureate of the fairies,
Who in a rose-leaf finds too broad a page;
Or could I, like your beautiful canaries,
Sing with free heart and happy, in a cage;
Perhaps I might within this little space
(As in some Eastern tale, by magic power,
A giant is imprisoned in a flower)
Have told you something with a poet's grace.
But I need wider limits, ampler scope,
A world of freedom for a world of passion,
And even then, the glory of my hope
Would not be uttered in its stateliest fashion;

Oh, love of woman, you are known to be
A passion sent to plague the hearts of men;
For every one you bring felicity
Bringing rebuffs and wretchedness to ten.
I have been oft where human life sold cheap
And seen men's brains spilled out about their ears
And yet that never cost me any sleep;
I lived untroubled and I shed no tears.
Fools prate how war is an atrocious thing;
I always knew that nothing it implied
Equalled the agony of suffering
Of him who loves and loves unsatisfied.

Women have loved before as I love now;
At least, in lively chronicles of the past—
Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow
Or Trojan waters by a Spartan mast
Much to their cost invaded—here and there,
Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest,
I find some woman bearing as I bear
Love like a burning city in the breast.
I think however that of all alive
I only in such utter, ancient way
Do suffer love; in me alone survive
The unregenerate passions of a day
When treacherous queens, with death upon the tread,

AH! LUST'ROUS GEM, bright emblem of the Heart,
That nobly scorns a borrow'd ray to share,
Whose gentle pow'r can break the spells of care,
And sooth, with lenient balm, the keenest smart.

Whether from holy FRIENDSHIP'S vow profan'd,
Or the dire frenzy of unpitied LOVE;
Whether from cherish'd passion unrestrain'd,
Or the worst pang the jealous mind can prove.

Yet, if sad mem'ry ling'ring o'er past woe,
Calls THEE, soft trembler, from thy crystal throne,
And sternly bids thy pearly incence flow,

Most wonderful and strange it seems, that I
Who but a little time ago was tost
High on the waves of passion and of pain,
With aching heat and wildly throbbing brain,
Who peered into the darkness, deeming vain
All things there found if but One thing were lost,
Thus calm and still and silent here should lie,
Watching and waiting, --waiting passively.

The dark has faded, and before mine eyes
Have long, grey flats expanded, dim and bare;
And through the changing guises all things wear
Inevitable Law I recognise:

Old as the world--no other things so old;
Nay, older than the world, else, how had sprung
Such lusty strength in them when earth was young?--
Stand valor and its passion hot and bold,
Insatiate of battle. How, else, told
Blind men, born blind, that red was fitting tongue
Mute, eloquent, to show how trumpets rung
When armies charged adn battle-flags unfurled?
Who sings of valor speaks for life, for death,
Beyond all death, and long as life is life,
in rippled waves the eternal air hs breath

GAZE not on thy beauty's pride,
Tender maid, in the false tide
That from lovers' eyes doth slide.
Let thy faithful crystal show
How thy colours come and go :
Beauty takes a foil from woe.

Love, that in those smooth streams lies
Under pity's fair disguise,
Will thy melting heart surprise.

Nets of passion's finest thread,
Snaring poems, will be spread,
All to catch thy maidenhead.

Then beware ! for those that cure
Love's disease, themselves endure

O SORROW!
   Why dost borrow
   The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?--
   To give maiden blushes
   To the white rose bushes?
   Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips?

   O Sorrow!
   Why dost borrow
   The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?--
   To give the glow-worm light?
   Or, on a moonless night,
   To tinge, on siren shores, the salt sea-spry?

   O Sorrow!
   Why dost borrow
   The mellow ditties from a mourning tongue?--
   To give at evening pale

Why should a foolish marriage vow,
Which long ago was made,
Oblige us to each other now,
When passion is decayed?
We loved, and we loved, as long as we could,
Till our love was loved out in us both;
But our marriage is dead when the pleasure is fled:
'Twas pleasure first made it an oath.

If I have pleasures for a friend,
And farther love in store,
What wrong has he whose joys did end,
And who could give no more?
'Tis a madness that he should be jealous of me,
Or that I should bar him of another;

From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
This universal frame began:
When nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
Arise, ye more than dead!
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry
In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.
From Harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,