Love is a game at tables where the dye
Of mayds affections doth by fancie fly:
If once you catch their fancie in a blott
It's tenne to one if then you enter not:
You being a gamester then may boldly venter,
And if you finde the point lye open enter:
But marke them well, for by false playing then,
Doe what you can they will be bearing men.
I do not resemble your other lovers, my lady
should another give you a cloud
I give you rain
Should he give you a lantern, I
will give you the moon
Should he give you a branch
I will give you the trees
And if another gives you a ship
I shall give you the journey.
Taking
my time to dance
in rhythm with your feet,
I notice that our toes at least
are close.
In love
for the first time,
it felt as if the sky
had gathered in all its spaces —
so still.
Cooking
for a lover,
who can bear the challenge?
Best to throw everything in to-
gether.
Making
conve rsation,
“How was your day today?”
knowing that whatever you say
will bounce.
Then said Almitra, 'Speak to us of Love.'
And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them.
And with a great voice he said:
When love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
Love came to us in time gone by
When one at twilight shyly played
And one in fear was standing nigh -- -
For Love at first is all afraid.
We were grave lovers. Love is past
That had his sweet hours many a one;
Welcome to us now at the last
The ways that we shall go upon.
Love came to Flora asking for a flower
That would of flowers be undisputed queen,
The lily and the rose, long, long had been
Rivals for that high honor. Bards of power
Had sung their claims. 'The rose can never tower
Like the pale lily with her Juno mien' -
'But is the lily lovelier?' Thus between
Flower-factions rang the strife in Psyche's bower.
'Give me a flower delicious as the rose
And stately as the lily in her pride' -
But of what color?' - 'Rose-red,' Love first chose,
Love came back at fall o' dew,
Playing his old part;
But I had a word or two
That would break his heart.
'He who comes at candlelight,
That should come before,
Must betake him to the night
From a barred door.'
This the word that made us part
In the fall o' dew;
This the word that brake his heart --
Yet it brake mine, too.
The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded
soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and
simple
As false dawn.
Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with
angels.
Some are in bed-sheets, some are
in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there
Wind smothers the snarling of the great ships,
And the serene gulls are stronger than turbines;
Mile upon mile the hiss of a stumbling wave breaks unbroken—
Yet stronger is the power of your lips for my lips.
This cool green liquid death shall toss us living
Higher than high heaven and deeper than sighs—
But O the abrupt, stiff, sloping, resistless foam
Shall not forbid our taking and our giving!
Life wrenched from its roots-What wretchedness!
What waving of lost tentacles like blind sea-things!
Sitting in my window,
Pointing my thoughts in lawn, I saw a god,
(I thought, but it was you,) enter our gates;
My blood flew out and back again, as fast
As I had prest it forth, and sucked it in,
Like breath; then was I called away in haste
To entertain you. Never was a man
Heaved from a sheepcot to a sceptre, raised
So high in thoughts as I: you left a kiss
Upon these lips, then, which I mean to keep
From you forever. I did hear you talk
Far above singing; after you were gone,
