romantic poems

Weep for your crime, weep o'er the Lucrine lake,
Ye Naiads, till your cries e'en Thetis wake.
For Eutychos 'neath Baiae's waves you drew
And for my Castricus his comrade slew,
Who was his comfort and his chiefest joy,
Loved by our bard as Virgil loved his boy.

Did the nymph see thee naked in the mere
And give Alcides back his Hylas dear?
Or does the goddess in thy love delight
And for thy arms neglect Hermaphrodite?
Whate'er the cause of rape so sudden be,
Let earth, I pray, and wave be kind to thee.

You want me, dear lady, to be always ready.
But love, you must know, is a thing most unsteady.
Your words and your gestures invite me to go
To extremities with you. Your face — that says. " No."

What will Love not compel! Though Pudens murmured " No,"
Yet he did not prevent young Encolpos, and so
He cut off his hair, while his master wept sore
And complained, like Apollo and Phaethon of yore;
Than Hylas more fair or Achilles, when he
Rejoiced from his mother's love-locks to be free;
In return for the gift may he beardless remain,
And though his hair's short seem a boy once again.

" Dearly loved, devoted Sita! daughter of a royal line,
Part we now, for years of wand'ring in the pathless woods is mine,

For my father, promise-fettered, to Kaikeyi yields the sway,
And she wills her son anointed, — fourteen years doth Rama stray,

But before I leave thee, Sita, in the wilderness to rove,
Yield me one more tender token of thy true and trustful love!

Serve my crowned brother, Sita, as a faithful, duteous dame,
Tell him not of Rama's virtues, tell him not of Rama's claim,

With his wedded sons and daughters and his guard in bright array,
To the famed and fair Ayodhya, Dasa-ratha held his way,

And they reached the ancient city decked with banners bright and brave,
And the voice of drum and trumpet hailed the home-returning brave,

Fragrant blossoms strewed the pathway, song of welcome filled the air,
Joyous men and merry women issued forth in garments fair,

And they lifted up their faces and they waved their hands on high,
And they raised the voice of welcome as their righteous king drew nigh.

LOVE AND LIFE

Thy hand I press,
And am not much afraid:
Though danger lie in wait in every glade,
Thou, Love, hast might to comfort and caress
My helplessness.

The way is steep;
But thou wilt soothe its pain;
And when at last the utmost height we gain,
To the soft shelter of thy wings I'll creep,
And sleep — and sleep.

The way is long;

LOVE AND DEATH

A MOMENT , Death! — only a moment more!
She is my all; have pity! stay thy hand!
Behold, a fearful suppliant I stand! —
Take not away what thou canst not restore!

At thy approach the birds have ceased to sing,
The roses of my lintel droop and pine,
The genial sun itself doth coldly shine,
And in thy shadow all seems darkening.

That thou art merciless, as men declare,

Immortal Love, too high for my possessing, —
Yet, lower than thee, where shall I find repose?
Long in my youth I sang the morning rose,
By earthly things the heavenly pattern guessing!
Long fared I on, beauty and love caressing,
And finding in my heart a place for those
Eternal fugitives; the golden close
Of evening folds me, still their sweetness blessing.

Oh, happy we, the first-born heirs of nature,
For whom the Heavenly Sun delays his light!
He by the sweets of every mortal creature

" AN evil thing is honor, " once of old
The saddest of Italian shepherds sang,
And on his mouth the immortal lyric sprang
That through all ages pours the age of gold:
" Not that the earth untilled her harvests rolled,
The rose no thorn, the serpent had no fang,
The seAno furrow, nowhere ever rang
The battle, but that love was uncontrolled. "

The reminiscence of all lost desire
That love-defrauded hearts dream on for aye,
Hangs in the words, and rises from the lyre,
Whose ecstasy fails not unto this day.

In what a glorious substance did they dream
Who first embodied immortality,
And in warm marble gave this world to see
The earthly art that lifts heaven-high its beam!
Of things that only to the spirit seem
They wrought the eternal stuff of memory,
And the invisible divinity
That they so loved, did in their temples gleam.

I have no art to deify the stone,
Nor genius, later born, to limn or paint;
No instrumental music do I own,
Of choiring angel or ecstatic saint;
Best by its frailties here is true love known,