Wearies my love of my letters?
Does she my silence command?
Sunders she Love's rosy fetters
As though they were woven of sand?
Tires she too of each token
Indited with many a sigh?
Are all her promises broken?
And must I love on till I die?

Thinks my dear love that I blame her
With what was a burden to part?
Ah, no!—with affection I'll name her
While lingers a pulse in my heart.
Although she has clouded with sadness:
And blighted the bloom of my years,
I love her still, even to madness,
And bless her through showers of tear.

Softly now the light of day
Fades upon my sight away;
Free from care, from labor free,
Lord, I would commune with Thee.

Thou, whose all-pervading eye
Naught escapes, without, within!
Pardon each infirmity,
Open fault, and secret sin.

Soon for me the light of day
Shall for ever pass away;
Then, from sin and sorrow free,
Take me, Lord, to dwell with Thee.

Thou who, sinless, yet hast known
All of man's infirmity!
Then, from Thine eternal throne,
Jesus, look with pitying eye.

Guess, and I'll frankly own her name,
Whose eyes have kindled such a flame;
The Spartan or the Cyprian queen
Had ne'er been sung had sne been seen:
Who set the very gods at war
Were but faint images of her.
Believe me, for by Heav'ns 't is true!
The sun in all his ample view
Sees nothing half so fair or bright,
Not ev'n his own reflected light.
So sweet a face! such graceful mien!
Who can this be?—'Tis Howard—or Ballenden.

Son of a race, whose dusky visage shows
The heel of fortune, those who walk unfree
Though cradled in the hold of liberty,
Whose shackled spirit every gamut knows
Of Hate's cadenza, through whose warm blood flows
The royal ransom of love's dynasty,
Scion of these, he strides to meet his foes.

Erect, unbending, note his sable brow,
The rugged furrows where deep feelings plough,
The step of vigor and the noble air,
The subtle halo of his wintry hair,
Up from the furnace of the Earth's red sea
A man is fashioned for the years to be!

Cold now his hands are, nor unto his Lord
For evils or blessings can render his praises,
Cold, frozen hands that no longer he raises
To give to poor sinners who help had implored;
Cold, cold his hands that the slaves at his board,
All the Christians who toiled for him, cannot repay,
Cold, lifeless hands that his servants to-day,
Yea, those who have tended him, shall not reward.

Cold are his feet that now strength may not lend
The poor and the sick in the hostels to see,
For he now, alas! from the world must flee,

Let kings present as sign of grace
A golden necklace to the bard:
Let jesters, when the populace
Clap hands and shout, have their reward.

Prize for my verse, which eagerly
Betwixt the Past and Future flies,
One brimming cup to Friendship I
Demand, one smile from Beauty's eyes.

Like memory of an April morn
How pure is Beauty's smile; how sweet
To one whom wingèd age doth warn
That his ninth lustre 's near complete.

And 'mid the cups by Friendship crowned
Serene, O Plato, as beneath
Ilissus' plane-trees he was found

Down a hill, then up a hill
And then a vast of sea!
A wedge of wild geese crying
Passes over me—
And now my dreams are flying
Where I may never be. . . .

Down a hill and up a hill,
Then level lands again!
Far off the sea is speaking
A longing that is pain—
My eyes are weary seeking
For my lost ship from Spain.

Down a hill and up a hill,
Oh, so long ago,
There was a princess singing—
Where, I do not know. . . .
There were arms that, clinging,
Would not let me go.

Who is she that comes, makyng turn every man's eye
And makyng the air to tremble with a bright clearnesse
That leadeth with her Love, in such nearnesse
No man may proffer of speech more than a sigh?

Ah God, what she is like when her owne eye turneth, is
Fit for Amor to speake, for I cannot at all;
Such is her modesty, I would call
Every woman else but an useless uneasiness.

No one could ever tell all of her pleasauntness
In that every high noble vertu leaneth to herward,
So Beauty sheweth her forth as her Godhede;

Now of the hue of ashes are the Whites;
And they go following now after the kind
Of creatures we call crabs, which, as some find,
Will only seek their natural food o' nights.
All day they hide; their flesh has such sore frights
Lest Death be come for them on every wind,
Lest now the Lion's wrath be so inclined
That they may never set their sin to rights.
Guelf were they once, and now are Ghibelline:
Nothing but rebels henceforth be they named,—
State-foes, as are the Uberti, every one.
Behold, against the Whites all men must sign

Ah, bird,
our love is never spent
with your clear note,
nor satiate our soul;
not song, not wail, not hurt,
but just a call summons us
with its simple top-note
and soft fall;

not to some rarer heaven
of lilies over-tall,
nor tuberose set against
some sun-lit wall,
but to a gracious
cedar-palace hall;

not marble set with purple
hung with roses and tall
sweet lilies—such
as the nightingale
would summon for us
with her wail—

(surely only unhappiness
could thrill
such a rich madrigall)
not she, the nightingale