Love has had his way with me.
This my heart is torn and maimed
Since he took his play with me.
Cruel well the bow-boy aimed,

Shot, and saw the feathered shaft
Dripping bright and bitter red.
He that shrugged his wings and laughed-
Better had he left me dead.

Sweet, why do you plead me, then,
Who have bled so sore of that?
Could I bear it once again? . . .
Drop a hat, dear, drop a hat!

Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!
But there's a something in this breast,
To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,
And turn those limpid eyes on mine,
And let me read there, love! thy inmost soul.

Alas! is even love too weak
To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
Are even lovers powerless to reveal

You glow in my heart
Like the flames of uncontrolled candles.
But when I go to warm my hands,
My clumsiness overturns the light,
and then I stumble
Against the tables and chairs.

"Build me a house," said the Master,
"But not on the shifting sand,
Mid the wreck and roar of tempests,
A house that will firmly stand.

"I will bring thee windows of agates,
And gates of carbuncles bright,
And thy fairest courts and portals
Shall be filled with love and light.

"Thou shalt build with fadeless rubies,
All fashioned around the throne,
A house that shall last forever,
With Christ as the cornerstone.

"It shall be a royal mansion,
A fair and beautiful thing,
It will be the presence-chamber

There never was a face as fair as yours,
A heart as true, a love as pure and keen.
These things endure, if anything endures.
But, in this jungle, what high heaven immures
Us in its silence, the supreme serene
Crowning the dagoba, what destined die
Rings on the table, what resistless dart
Strike me I love you; can you satisfy
The hunger of my heart!

Nay; not in love, or faith, or hope is hidden
The drug that heals my life; I know too well
How all things lawful, and all things forbidden
Alike disclose no pearl upon the midden,

That day a fire was in my blood;
I could have sung: joy wrapt me round;
The men I met seemed all so good,
I scarcely knew I trod the ground.

How easy seemed all toil! I laughed
To think that once I hated it.
The sunlight thrilled like wine, I quaffed
Delight, divine and infinite.

The very day was not too long;
I felt so patient; I could wait,
Being certain. So, the hours in song
Chimed out the minutes of my fate.

For she was coming, she, at last,
I knew: I knew that bolts and bars

He is stark mad, who ever says,
That he hath been in love an hour,
Yet not that love so soon decays,
But that it can ten in less space devour;
Who will believe me, if I swear
That I have had the plague a year ?
Who would not laugh at me, if I should say,
I saw a flask of powder burn a day ?

Ah, what trifle is a heart,
If once into Love’s hands it come!
All other griefs allow a part
To other griefs, and ask themselves but some,
They come to us, but us Love draws,
He swallows us, and never chaws:

A British tar is a soaring soul,
As free as a mountain bird,
His energetic fist should be ready to resist
A dictatorial word.
His nose should pant and his lip should curl,
His cheeks should flame and his brow should furl,
His bosom should heave and his heart should glow,
And his fist be ever ready for a knock-down blow.

His eyes should flash with an inborn fire,
His brow with scorn be rung;
He never should bow down to a domineering frown,
Or the tang of a tyrant tongue.
His foot should stamp and his throat should growl,

I stood on the bridge at midnight,
As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o'er the city,
Behind the dark church-tower.

I saw her bright reflection
In the watrers under me,
Like a golden goblet falling
And sinking into the sea.

And far in the hazy distance
Of that lovely night in June,
The blaze of the gleaming furnace
Gleamed redder than the moon.

Among the long, black rafters
The wavering shadows lay,
And the current that came from the ocean
Seemed to lift and bear them away.

I slept,--'twas midnight,--in my bosom woke,

As though 'twere day, my love-o'erflowing heart;
To me it seemed like night, when day first broke;

What is't to me, whate'er it may impart?

She was away; the world's unceasing strife

For her alone I suffer'd through the heat
Of sultry day; oh, what refreshing life

At cooling eve!--my guerdon was complete.

The sun now set, and wand'ring hand in hand,

His last and blissful look we greeted then;
While spake our eyes, as they each other scann'd: