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Infinite Variety

In my one love are many loves entwined;
Each hour makes me unfaithful to the last;
The beauty present dims the beauty past;
Of her worst rivals is her self combined.
When she is pale, in her dear cheek I find
The fairest shade on earth was ever cast;
And if she blush, that hue is not surpassed
In roses ruffled by the wanton wind.
Sometimes her sweet lips droop to a purpose sad;
Then all my soul in loving sympathy
Burns to dispel her sadness with a kiss;
And when they flash and curve in laughter glad,

Infidelity

"Three Triangles"

TRIANGLE ONE
I
My husband put some poison in my beer,
And fondly hoped that I would drink it up.
He would get rid of me - no bloody fear,
For when his back was turned I changed the cup.
He took it all, and if he did not die,
Its just because he's heartier than I.
II
And now I watch and watch him night and day
dreading that he will try it on again.
I'm getting like a skeleton they say,
And every time I feel the slightest pain
I think: he's got me this time. . . . Oh the beast!

Incurable

And if my heart be scarred and burned,
The safer, I, for all I learned;
The calmer, I, to see it true
That ways of love are never new-
The love that sets you daft and dazed
Is every love that ever blazed;
The happier, I, to fathom this:
A kiss is every other kiss.
The reckless vow, the lovely name,
When Helen walked, were spoke the same;
The weighted breast, the grinding woe,
When Phaon fled, were ever so.
Oh, it is sure as it is sad
That any lad is every lad,
And what's a girl, to dare implore
Her dear be hers forevermore?

In This World

In this world all the flow'rs wither,
The sweet songs of the birds are brief;
I dream of summers that will last
Always!

In this world the lips touch but lightly,
And no taste of sweetness remains;
I dream of a kiss that will last
Always.

In this world ev'ry man is mourning
His lost friendship or his lost love;
I dream of fond lovers abiding
Always!

In The Vaulted Way

In the vaulted way, where the passage turned
To the shadowy corner that none could see,
You paused for our parting, - plaintively:
Though overnight had come words that burned
My fond frail happiness out of me.

And then I kissed you, - despite my thought
That our spell must end when reflection came
On what you had deemed me, whose one long aim
Had been to serve you; that what I sought
Lay not in a heart that could breathe such blame.

But yet I kissed you: whereon you again
As of old kissed me. Why, why was it so?

In the St. Gotthardt Pass

The storm which shook the silence of the hills
And sleeping pinnacles of ancient snow
Went muttering off in one last thunder throe
Mixed with a moan of multitudinous rills;
Yea, even as one who has wept much, but stills
The flowing tears of some convulsive woe
When a fair light of hope begins to glow
Athwart the gloom of long remembered ills:

So does the face of this scarred mountain height
Relax its stony frown, while slow uprolled
Invidious mists are changed to veiling gold.

In the Room

'Ceste insignefable et tragicque comedie' RABELMS.

I

The sun was down, and twilight grey
Filled half the air; but in the room,
Whose curtain had been drawn all day,
The twilight was a dusky gloom:
Which seemed at first as still as death,
And void; but was indeed all rife
With subtle thrills, the pulse and breath
Of multitudinous lower life.

II
In their abrupt and headlong way
Bewildered flies for light had dashed
Against the curtain all the day,
And now slept wintrily abashed;
And nimble mice slept, wearied out

In the Metropolitan Museum

Inside the tiny Pantheon
We stood together silently,
Leaving the restless crowsd awhile,
As ships find shelter from the sea.

The ancient centuries came back
To cover us a moment's space,
And through the dome the light was glad
Because it shone upon your face.

Ah, not from Rome but farther still
Beyond sun-smitten Salamis,
The moment took us, till you learned
To find the present with a kiss.

In the Holy Nativity of our Lord

CHORUS
Come we shepherds whose blest sight
Hath met love's noon in nature's night;
Come lift we up our loftier song
And wake the sun that lies too long.

To all our world of well-stol'n joy
He slept, and dreamt of no such thing,
While we found out heav'n's fairer eye,
And kiss'd the cradle of our King.
Tell him he rises now too late
To show us aught worth looking at.

Tell him we now can show him more
Than he e'er show'd to mortal sight,
Than he himself e'er saw before,

In The Garden VII Early Autumn

IF while I sit flatter'd by this warm sun
Death came to me, and kiss'd my mouth and brow,
And eyelids which the warm light hovers through,
I should not count it strange. Being half won
By hours that with a tender sadness run,
Who would not softly lean to lips which woo
In the Earth's grave speech? Nor could it aught undo
Of Nature's calm observances begun
Still to be here the idle autumn day.
Pale leaves would circle down, and lie unstirr'd
Where'er they fell; the tir'd wind hither call
Her gentle fellows; shining beetles stray