A SENTINEL angel, sitting high in glory,
Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory:
" Have mercy, mighty angel, hear my story!

" I loved, — and, blind with passionate love, I fell.
Love brought me down to death, and death to Hell;
For God is just, and death for sin is well.

" I do not rage against His high decree,
Nor for myself do ask that grace shall be;
But for my love on earth who mourns for me.

" Great Spirit! Let me see my love again
And comfort him one hour, and I were fain

The sea hath many thousand sands,
The sky hath motes as many;
The sky is full of stars, and love
As full of woes as any:
Believe me, that do know the elf,
And make no trial by thyself.

It is in truth a pretty toy
For babes to play withal;
But O the honies of our youth
Are oft our age's gall!
Self-proof in time will make thee know
He was a prophet told thee so:

A prophet that, Cassandra-like,
Tells truth without belief;
For headstrong youth will run his race,
Although his goal be grief:

" THE rose, it is a royal flower. "
" The red or the white? show his colour. "
" Both be full sweet and of like savour. "
" All one they be
That day to see
It liketh well me.
I love, I love, and whom love ye? "
" I love the rose both red and white. "
" Is that your pure perfect appetite? "
" To hear talk of them is my delight. "
" Joyed may we be
Our prince to see
And roses three.
Now have I loved, and whom love ye? "
" I love a flower of fresh beauty. "
" I love another as well as ye. "

While Riding The 104 Broadway Bus:

There is too much pain
I cannot understand
I cannot pray

I cannot pray for all the little ones with bellies bloated by starvation in India;
for all the angry Africans striving to be separate in a world struggling for wholeness;
for all the young Chinese men and women taught that hatred and killing are good and compassion evil;
or even all the frightened people in my own city looking for truth in pot or aid.
Here I am

Thou dearest Object of my fondest Love,
What Words can speak the Misery I prove?
Doom'd as I am by my relentless Fate,
To bear the worst of dreaded Ills, your Hate.
Lov'd tho' thou wert, in every Action just,
Have I not wrong'd thee by unkind Distrust?
Believ'd thee false, when Love and Truth were thine,
And all the tender Joys of Friendship mine?
Wretch that I am, my fatal Crime I know,
And merit all the Anger you can show.
Do hate me, loath me, drive me from your Breast,
That Seat of Softness, Innocence, and Rest!

Each in his Proper gloom;
Each in his dark, just place.
The builders of their doom
Hide, each his awful face.

Not less than saints, are they
Heirs of Eternity:
Perfect, their dreadful way;
A deathless company.

Lost! lost! fallen and lost!
With fierce wrath ever fresh:
Each suffers in the ghost
The sorrows of the flesh.

O miracle of sin!
That makes itself an home,
So utter black within,
Thither Light cannot come!

O mighty house of hate!
Stablished and guarded so,
Love cannot pass the gate,

The proud AEgyptian Queen, her Roman guest,
(T'express her love in height of state, and pleasure)
With pearl dissolv'd in gold did feast,
Both food, and treasure.

And now (dear Lord!) thy lover, on the fair
And silver tables of thy feet, behold!
Pearl in her tears, and in her hair
Offers thee gold.

strephon: Prithee now, fond Fool, give o'er;
Since my Heart is gone before,
To what purpose shou'd I stay?
Love commands another way.

daphne: Perjur'd Swain, I knew the time
When Dissembling was your Crime.
In pity now employ that Art
Which first betray'd, to ease my Heart.

strephon: Women can with pleasure feign:
Men dissemble still with pain.
What advantage will it prove
If I lye, who cannot love?

daphne: Tell me then the reason why,
Love from Hearts in Love does fly?
Why the Bird will build a Nest,

O! what a thing is Love? who can define
Or liniament it out? Its strange to tell.
A Sparke of Spirit empearld pill like and fine
In't shugard pargings, crusted, and doth dwell
Within the heart, where thron'd, without Controle
It ruleth all the Inmates of the Soule.

It makes a poother in its Secret Sell
Mongst the affections: oh! it swells, its paind,
Like kirnells soked untill it breaks its Shell
Unless its object be obtained and gain'd.
Like Caskd wines jumbled breake the Caske, this Sparke

Come, let's adore the King of Love,
And King of Sufferings too;
For Love it was that brought Him down
And set Him here in woe.

Love drew Him from His Paradise,
Where flowers that fade not grow;
And planted Him in our poor dust,
Among us weeds below.

Here for a time this heavenly Plant
Fairly grew up and thrived;
Diffused its sweetness all about,
And all in sweetness lived.

But envious frosts and furious storms
So long, so fiercely chide;
This tender Flower at last bowed down,
And hung its head and died.