5

Kindred forgets Thee.
I alone bear the Smart.
The small worm that frets Thee,
Is cold at my heart.

6


Farewell! the world now
Reclaims our first troth,
Claims — till this willow bough
Droop over both.

Can another love be born
In heart that love has left outworn;
Appearing dead to sweet desire
Its mouths of earth once mounts of fire?

Question first, if thou would'st know,
This wilful love that wasted so;
And ask one heart that wildly went
To ashes, why the flames are spent.

Was it to our heavens bared
Reflectively when forth it fared?
And knew it when it took the leap
Of whether shallow, whether deep?

Loved she an angel of the light?
All meaner forms must woman slight.
Or was the Prince of Darkness he,

The sparrow is rich in her nest
The bee has her desire
The lover in his love is blest
The poet in his brain of fire

If curses be the wage of love
Hide in thy skies thou fruitless Jove
Not to be named
It is clear
Why the gods will not appear
They are ashamed

He loved to watch & wake
When the wing of the southwind whipt the lake
And the glassy surface in ripples brake
And fled in pretty darkness away
Like the flitting boreal lights
Rippling roses in northern nights
Or like the thrill of Aeolian strings
On which the sudden wind-god rings

Joyful
And woful,
And thankful remain;
Swaying
And praying
In hovering pain;
Heavenwards exulting
Deathhurl'd from above;
Happy alone
Are the souls that love!

He whom God had thus preferred
To whom sweet angels ministered
Wrapped him in love as in a cloud
Their gifts bestowed, their love avowed,
Saluted him each morn as Brother
[ ] to each other

Malcolm, I love thee more than women love
And pure and warm and equal is the feeling
Which binds us and our destinies forever
But there are seasons in the change of times
When strong excitement kindles up the light
Of ancient memories

Unto that love must we through fire attain,
Which those two held as breath of common air;
The hands of whom were given in bond elsewhere;
Whom Honour was untroubled to restrain.

Midway the road of our life's term they met,
And one another knew without surprise;
Nor cared that beauty stood in mutual eyes;
Nor at their tardy meeting nursed regret.

To them it was revealed how they had found
The kindred nature and the needed mind;
The mate by long conspiracy designed;
The flower to plant in sanctuary ground.

Avowed in vigilant solicitude

CCLXIV

Fortune, what aileth thee
Thus for to banish me
Her company whom I love best?
For to complain me
Nothing availeth me.
Adieu, farewell, this night's rest.

Her demure countenance,
Her homely patience
Hath wounded me through Venus' dart,
That I cannot refrain me
Neither yet abstain me
But needs must love her with all my heart.

Long have I loved her,
Oft have I prayed her.
Yet, alas, she through disdain
Nothing regards me
Nor yet rewards me
But lets me lie in mortal pain.