Ere yet the dawn
Pushed rosy fingers up the arch of day
And smiled its promise to the voiceless prime,
Love sat and patterns wove at life's great loom.

He flung the suns into the soundless arch,
Appointed them their courses in the deep,
To keep His great time-harmonies, and blaze
As beacons in the ebon fields of night.
Love balanced them and held them firm and true,
Poised 'twixt attractive and repulsive drift
Amid the throngs of heaven. What though this power
Was ever known to us as gravity,
Its first and last celestial name is Love.

Come lusty gamesters of the sea
Billowes, waves, and winds,
Like to most lovers make your plea
Say love all combinds;
Lett nott Dian rule your sprites,
Her pale face shuns all delights,

Venus was borne, of the sea foame
Queene of love is she
Like her sweet pleasant phantisies roame,
This Varietie;
Juno yett a firme wife is,
Soe may I bee in my blis,

Pallas is yett a fierce, sterne lass,
Wisdome doth profess,
Ceares a hous-wife I soone pass,
Lovers I express;
Venus, my deere sea borne Queene,
Gives mee pleasures still unseene,

?By vew of her he ginneth to revive
His ancient love, and dearest Cyparisse ,
And calles to mind his pourtraiture alive,
How faire he was, and yet not faire to this,
And how he slew with glauncing dart amisse
A gentle Hynd, the which the lovely boy
Did love as life, above all worldly blisse;
For griefe whereof the lad n'ould after joy.
But pynd away in anguish and selfe-wild annoy.

Blame not my cheeks, though pale with love they be;
The kindly heat unto my heart is flown,
To cherish it that is dismaid by thee,
Who art so cruel and unsteadfast grown:
For nature, called for by distressèd hearts,
Neglects and quite forsakes the outward parts.

But they whose cheeks with careless blood are stained,
Nurse not one spark of love within their hearts,
And, when they woo, they speak with passion feigned,
For their fat love lies in their outward parts:
But in their breasts, where love his court should hold,

Thou hast made many Houses for the Dead;
When my Lot calls me to be buried,
For Love or Pittie, prethee let there be
I'th'Church-yard, made, one Tenement for me.

Dearest, if I almost cease to weep for you,
Do not doubt I love you just the same;
'Tis because my life has grown to keep for you
All the hours that sorrow does not claim.

All the hours when I may steal away to you,
Where you lie alone through the long day,
Lean my face against your turf and say to you
All that there is no one else to say.

Do they let you listen—do you lean to me?
Know now what in life you never knew,
When I whisper all that you have been to me,
All that I might never be to you?

Fair is the white star of twilight,
And the sky clearer
At the day's end;
But she is fairer, and she is dearer,
She, my heart's friend!

Fair is the white star of twilight,
And the moon roving
To the sky's end;
But she is fairer, better worth loving,
She, my heart's friend.

Love is a burden, a chain,
Love is a trammel and tie;
Love is disquiet and pain
That slowly go by.

Oh, why should I bind my heart
And bind my sight?
Love is only a part
Of all delight.

Let me have room for the rest,
To find and explore!
Love is greatest and best?
But love closes the door,

Closes us off so long from the ways
And concernments of men
And owns us and hinders our days.
O love, come not again!

I have walked with you all my mile,
Now let me be free, be free!
Oh, now a little while,

My soul was thirsty till she came,
My heart was hungry till her eyes
Lighted love's fuel into flame
And taught me Paradise.

I hunger and I thirst no more;
Lo, 'tis a fount where honey drips;
I drink a thousand kisses from
The chalice of her curvèd lips.