JOIN hands, my dear, clasp long and close and fast,
Even this present we shall soon call past,
And lay among the unforgotten days,
Not the less loved because they could not last.


Make haste to put our hasty words away,
And hide them with dead leaves of yesterday,
Cast them aside among forgotten things,
Keep the love warm that turns to green life's grey.


Each little thorn that pricks these present hours
Is sure to hide under our memories' flowers,
Till we shall say, turning the dry wreath over,

She is near to my heart as the meadow-flower to the earth; she is
sweet to me as sleep is to tired limbs. My love for her is my life
flowing in its fullness, like a river in autumn flood, running with
serene abandonment. My songs are one with my love, like the murmur
of a stream, that sings with all its waves and current.

He went inside the cafe where they used to sit together.
It was here, three months ago, that his friend told him:
'We're completely broke -so hard up, the two of us,
that we're stuck with the cheapest places.
I can't go around with you any more -it's no use hiding the fact.
I've got to tell you, somebody else is after me.'
The 'somebody else' had promised him two suits, some silk handkerchiefs.
He himself, to get his friend back,
went through hell rounding up twenty pounds.
His friend came back to him for the twenty pounds-

Lovely one,
Just as on the cool stone
Of the spring, the water
Opens a wide flash of foam,
So is the smile of your face,
Lovely one.

Lovely one,
With delicate hands and slender feet
Like a silver pony,
Walking, flower of the world,
Thus I see you,
Lovely one.

Lovely one,
With a nest of copper entangled
On your head, a nest
The coloUr of dark honey
Where my heart burns and rests,
Lovely one.

Lovely one,
Your eyes are too big for your face,
Your eyes are too big for the earth.

Oh, lovely Mary Donnelly, my joy, my only best
If fifty girls were round you, I’d hardly see the rest;
Be what it may the time o’ day, the place be where it will
Sweet looks o’ Mary Donnelly, they bloom before me still.

Her eyes like mountain water that’s flowing on a rock,
How clear they are, how dark they are! they give me many a shock.
Red rowans warm in sunshine and wetted with a shower,
Could ne’er express the charming lip that has me in its power.

Her nose is straight and handsome, her eyebrows lifted up,

O LOVELY chance, what can I do
To give my gratefulness to you?
You rise between myself and me
With a wise persistency;
I would have broken body and soul,
But by your grace, still I am whole.
Many a thing you did to save me,
Many a holy gift you gave me,
Music and friends and happy love
More than my dearest dreaming of;
And now in this wide twilight hour
With earth and heaven a dark, blue flower,
In a humble mood I bless
Your wisdom—and your waywardness.
You brought me even here, where I
Live on a hill against the sky

A face at the end of the day
A cradle in day’s dead leaves
A bouquet of naked rain
Every ray of sun hidden
Every fount of founts in the depths of the water
Every mirror of mirrors broken
A face in the scales of silence
A pebble among other pebbles
For the leaves last glimmers of day
A face like all the forgotten faces.

Between the hands, between the brows,
Between the lips of Love-Lily,
A spirit is born whose birth endows
My blood with fire to burn through me;
Who breathes upon my gazing eyes,
Who laughs and murmurs in mine ear,
At whose least touch my colour flies,
And whom my life grows faint to hear.
Within the voice, within the heart,
Within the mind of Love-Lily,
A spirit is born who lifts apart
His tremulous wings and looks at me;
Who on my mouth his finger lays,

Ah! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earth’s breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.
For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for song’s sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,

Ah! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earth's breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.

For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for song's sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,