Roses red for the fair young head to weave a crown,
Let them be half blown,
For a rose in June it will fade too soon to gold and brown.
For thee my own
The fairest blossoms in all love's land, for that small hot hand,
And a bird to sing all the sweet day through,
Lest fear should wake in the heart of you,
And I hear my own heart's beating;
Wild roses red for the fair gold head,
Love in my arms lies sleeping.
Lilies fair for the wind-blown hair,
It were better so
Than a blossom dead,

I saw Love pass with Charon down
The pale infernal tide,
To visit in the starless town
All who for him had died.
The gay God and the old Ghost came
Slow to that sleepy shore,
And a dead passion burned like flame
Before each true-love's door!
Into this place and that he stept:
The eyes still held their tears,
Though some had their strange sorrow kept
More than ten thousand years.
He saw the old and young who went
Devoid of life, yet who,
Though all their joys on earth were spent,
Were to their dream-loves true.

I mourned beneath the willow tree,
When shrouded came a nymph to me
And slid her hand in mine.
Her boldness I did much upbraid,
And said 'Begone, thou wanton maid;
I seek no love of thine!
'Nor do I hope to wake again
My heart all stricken with disdain,
And drive it forth to woo.
No! no! Forlorn I sit and sigh,
And call on Death to let me die,
Since Phyllis is untrue.'
'Ah!' cried the maid, 'why therefore chide,
Since I indeed am fitting bride
For one so pale and wan?'
She held me in a close embrace,

Unscathed through Beauty's thorny ways
Be mine, I said, henceforth to rove;
Too long hath Love consumed my days,
But now I shut my heart to love.
The Godhead heard—and 'Ah!—not so'—
With gay malicious glance, he cries,
'Who thinks to foil my fairer blow,
By wile, a surer victim, dies.'
And soon in Friendship's shape he came,—
Ah! how might I the cheat divine?
No fear had I of Friendship's flame,—
And led me to that bower of thine

And o'er us slipped a silken band,—
Friendship's it seemed to be—no more;

To stifle Passion is no easy Thing,
A Heart in Love is always on the Wing;
The bold Betrayer flutters still,
And fans the Breath prepar'd to tell:
It melts the Tongue, and tunes the Throat,
And moves the Lips to form the Note;
And when the Speech is lost,
It then sends out its Ghost,
A little Sigh,
To say we dye.
'Tis strange the Air that Cools, a Flame shou'd prove,
But wonder not, it is the Air of Love.
Yet Chloris I can make my Love look well,
And cover bleeding Wounds I can't conceal,
My Words such artful Accents break,

Girls were crying yesterday in their ball gowns;
Holding each other up like poles of wilted beanstalks.
I wanted to carry them into the streets.
To the unused railroad track in the middle of town,
Unwrap the past and lay before them
A fragile girl I once knew, walking toward love
In a thin, determined way. That she should live here too —
In this town of carefully-guarded houses
And old ladies in rocking chairs
In fake pearls and printed button-down dresses.

Girls are crying in their ball gowns and boys

It is already Autumn, and not in my heart only,
The leaves are on the ground,
Green leaves untimely browned,
The leaves bereft of Summer, my heart of Love left lonely.

Swift, in the masque of seasons, the moment of each mummer,
And even so fugitive
Love's hour, Love's hour to live:
Yet, leaves, ye have had your rapture, and thou, poor heart, thy Summer!

I sought among the drifting leaves,
The golden leaves that once were green,
To see if Love were hiding there
And peeping out between.

For thro' the silver showers of May
And thro' the summer's heavy heat,
In vain I sought his golden head
And light, fast-flying feet.

Perhaps when all the world is bare
And cruel winter holds the land,
The Love that finds no place to hide
Will run and catch my hand.

I shall not care to have him then,
I shall be bitter and a-cold --
It grows too late for frolicking

Beneath an Ilfracombe machine,
While thunderstorms were raging,
Strephon and Chloe found the scene
Exceedingly engaging;
Though Mother Earth reproached the skies
With flinging pailfuls at her,
When Strephon looked in Chloe's eyes
The weather didn't matter.

When 'Arry up on 'Ampstead 'Eath
Performed a double shuffle,
The rain above, the mud beneath,
His spirits failed to ruffle;
For 'Arriet was by his side
In maddened mazes whirling
And little cared his promised bride
To see her plumes uncurling.

Light love in a mist, by the midsummer moon misguided,
Scarce seen in the twilight garden if gloom insist,
Seems vainly to seek for a star whose gleam has derided
Light love in a mist.

All day in the sun, when the breezes do all they list,
His soft blue raiment of cloudlike blossom abided
Unrent and unwithered of winds and of rays that kissed.

Blithe-hearted or sad, as the cloud or the sun subsided,
Love smiled in the flower with a meaning whereof none wist
Save two that beheld, as a gleam that before them glided,