One sunny time in May
When lambs were sporting,
The sap ran in the spray
And I went courting,
And all the apple-boughs
Were bright with blossom,
I picked an early rose
For my love's bosom.

And then I met her friend,
Down by the water,
Who cried, “She's met her end,
That grey-eyed daughter,
That voice of hers is stilled.
Her beauty broken.”
Oh, me! my love is killed,
My love unspoken.

She was too sweet, too dear,
To die so cruel.
O Death, why leave me here
And take my jewel?
Her voice went to the bone,

I love the little pond to mark at spring
When frogs & toads are croaking round its brink
When blackbirds yellow bills gin first to sing
& green woodpecker rotten trees to clink
I love to see the cattle muse & drink
& water crinkle to the rude march wind
While two ash dotterels flourish on its brink
Bearing key bunches children run to find
& water buttercups they're forced to leave behind.

Oh , turn thy bow,
Thy power we feel and know,
Fair Cupid, turn away thy bow:
They be those golden arrows,
Bring ladies all their sorrows,
And till there be more truth in men,
Never shoot at maid again.
Fountain-heads, and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves:
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls;
A midnight bell, a parting groan,
These are the sounds we feed upon;
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley,
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.

Hence, all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly:
There's nought in this life sweet
If man were wise to see't,
But our melancholy,
O sweetest Melancholy!
Welcome, folded arms, and fixéd eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,
A look that's fasten'd to the ground,
A tongue chain'd up without a sound!
Fountain heads and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves!
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly housed save bats and owls!
A midnight bell, a parting groan!
These are the sounds we feed upon;

You must be very old, Sir Giles,”
I said; he said: “Yea, very old:”
Whereat the mournfullest of smiles
Creased his dry skin with many a fold.

“They hammer'd out my basnet point
Into a round salade,” he said,
“The basnet being quite out of joint,
Natheless the salade rasps my head.”

He gazed at the great fire awhile:
“And you are getting old, Sir John;”
(He said this with that cunning smile
That was most sad) “we both wear on,

“Knights come to court and look at me,
With eyebrows up, except my lord
And my dear lady, none I see

I WILL row my boat on Muckross Lake when the grey of the dove
Comes down at the end of the day; and a quiet like prayer
Grows soft in your eyes, and among your fluttering hair
The red of the sun is mixed with the red of your cheek.
I will row you, O boat of my heart! till our mouths have forgotten to speak
In the silence of love, broken only by trout that spring
And are gone, like a fairy's finger that casts a ring
With the luck of the world for the hand that can hold it fast.
I will rest on my oars, my eyes on your eyes, till our thoughts have passed

Give beauty all her right;
She 's not to one form tied.
Each shape yields fair delight,
Where her perfections bide.
Helen I grant might pleasing be,
And Rosamond was as sweet as she.

Some the quick eye commends,
Some swelling lips and red;
Pale looks have many friends,
Through sacred sweetness bred.
Meadows have flowers that pleasure move,
Though roses are the flowers of love.

Free beauty is not bound
To one unmoved clime.
She visits every ground,
And favours every time.
Let the old loves with mine compare,

Y shall gow telle, as Y have herd,
Of þe bysshope Seynt Roberd;
Hys toname ys ‘Grostest
Of Lynkolne’, so seyþ þe gest.
He loved moche to here þe harpe,
For mannys wytte hyt makyþ sharpe;
Next hys chaumbre, besyde hys stody.
Hys harpers chaumbre was fast þerby.
Many tymes, be nygtys and dayys,
He had solace of notes and layys.
One asked hym onys, resun why
He hadde delyte yn mynstralsy.
He answerede hym on þys manere,
Why he helde þe harpe so dere:
‘the vertu of þe harpe, þurgh skylle and rygt,
Wyl destroye þe fendes mygt;

Lately on yonder swelling bush,
Big with many a coming rose,
This early bud began to blush,
And did but half itself disclose;
I plucked it, though no better grown,
And now you see how full 'tis blown.

Still as I did the leaves inspire,
With such a purple light they shone,
As if they had been made of fire,
And spreading so, would flame anon.
All that was meant by air or sun,
To the young flower, my breath has done.

If our loose breath so much can do,
What may the same in forms of love,
Of purest love, and music too,

Dear child of mine, the wealth of whose warm hair
Hangs like ripe clusters of the apricot,
Thy blue eyes, gazing, comprehend me not,
But love me, and for love alone I care;
Thou listenest with a shy and serious air,
Like some Sabrina from her weedy grot
Outpeeping coyly when the noon is hot
To watch some shepherd piping unaware.
'Twas not for thee I sang, dear child;—and yet
Would that my song could reach such ears as thine,
Pierce to young hearts unsullied by the fret
Of years in their white innocence divine;