Once wandering in Flora's bowers
To gather wreaths of fragrant flowers,
I found love's god asleep
Among the roses; in my wine
I plunged him—of the draught divine
I drank a potion deep.
Now in my limbs I feel the sting
Of his light pinions fluttering.

The gods said Love is blind. The earth was young
With foolish, youthful laughter when iTheard;
It caught and spoke the letter of the words,
And from that time till now hath said and sung,
“Oh, Love is blind! The falsest face and tongue
Can cheat him, once his passion's thrill is stirred:
He is so blind, poor Love!”
Strange none demurred
At this, nor saw how hollow false it rang,
When all men know that sightless men can tell
Unnumbered things which vision cannot find.
Powers of the air are leagued to guide them well;

What do I love him for? His lustrous eyes
Of mirrored sea-change, deep as yonder wave:
Or yet the wonder of his spirits rise
When laughter woos him from reflection grave.
Or is it for the tender suppliant way
He has in seeking me at close of day
To put his head upon my breast and say
A thousand times he loves me? Is it for
His ardent lips or gentle hand's caress,
Or yet his midnight locks that I adore?
Not for these charms I love him,—nor not less
Were he to lack them: nay, I worship more
The Inner-Being in its loveliness!

L OVE'S pleadings will be heard though lips be still,
In fluttering breaths that quicken into sighs,
In timid hands that touch and cling and thrill,
And in the dear confession of the eyes;
Yes, very silence has a voice of prayer
More sweet than any old Provençal air.

As when beside a viol lying mute,
Strong chords are struck until it seems to wake
And give an answering murmur to the lute,
So heart will throb to heart for love's sweet sake,
And chant in faint, delicious harmonies
The rapturous passion-song that never dies.

She was a wet nurse, but I was afraid.
Night and day, “My child,” she sobbed,
“I'm all bones,” and saying, “If I die,”
with love fiercer than mother's,
held me tight.—As if to say, “I'll be sad.”

She was a wet nurse, but how afraid I was.
Devotion, a moment before death;
her tearless, aged eyes
with love fiercer than mother's
stared at me—bluish white.

She was a wet nurse, but I can't forget her.
Aggrieved, confused with doubts,
she huddled up like water when I cried,
“My child, it's me” (must have been two at night)

After the jostling on canal streets
and the orchids blowing in the window
I work in cut glass and majolica
and hear the plectrum of the angels.

My thoughts keep dwelling on the littoral
where china clocks tick in the cold shells
and the weeds slide in the equinox.

The night is cold for love,
a chamber for the chorus
and the antistrophe of the sealight.

Though Amaryllis dance in green
Like Fairy Queen,
And sing full clear;
Corinna can, with smiling, cheer.
Yet since their eyes make heart so sore,
Hey ho! chill love no more.

My sheep are lost for want of food,
And I so wood
That all the day
I sit and watch a herd-maid gay,
Who laughs to see me sigh so sore;
Hey ho! chill love no more.

Her loving looks, her beauty bright,
Is such delight
That all in vain
I love to like, and lose my gain
For her, that thanks me not therefore.
Hey ho! chill love no more.

'T is done!—I saw it in my dreams:
No more with Hope the future beams,
My days of happiness are few;
Chill'd by misfortune's wintry blast,
My dawn of life is overcast,
Love, Hope, and Joy, alike adieu!—
Would I could add Remembrance too!

Before a bomb buried
him in his courtyard
Salman told us:

“Loved ones,
for a long time we did not live
the way we wanted:

LOVE-MAKING is like haymaking, soon over,
And both are mutable throughout their season.
Haymaker! hear me; thou too hear me, lover,
Nor scorn experience nor be deaf to reason.
Be quick at work; the sunny hours won't last,
And storms may come before they half are past.