Love is
customary sight,
repeated encounter,
the unification of soul and body
in the past, present, future.

Today,
love compromised my character.
No, each day
love has compromised my character.

Even love dies of starvation;
heart stays cold after a drink
of warm water—
The sickness grows worse, my love;
O my love, you have closed your eyes!

When a woman is without love,
she doesn't know how to
become good and hopeful.

When a woman is in love,
she dies of thirst

As on Purple Carpets I
Charm'd by wine in slumber ly,
With a troop of Maids (resorted
There to play) me thought I sported:
Whose companions, lovely Boies,
Interrupt me with rude noise:
Yet I offer made to kisse them,
But o'th'sudden wake and misse them:
Vext to see them thus forsake me,
I to sleep again betake me.

Wales England wed, so I was bred.
'twas merry London gave me breath.
I dreamt of love,—and fame. I strove:
but Ireland taught me love was best.
And Irish eyes, and London cries,
and streams of Wales, may tell the rest,
What more than these I asked of life,
I am content to have from Death.

Wales England wed, so I was bred.
'twas merry London gave me breath.
I dreamt of love,—and fame. I strove:
but Ireland taught me love was best.
And Irish eyes, and London cries,
and streams of Wales, may tell the rest,

Still dumb thou sittest, with a downcast look,
The world forgetting o'er a brown old book;

While she who would be always near thee tries
In silence to embrace thee with her eyes.

Say not so sharply ‘Leave me here in peace!’
Nay! leave thy book, and from dull reading cease;

Since many a man who sits alone, perplexed,
Would yield all else to be so teased and vexed.

Give up thy book of life for Love to paint
With golden pictures of a household saint,

With miniatures whose blazon may provide
For days that shall grow dark a light and guide;

Here's a meadow full of sunshine,
Ripe grasses lush and high;
There's a reaper on the roadway,
And a lark hangs in the sky.

There's a nest of love enclosing
Three little beaks that cry;
The reaper's in the meadow
And a lark hangs in the sky.

Here's a mead all full of summer,
And tragedy goes by
With a knife amongst the grasses,
And a song up in the sky.

Sleep on, my love, in thy cold bed,
Never to be disquieted!
My last good-night! Thou wilt not wake
Till I thy fate shall overtake;
Till age, or grief, or sickness must
Marry my body to that dust
It so much loves, and fill the room
My heart keeps empty in thy tomb.
Stay for me there! I will not fail
To meet thee in that hollow vale.
And think not much of my delay;
I am already on the way,
And follow thee with all the speed
Desire can make, or sorrows breed.
Each minute is a short degree,
And every hour a step towards thee.

I doubt a lovely thing is dead,
An inward thing, so clear and sweet;
I come at night and lay my head
Against its breast, and hear no beat;
I touch its hands, and feel no heat.

Lo! I have slain a lovely thing,
For I am blind in soul and sight;
If it would live, it needs must sing,
It could not prosper in the night;
It waned, and waited for the light.

With loneliness and empty rooms,
With dust and ashes of the past,
I sat and heard the busy looms
Work out the warp of First and Last;
Where night and day the shuttle cast.