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Helen

Thy face, with drowsy eyes
That dream the dawn of love—
Thy yellow hair above—
The exquisite surprise
Of head so naiad-bright—
How beautiful the sight!

Sweet music fills my ears,
The dance is all around,
Amidst the light and sound
Thy voice my spirit hears,
Sweeter than any tune
Of viol and bassoon.

It is the light divine
Of love within our hearts
That gives us dreams—that parts
From the world thy soul and mine;
That almost maketh me,
Helen, to worship thee.

Our sweet English Rhine—the Fal

O, lovely Fal, whose wooded banks
To thy fair self give wondrous grace,
Of thee, loved stream, I fain would speak,
And having power, thy path would trace,
As flowing onward day by day,
Gently thou glidest on thy way.

Thou, changing ever, yet the same
To me, whose memory loves to rove
Along thy winding silvery course;
Around thy path I oft have wove
Sweet thoughts of pleasures past and gone,
When Love's fair sunlight o'er me shone.

As I, in frail and simple craft,
Down on thy heaving breast did glide;
In the glad transport of those hours

Here and There

Eyes that are black like bramble-berries
That lustre with light the rank hedgerows
Are kindly eyes and within them there is
Love of the land where the bramble grows.

But mine are blue as a far-off distance
And grey as the water beneath the sea;
Therefore they look with a long insistence
For things that are not and cannot be.

The Tyneside Widow

There's mony a man loves land and life,
Loves life and land and fee;
And mony a man loves fair women,
But never a man loves me, my love,
But never a man loves me.

O weel and weel for a' lovers,
I wot weel may they be;
And weel and weel for a' fair maidens,
But aye mair woe for me, my love,
But aye mair woe for me.

O weel be wi' you, ye sma' flowers,
Ye flowers and every tree;
And weel be wi' you, a' birdies,
But teen and tears wi' me, my love,
But teen and tears wi' me.

O weel be yours, my three brethren,

Of Age and Love

A WIFELESS grave, a childless funeral
Are sadly yielded to the silvered head.
The tomb looks darker for the unloved dead
To those unwitting ones who bear his pall.
They err in pity, not accounting all
The lights on lonely pathways overshed.
Ev'n I, the loneliest man of men unwed,
Have large sweet hopes of meetings to befall.
Here with a hand upon the latch of death
I thank God humbly, thinking, through this gate
Passed Edith purely; happy Marion stands
A little way within in heaven's mild breath,
With loving Mary whom I knew too late,

I Love You

I love you as the angels love, Dear Heart;
I love you far beyond the dreams of art.
As radiant stars fling out their silver light
Across the spaces of the silent night,
No word they speak, and yet the stars are true
To one transcendent chord—so, I love you.

I love you as the blossom loves the day,
As tender leaves thrill to the breath of May,
As suns at twilight seek the rose-hued west,
I love you as the weary soul loves rest.
Till you my day with sunshine-presence bless,
I am but longing, love and loneliness.

Bells of Being

Behind the curtain of form
The bells of being ring,
And beyond the heart of the real
There is not anything;

But Love is the music of being
And Love is the soul of art,
And to live is simply to hear
The whisper-beat of His heart.