Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair linèd slippers for the cold,

Like to a ring without a finger,
Or a bell without a ringer,
Like a horse was never ridden,
Or a feast and no guest bidden,
Like a well without a bucket,
Or a rose if no man pluck it,
Just such as these may she be said
That lives, not loves, but dies a maid.

The ring, if worn, the finger decks;
The bell pulled by the ringer speaks;
The horse does ease if he be ridden;
The feast doth please if guest be bidden;
The bucket draws the water forth;
The rose, when plucked, is still most worth:
Such is the virgin in my eyes

When the beauteous Spring I see,
Glad and free,
Making young the sea and earth,
Then the light of day above
And our love
Seem but newly brought to birth.

When the sky of deeper blue
Lights anew
Lands more beautiful and green,
Love, with witching looks for darts,
Wars on hearts,
Winning them for his demesne.

Scattering his arrows dire
Tipped with fire,
He doth bring beneath his sway
Men and birds and beasts for slaves—
And the waves
To his power obeisance pay. . . .

Nature, for Love's triumphing,
In the Spring

Trip and go, heave and ho,
Up and down, to and fro,
From the town to the grove,
Two and two, let us rove
A-maying, a-playing:
Love hath no gainsaying:
So merrily trip and go.

If we give love and sympathy
—Even to those who hate us
We fill them so with mystery
—They know not how to rate us.

If we give love and sympathy
—Even to those who hate us
We fill them so with mystery
—They know not how to rate us.

In the white cabin at the foot of the mountain,
Is my sweet, my love:

Is my love, is my desire,
And all my happiness.

Before the night must I see her
Or my little heart will break.

My little heart will not break,
For my lovely dear I have seen.

Fifty nights I have been
At the threshold of her door; she did not know it.

The rain and the wind whipped me,
Until my garments dripped.

Nothing came to console me
Except the sound of breathing from her bed.

Except the sound of breathing from her bed,

E V'RY youth for love's sweet portion sighs,
Ev'ry maiden sighs to win man's love;
Why, alas! should bitter pain arise
From the noblest passion that we prove?

Thou, kind soul, bewailest, lov'st him well,
From disgrace his memory's saved by thee;
Lo, his spirit signs from out its cell:
B E A M AN, NOR SEEK TO FOLLOW M E .

So quietly love came,
I did not hear his name
Thro' the night;
Only silence fell,
Like a starry spell
Of light. . . .

There was no caroling
Of bird or trumpet-flare;
Only on the air
The sudden burst of Spring,
And in my heart a flame,
(So quietly love came!)

Just a few themes,
Love, God, and glory,
Laughter and dreams,
Make all my story.

I croon them idly
In the sunbeams.
How to spread widely
Just a few themes?

Cemeteries are places for departed souls
And bones interred,
Or hearts with shattered loves.
A woman with lips made warm for laughter
Would find grey stones and roving spirits
Too chill for living, moving pulses . . .
And thou, great spirit, wouldst shiver in thy granite shroud
Should idle mirth or empty talk
Disturb thy tranquil sleeping.

A cemetery is a place for shattered loves
And broken hearts. . . .
Bowed before the crystal chalice of thy soul,
I find the multi-colored fragrance of thy mind
Has lost itself in Death's transparency.