Were you to come,
With your clear, gray eyes
As calmly placid as, in summer's heat,
At noontide lie the sultry skies;
With your dark, brown hair
As smoothly quiet as the leaves
When stirs no cooling breath of air;
And shorn of smile, your full, red lips
Prest firmly close as the chaliced bud,
Before the nectar-quaffing bee ere sips;
I would not know you.
I would not love you.

But should you come,
With your love-bright eyes
Dancing gaily as, on summer's eve,
The stars adown the Western skies;
With your hair, wind-caught

The may bush smells sae very sweet
The crimson threeds sae fine
The chaffinch builds her nest sae neat
& shepherd's sit to dine
Aye dear o'me I love to see
The sweetly scented white thorn tree.

The leaves are green & very green
Though bunches o' the may
Whiten till scarcely one is seen
For a whole summers day
Aye dear o' me I love to see
Hedges all white & love the awthorn tree.

It spreads above the little pond
& hides the thrushes nest
The hedge is whiter still beyond
With moonlight on its breast

The furrows of life Time is plowing,
But we mourn not the Spring which departs,
For the husbandman Fate, in his sowing,
Scattered love in the soil of our hearts.

The sunshine of virtue and beauty
Shall wake the sweet seedlings to bloom;
The warm dews of mercy and duty
Shall moisten the tractable loam.

Oh, blow, grains of love to the binding!
Oh, blush, golden fruit on the hill!
'Tis a dreary, long day to the grinding,
But a short, pleasant way from the mill.

But fondness and faith will be growing,
Be the sky clear or cloudy above.

O God of love, thy glory
Blazes in the gospel plan,
Abounding with the story
Of thy flowing love to man.

High love, beyond conceiving,
Gave thy sole-begotten son;
That the bliss of souls believing
Should through endless ages run.

Warm with divinest feeling,
Down the Filial Goodness came:
And, to mediate our healing,
Bore a vile delinquent's shame.

Who, Lord, thy name avowing
Shall his glorious title prove?
Are not all of thy allowing
Men of universal love.

Lo, my bosom is expanding
To receive this heav'nly guest;

Love's an headstrong wild desire
To possess what we admire:
Hurrying on without reflecting,
All that's just or wise neglecting.
Pain or pleasure it is neither,
But excess of both together;
Now, addressing, cringing, whining,
Vowing, fretting, weeping, pining,
Murm'ring, languishing and sighing,
Mad, despairing, raving, dying:
Now, caressing, laughing, toying,
Fondling, kissing and enjoying.
Always in extremes abiding,
Without measure, fond or chiding:
Either furious with possessing,
Or despairing of the blessing:

All ye gentle powers above,
Venus, and thou God of love;
All ye gentle souls below,
That can melt at others woe;
Lesbia's loss with tears deplore,
Lesbia's sparrow is no more;
Late she wont her bird to prize
Dearer than her own bright eyes.
Sweet it was, and lovely too,
And its mistress well it knew.
Nectar from her lips it sipt,
Here it hopt, and there it skipt:
Oft it wanton'd in the air,
Chirping only to the fair:
Oft it lull'd its head to rest
On the pillow of her breast.
Now, alas! it chirps no more;
All its blandishments are o'er:

The old man of the mountains loves the mountains:
in the mountains he has built his thatched hut.
At night, there's a storm; the snow is so thick
it snaps branches of bamboo outside the window.

“What does the little boy love?”
He loves this room of fragrant plants!
He wants to mount a flying dragon
and fly to heaven, to see the red sun.

Living , she loved the house of prayer;
Loving, she lived to plant it here,
And left what love could well afford,
A noble offering to her Lord.

No better monument could tell
What her heart loved, and loved so well,—
Such holy love breathed in her breath,
Lived in her life, survived her death.

Though marble piles in dust decay,
And human glory melts away,
Her gift abides in sins forgiven,
In souls redeemed, and heirs of heaven.

Blessings be on this favored spot,—
No act of love shall be forgot;
And Christ's approving word shall be,

Friend, little weak fair Christine, see
What a wail came, your long sigh
To my dove's nest. O! but my nest is built high,
Here at Heaven's edge. In His love
On the warm snowy breast of His bride,
I well hidden, revelling in the sweets.
Christine, He called me, I was bidden;
Listen how He called—no, that was eternally,
How I heard. On one eve then—
You remember our room,
The little dear room in our world's home, where we
Oft by the lattice sat talking familiarly,
Now with one or another
Sweet word of our love each for other,