The Andalusian merchant, that returns
Laden with cochineal and china dishes,
Reports in Spain how strangely Fogo burns
Amidst an ocean full of flying fishes:
These things seem wondrous, yet more wondrous I,
Whose heart with fear doth freeze, with love doth fry.

Two strong streams of a land must run
Together surely as the sun
Succeeds the moon. Who shall gainsay
The gods that reign, that wisely reign?
Love is, love was, shall be again.
Like death, inevitable it is;
Perchance, like death, the dawn of bliss.
Let us, then, love the perfect day,
The twelve o'clock of life, and stop
The two hands pointing to the top,
And hold them tightly while we may.

When out of bed my Love doth spring,
'Tis but as day a kindling:
But when She's up and fully drest,
'Tis then broad Day throughout the East.

“I have not sought Thee, I have not found Thee,
I have not thirsted for Thee:
And now cold billows of death surround me,
Buffeting billows of death astound me,—
Wilt Thou look upon, wilt Thou see
Thy perishing me?”

“Yea, I have sought thee, yea, I have found thee,
Yea, I have thirsted for thee,
Yea, long ago with love's bands I bound thee:
Now the Everlasting Arms surround thee,—
Thro' death's darkness I look and see
And clasp thee to Me.”

You that I loved all my life long,
you are not the one.
You that I followed, my line or path or way,
that I followed singing, and you
earth and air of the world the way went through,
and you who stood around it so it could be
the way, you forests and cities,
you deer and opossums struck by the lonely hunter
and left decaying, you paralyzed obese ones
who sat on a falling porch in a deep green holler
and observed me, your bald dog barking,
as I stumbled past in a hurry along my line,
you are not the one. But you

Though thou, indeed, hast quite forgotten ruth,
Its steadfast truth my heart abandons not;
But still its thought yields service in good part
To that hard heart in thee.

Alas! who hears believes not I am so.
Yet who can know? of very surety, none.
From Love is won a spirit, in some wise,
Which dies perpetually:

And, when at length in that strange ecstasy
The heavy sigh will start,
There rains upon my heart
A love so pure and fine,
That I say: "Lady, I am wholly thine.'

Ah ! well might he upon Christ's bosom leaning
The chosen few above,
Declare the truth, with zeal not overweening,
That God, our God, is love.

Our God is love: his smile clothes earth in beauty,
And robes it with delight;
And every heart that heeds the call of duty
That love shall clothe in white.

Fair as the morning is the soul that loveth
All things below, above,
Which he the wise and holy One, approveth,
Growing like him in love.

Our God is love, when fair and fragrant flowers
Our daily pathway strew,

——I LOVED your face.
Whether I loved you once I do not know;
Whether I found below
——The signs of grace.

——I would rejoice
To hear you speak, as at a heavenly token.
I know not what was spoken.
——I loved your voice.

Fullness of love sleeps in us like a sea
After night's tempest, O thou lovely thing!
The meadow breezes kiss our cheeks, the bee
Hums by us with the honey of the Spring.

I know this perilous love-lane
No whither the traveller leads,
Yet my fancy the sweet scent of
Thy tangled tresses feeds.

In the midnight of thy locks,
I renounce the day;
In the ring of thy rose-lips,
My heart forgets to pray.