Is not the picture strangely like?
Doesn't the very bowing strike?
Can any art of love in fashion
Express a more prevailing passion?
That air—that sticking to her side—
That deference, ill-concealing pride,—
That seeming consciousness of coat,
And repetition of one note,—
Ducking and tossing back his head,
As if at every bow he said,
‘Madam, by God’,—or ‘Strike me dead’.

And then the lady! look at her:
What bridling sense of character!
How she declines, and seems to go,
Yet still endures him to and fro;

Thy voice, as tender as the light
That shivers low at eve—
Thy hair, where myriad flashes bright
Do in and outward weave—
Thy charms in their diversity
Half frighten and astonish me.

Thine eyes, that hold a mirth subdued
Like deep pools scattering fire—
Mine dare not meet them in their mood,
For fear of my desire,
Lest thou that secret do descry
Which evermore I must deny.

Hard is the world that does not give
To every love a place;
Hard is the power that bids us live
A life bereft of grace—
Hard, hard to lose thy figure, dear,

Ah, Christ, I love you rings to the wild sky
And I must think a little of the past:
When I was ten I told a stinking lie
That got a black boy whipped; but now at last
The going years, caught in an after-glow,
Reverse like balls englished upon green baize—
Let them return, let the round trumpets blow
The ancient crackle of the Christ's deep gaze.
Deafened and blind, with senses yet unfound,
Am I, untutored to the after-wit
Of knowledge, knowing a nightmare has no sound;
Therefore with idle hands and head I sit
In late December before the fire's daze

I'le doe my best to win, when'ere I wooe:
That man loves not, who is not zealous too.

Seene? and yet hated thee? they did not see,
They saw Thee not, that saw and hated thee:
No, no, they saw thee not, o Life, o Love,
Who saw ought in thee, that their hate could move.

Another year of joy & grief,
Another year of hope & fear:
O Mother, is life long or brief?
We hasten while we linger here.

But since we linger, love me still
And bless me still, O Mother mine,
While hand in hand we scale life's hill,
You Guide, & I your Valentine.

I am that Adam who, with Snake for guest,
Hid anguished eyes upon Eve's piteous breast.
I am that Adam who, with broken wings,
Fled from the Seraph's brazen trumpetings.
Betrayed and fugitive, I still must roam
A world where sin, and beauty, whisper of Home.

Oh, from wide circuit, shall at length I see
Pure daybreak lighten again on Eden's tree?
Loosed from remorse and hope and love's distress,
Enrobe me again in my lost nakedness?
No more with wordless grief a loved one grieve,
But to Heaven's nothingness re-welcome Eve?

A moon impoverished amid stars curtailed,
A sun of its exuberant lustre shorn,
A transient morning that is scarcely morn,
A lingering night in double dimness veiled.—
Our hands are slackened and our strength has failed:
We born to darkness, wherefore were we born?
No ripening more for olive, grape, or corn:
Faith faints, hope faints, even love himself has paled.
Nay! love lifts up a face like any rose
Flushing and sweet above a thorny stem,
Softly protesting that the way he knows;
And as for faith and hope, will carry them

I HAVE ransacked the encyclopedias
And slid my fingers among topics and titles
Looking for you.

And the answer comes slow.
There seems to be no answer.

I shall ask the next banana peddler the who and the why of it.

Or—the iceman with his iron tongs gripping a clear cube in summer sunlight—maybe he will know.

Lett fickle Fortune runn her blyndest race,
I setled have an unremovèd mynde;
I scorne to be the game of Phancie's chase,
Or fane to shewe the change of every winde.
Light giddy humours, stinted to no rest,
Still change their choyse, yet never choose the best.

My choise was guided by foresightfull heede,
It was averrèd with approvinge will;
It shall be followed with performinge deede,
And seald with vow, till death the chooser kill.
Yea death, though finall date of vayne desires,
Endes not my choise, which with no tyme expires.