Sweet hand! the sweet yet cruel bow thou art,
From whence at one, five ivory arrows fly,
So with five wounds at once I wounded lie
Bearing in breast the print of every dart.
Saint Francis had the like, yet felt no smart:
Where I in living torments never die,
His wounds were in his hands and feet where I
All these same helpless wounds feel in my heart.
Now as Saint Francis (if a saint) am I.
The bow which shot these shafts a relic is;
I mean the hand, which is the reason why
So many for devotion thee would kiss,
And I thy glove kiss as a thing divine;

Swear to me, said my love, that you are mine:
Bring yourself to me outside my door and wait:
My lovers have come in numbers but they go,
I call for love that asks for nothing and gives all.
I am tired of the debits and credits of love,
I am tired of the vows of lovers,
I leave you as free as I ask to be myself.
Swear to me, said my love, that love is not a bond:
Love's body is for love's body, that is all,
Love's soul is for love's soul, that is all.
I give all for all, I bargain for nothing less,
And as much as you confer just so much you take away.

I have found that love comes forth from customs issuing a challenge,
And love's challenge turns love loose upon you in vehement plenty,
And you go to your root and find love there before you,
And you go to your finished boughs and you find love there already arrived,
And you follow love out of all law and habit,
And you follow love out of all luxury and laxity,
And you go where love is free and pure, and you track love to the scene of its newday consummations
Once you thought love was only safe with the police at its door:

When Spring in sunny woodland lay,
And gilded buds were sparely set
On oak tree and the thorny may,
I gave my love a violet.
“O Love,” she said, and kissed my mouth
With one light, tender maiden kiss,
“There are no rich blooms in the south
So fair to me as this!”

When Summer reared her haughty crest,
We paused beneath the ruddy stars;
I placed a rose upon her breast,
Plucked from the modest casement bars.
“O Love,” she said, and kissed my mouth—
Heart, heart, rememb'rest thou the bliss?—
“In east or west, in north or south,

What art thou, Love? whence are those charms?
—That thus thou bear'st an universal rule:
For thee the soldier quits his arms,
—The king turns slave, the wise man fool.

In vain we chase thee from the field,
—And with cool thoughts resist thy yoke:
Next tide of blood, alas! we yield,
—And all those high resolves are broke.

Can we e'er hope thou shouldst be true,
—Whom we have found so often base?
Cozened and cheated, still we view
—And fawn upon the treacherous face.

In vain our nature we accuse;
—And dote, because she says we must:

I LOVE her for her charming face,
And those fond eyes that gaze on me,
And roguish lips that hold the place
Where other lips most long to be,
The rosy cheek, the dimpled chin,
That would less ardent lover win.

I love her just because I do,
Because 'tis such a pleasure, too,
And were such wooing
My undoing
Just as tenderly I 'd woo,
I could n't help it, nor could you.

I love her for her dimpled hand,
And hold it just to see her frown,
And disobey her sweet command
To see her dainty foot come down.

Say Stranger did you see my love
I prythee tell to me
I left her down in the beechen grove
While I sought the strawberry
& when wild strawberrys I did gain
The woody hills upon
I sought her in the Grove in vain
For the gentle maid was gone

Then prythee stranger kindly say
Did ye see the maid I seek
& tell me what she were I pray
Before that I can speak
O what shes like were hard to say
Kind stranger well I wot
Like the sun where she exists is day
& night where she is not
What cloaths then did this stranger wear

The faire[y]s heard her song & so much they loved the tune
That they brought a golden cage & took her to the moon
Where imprisoned she remains in the pallace of their queen
& at night I look up there & I think shes to be seen
I sing aloud then listen till I think she makes reply
& I beg the stars to steal adown & take me to the sky
Where I would fainly fly but I cannot get so far
& the clouds they would not bear me to perch on in the air
So here I must remain in the woods the summer long

I LOVE to watch these rugged hills,
By Hudson's rolling wave,
When angry clouds sweep o'er the sky,
And loud the tempests rave.

I love to watch the foaming surge
That heaves its sparkling crest,
But my home, the dearest spot to me,
Is in the far, far West.

I love to climb the rocky steep,
Or in the silent glade
To wander forth in pensive thought,
When twilight shadows fade.

But the rolling prairie's wide expanse
I love—I love the best—
My home,—the dearest spot to me,
Is in the far, far West.

Were love but true, no frost would mar the flowers,
No fatal frost that down the garden bowers
Steals hideously from bloom to blissful bloom,
The shimmering weft of summer's golden loom,
And mocks with blight their radiant, dreamful hours.

Nor would the waste and wreck of orient towers,
Slow-sunken from the reach of sun and showers,
Tax the unfeatured sands for burial room,
Were love but true.

For love is lord of earth's phantasmal powers,
And all that seems with his own fact he dowers.
The shapes of art, the growths of nature's womb,