I would be ever your desired,
Never the possessed—
Nor in this will of mine is wantonness expressed.
The desired woman is most dear,
The possessed wanton is too near.

I would be far on unattainable height—
Always for knowledge, always for sight:
While from your touch and kisses I am free,
Our love is the high, perfect thing to be.

When at your desk you sit with studious look
Forgetting all the world for one small book,

And she who is your all comes up behind you
And nestles, eager in her arms to bind you,

Don't gruffly bid her leave you, don't demur,
But leave your book and go along with her!

Your dusty tomes will bide with you for aye,
You do not know how long your love will stay.

There 's many a lonely man with care-worn brow
Would gladly be disturbed as you are now.

Let love illuminate in shining gold
Your book with pictures lovely to behold!

Thy love permits not my complaint to rise,
It reaches to my lips, and then it dies.
Now, helpless heart, I cannot aid thee more,
And thus for thee God's pity must implore.

Seest thou not how much disgrace and pain
The scornful world has heaped upon us twain,
On thee for beauty and the sins thereof,
On me for this infirmity of love.

Oft-times she will not speak to me at all,
Or if she deign to speak, the words that fall
Cold from her haughty lips are words of blame:—
—I know thee not—I have not heard thy name!

Old love would seem as though not love today:
Spell-bound by thee, my laughter dies away.
The very wax sheds sympathetic tears
And gutters sadly down till dawn appears.

Father, let thy blessing
Touch us and remain,
Guiding all our actions
Till we meet again.

Father, keep us loving,
Brave and true and free,
Kind to every creature,—
All belong to thee.

Unto all thy children,
Here and everywhere,
Father, give the comfort
Of thy loving care.

In the fair blank that now, like some new bay
In life's vague ocean, opens with to-day,
Couldst thou but write, dear lady, at thy will,
All thou wouldst choose of good, or shun of ill,
As on this paper thou mayst fill the space
With thoughts and wishes gentle as thy face,
Thou couldst not crowd the days that are to be
With happier fortune than I hope for thee.

For, if the saint that keeps the book above
Which holds the record of thy life and love,
Where at one view thy childhood and thine age,
Thy past and future, gleam upon the page,

The thoughts that haunt the poet like a dream,
Strange sweet ghost-shapes that through his fancy gleam,
Will one day haunt all hearts as well.
He fills the wide world with his love of flowers,
And with his love of summer sunlit hours,
And with his hate of hell.

The woman whom he loves and crowns shall stand
One day imperial over every land.
The passionate eyes that haunt his sleep
Shall one day flash upon the world, and make
(Not now the poet's, nay) the world's heart ache,
And make the world's eyes weep.

What though no fame the poet gains?
Does fame deserve his care?
Not unrewarded are his pains,
If he shall please the fair.

To Delia my lays belong,
Their constant theme is love;
Enough if she attend the song,
If she the theme approve.

'Twas love that made me first a bard,
From love my numbers flow,
Nor claim I ought, as my reward,
That Delia can't bestow.

How sweet from her a look a smile,
When once my labour's o'er;
It soothes the mem'ry of past toil,
And animates to more.

What would I do, what would I shun,

Let the world with its futile aims pass away,
For I care not whether darkness tinge the day,
Nor whether the stars within the heavens stay—
(Let the world with its futile aims pass away!)

Life is so ruthless: the efforts of man are vain,
Let me have peace and the world forsworn again.

The terrible strife of mankind! to what does it tend?
Only the grave and oblivion's desperate end.

Let the world with its futile aims pass away:
Let me have peace in a perfect passion's sway;
So long as we Love, what matters the darkest day?

There was an hour when stars flung out
A magical wild melody,
When all the woods became alive
With elfin dance and revelry.

A holiday for happy hearts!—
The trees shone silver in the moon,
And clapped their gleaming hands to see
Night like a radiant kindled noon!

For suddenly a new world woke
At one new touch of wizardry,
When my love from her mirthful mouth
Spoke words of sweet true love to me.