When Delia on the plain appears,
Awed by a thousand tender fears
I would approach, but dare not move:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

Whene'er she speaks, my ravished ear
No other voice than hers can hear,
No other wit but hers approve:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

If she some other youth commend,
Though I was once his fondest friend,
His instant enemy I prove:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

When she is absent, I no more
Delight in all that pleased before—
The clearest spring, or shadiest grove:

Here I sit with my belly full
And he who might have been my brother
Walks hungry in the rain.

Here I sit with my belly full
And she I might have loved
Seeks someone in the shadows
To whom she may sell her body.

Here I sit with my belly full,
No longer in the rain,
No longer the shadows for the
Woman I love,
No longer hunger.

Success is a great big beefsteak
With onions on it,

Name the thing knowledge—name it liberty—
To me this laughter and light sundering seems
Dark with the dismal anarchy of dreams
Where everything is false and therefore free:
The ringing bird-bolt shot with certainty
Shrieks past exultant as a sea-bird screams;
The thistledown, on every air that streams,
Floats ever in a sad frivolity.

You too that toy with treacheries, you too,
You (if the perfect one should come in power),
Having the terrible human heart within,
The trumpet of the valorous voice in you,

Othou that often hast within thine eyes
A Love who holds three shafts,—know thou from me
That this my sonnet would commend to thee
(Come from afar) a soul in heavy sighs,
Which even by Love's sharp arrow wounded lies.
Twice did the Syrian archer shoot, and he
Now bends his bow the third time, cunningly,
That, thou being here, he wound me in no wise.
Because the soul would quicken at the core
Thereby, which now is near to utter death,
From those two shafts, a triple wound that yield.
The first gives pleasure, yet disquieteth;

Now, fie on foolish love! It not befits
Or man or woman know it;
Love was not meant for people in their wits,
And they that fondly show it
Betray the straw and feathers in their brain,
And shall have Bedlam for their pain.
If single love be such a curse,
To marry is to make it ten times worse.

Oh, the Rifles have stolen my dear jewel away,
And I in old England no longer can stay;
I will cross the wide ocean, all on my bare breast,
To find my own true love, whom I do love best.

And when I have found him, my own heart's delight,
I will prove to him kinder by day and by night,
I will prove to him kinder than the true turtle-dove,
I never will at any time prove false to my love.

And when we are married the bells they shall ring,
With many sweet changes our joys to begin;
The music shall play and the drums make a noise,

My love she was born in the north country wide,
Where's lofty hills and mountains all round on every side;
She's one of the fairest creatures that ever my eyes did see,
She exceeds all the maids in the north country.

My parents separated me and my dear,
Which caused me to weep and shed many a tear;
Asleep I do mourn, and awake I do cry,
And 'tis all for the sake of my darling I die.

Come saddle my horse that I may go ride
In search of my true love, let what will betide.
O'er lofty hills and mountains I'll wander and I'll rove

My blessed Mother dozing in her chair
On Christmas Day seemed an embodied Love,
A comfortable Love with soft brown hair
Softened and silvered to a tint of dove,
A better sort of Venus with an air
Angelical from thoughts that dwell above,
A wiser Pallas in whose body fair
Enshrined a blessed soul looks out thereof.
Winter brought Holly then; now Spring has brought
Paler and frailer Snowdrops shivering;
And I have brought a simple humble thought
—I her devoted duteous Valentine—,
A lifelong thought which thrills this song I sing,

Iam all bent to glean the golden ore
Little by little from the river-bed;
Hoping the day to see
When Crœsus shall be conquered in my store.
Therefore, still sifting where the sands are spread,
I labour patiently:
Till, thus intent on this thing and no more,—
If to a vein of silver I were led,
It scarce could gladden me.
And, seeing that no joy's so warm i' the core
As this whereby the heart is comforted
And the desire set free,—
Therefore thy bitter love is still my scope,
Lady, from whom it is my life's sore theme

A dying figure against the sky;
Laughter mocking a piteous cry;
Terror, silence, an anguished plea:
“Father, forgive them, they do not see!”

Piercing the darkness like singing flame,
“My Love shall enfold them!” the answer came.

A dying figure against the sky;
Laughter mocking a piteous cry;
Terror, silence, an anguished plea:
“Father, forgive them, they do not see!”

Piercing the darkness like singing flame,
“My Love shall enfold them!” the answer came.