O beautiful sun wearer,
with the sun in thy crest!
Come and meet me,
come and meet me,
Meet me to day,
and greet me with a kiss;
Thy love is all my life.
In the name of thy beautiful, beatific vision,
Come to me,
my love! Come to me!

Now what is Love, I pray thee, tell?
It is that fountain and that well
Where pleasure and repentance dwell;
It is, perhaps, the sauncing bell
That tolls all into heaven or hell;
And this is Love, as I hear tell.

Yet what is Love, I prithee, say?
It is a work on holiday,
It is December matched with May,
When lusty bloods in fresh array
Hear ten months after of the play;
And this is Love, as I hear say.

Yet what is Love, good shepherd, sain?
It is a sunshine mixed with rain,
It is a toothache or like pain,

Now that I have won
Long despaired of peace,
And those fears are flown
That vext so my heart's ease;

Shall I wish my love
Had found a path more smooth,
With no thorns to prove
Its constancy and truth?

Wish those nights not spent,
Long, unhappy nights,
Which in sighings went
Over lost delights?

Wish those tears unwept,
When you seemed unkind?
Nay; for these pangs kept
Love steadfast in my mind.

Out of these he came
Stronger, tenderer; tried
As with burning flame;
Proved and purified.

Now all the lovely days are past,
The hours of sun and leagues of sea,
And starry nights that lay between
Yourself and me.
Our boat has left the sea behind.
She lies beside the friendly dock.
And soon the gangway will go down,
And lips will meet, and hands will lock,
And carriers will come climbing up
To take my things and leave us free.
There's trams and streets and home at last
For you and me.

TAKE as you will, slake, solace, and possess
While Youth, with laughter, scatters tears that fall
Sudden and shaken sometimes at your call;
Pledge me in passion and in gentleness,--
In praise and prayer, I would not give you less,
Be less unconquerably true in all,
Take my young kisses,--my young spirit's thrall,
Forbid not Now's imperishable "Yes"!
When I am old, and cold, and wise, and grown
As far beyond as you outstrip me now,--
Nor plead, nor pant, nor challenge nor protest;
Oh, come not then, all these years less your own;

Not speaking of the way,
Not thinking of what comes after,
Not questioning name or fame,
Here, loving love,
You and I look at each other.

This is not Love, perhaps,
Love that lays down its life,
that many waters cannot quench,
nor the floods drown,
But something written in lighter ink,
said in a lower tone, something, perhaps, especially our own.

A need, at times, to be together and talk,
And then the finding we can walk
More firmly through dark narrow places,
And meet more easily nightmare faces;
A need to reach out, sometimes, hand to hand,
And then find Earth less like an alien land;
A need for alliance to defeat

I HAVE not yet I could have loved thee, sweet;
Nor know I wherefore, thou being all thou art,
The engrafted thought in me throve incomplete,

And grew to summer strength in every part
Of root and leaf, but hath not borne the flower.
Love hath refrained his fullness from my heart.

I know no better beauty, none with power
To hold mine eyes through change and change as thine,
Like southern skies that alter with each hour,

And yet are changeless, and their calm divine
From light to light hath motionlessly passed,

Dear child, thou know'st, I blame not thee;
Thou too, I know, hast shared the smart.
Neither did wrong; 'twas only she,
Nature, that moulded us apart.

But not to have sinned, in Nature's eyes
I find a brittle plea to trust:
She punishes the just unwise
More hardly than the wise unjust.

She placed our souls, like Heaven's lone spheres,
In separate paths, no power can move:
O truth too heart--breaking for tears!
Not even Love, not even Love!

Not all the singers of a thousand years
Can open English prisons. No. Though hell
Opened for Tracian Orpheus, now the spell
Of song and art is powerless as the tears
That love has shed. You that were full of fears,
And mean self-love, shall live to know full well
That you yourselves, not he, were pitiable
When you met mercy's voice with frowns or jeers.

And did you ask who signed the plea with you?
Fools! It was signed already with the sign
Of great dead men, of God-like Socrates,
Shakespeare and Plato and the Florentine