If you have loved a brave story
Tell it but rarely;
And, with due faith in its glory,
Render it barely.
Then must the listener, hearing
Your tale of wonder,
Let his own hoping and fearing
Tear him asunder.

If we must part,
Then let it be like this.
Not heart on heart,
Nor with the useless anguish of a kiss;
But touch mine hand and say:
"Until to-morrow or some other day,
If we must part".

Words are so weak
When love hath been so strong;
Let silence speak:
"Life is a little while, and love is long;
A time to sow and reap,
And after harvest a long time to sleep,
But words are weak."

If we knew when friends around us
Closely press to say goodbye
Which among the lips that kiss us
First would 'neath the daisies lie
We would clasp our arms around them
Looking on them through our tears
Tender words of loving kindness
We would whisper in their ears.

If we had met when leaves were green,
And fate to us less hard had proved,
And naught had been of what has been,
We might have loved as none have loved.

If we had met as girl and boy,
The world of pleasure at our feet,
Our joy had been a perfect joy;
We might have met, but did not meet.

Nor less in youth's full passionate day,
A woman you and I a man,
We might have loved and found a way
No laws could check, no vows could ban.

Too late! Too sad! A year ago,
Even then perhaps, in spite of fate

29

If those I loved were lost
The Crier's voice would tell me—
If those I loved were found
The bells of Ghent would ring—

Did those I loved repose
The Daisy would impel me.
Philip—when bewildered
Bore his riddle in!

If there were any power in human love,
Or in th' intensest longing of the heart,
Then should the oceans and the lands that part
Ye from my sight all unprevailing prove,
Then should the yearning of my bosom bring
Ye here, through space and distance infinite;
And life 'gainst love should be a baffled thing,
And circumstance 'gainst will lose all its might.
Shall not a childless mother's misery
Conjure the earth with such a potent spell—
A charm so desperate—as to compel
Nature to yield to her great agony?
Can I not think of ye till ye arise,

If I might only love my God and die!
But now He bids me love Him and live on,
Now when the bloom of all my life is gone,
The pleasant half of life has quite gone by.
My tree of hope is lopped that spread so high,
And I forget how summer glowed and shone,
While autumn grips me with its fingers wan
And frets me with its fitful windy sigh.
When autumn passes then must winter numb,
And winter may not pass a weary while,
But when it passes spring shall flower again;
And in that spring who weepeth now shall smile,

If love now reynyd as it hath bene
And war rewardit as it hath sene,

Nobyll men then wold suer enserch
All ways wherby thay myght it rech;

But envy reynyth with such dysdayne,
And causith lovers owtwardly to refrayne,

Which puttes them to more and more
Inwardly most grevous and sore;

The faut in whome I cannot sett;
But let them tell which love doth gett.

To lovers I put now suer this cace -
Which of ther loves doth get them grace?

And unto them which doth it know
Better than do I, I thynk it so.

If love now reigned as it hath been
And were rewarded as it hath sin,
Noble men then would sure ensearch
All ways whereby they might it reach,
But envy reigneth with such disdain
And causeth lovers outwardly to refrain,
Which puts them to more and more
Inwardly most grievous and sore.
The fault in whom I cannot set,
But let them tell which love doth get--

To lovers I put now sure this case:
Which of their loves doth get them grace?

And unto them which doth it know

If love be holy, if that mystery
O co-united hearts be sacrament;
If the unbounded goodness have infused
A sacred ardour of a mutual love
Into our species; if those amorous joys,
Those sweets of life, those comforts even in death,
Spring from a cause above our reason's reach;
If that clear flame deduce its heat from heaven,
'Tis, like its cause, eternal; always one,
As in th' instiller of divinest love,
Unchanged by time, immortal, maugre death.
But, oh! 'tis grown a figment; love, a jest:
A comic poesy: the soul of man is rotten,