If it should come to be,
This proof of you and me,
This type and sign
Of hours that smiled and shone,
And yet seemed dead and gone
As old-world wine:

Of Them Within the Gate
Ask we no richer fate,
No boon above,
For girl child or for boy,
My gift of life and joy,
Your gift of love.

If I were tickled by the rub of love,
A rooking girl who stole me for her side,
Broke through her straws, breaking my bandaged string,
If the red tickle as the cattle calve
Still set to scratch a laughter from my lung,
I would not fear the apple nor the flood
Nor the bad blood of spring.

Shall it be male or female? say the cells,
And drop the plum like fire from the flesh.
If I were tickled by the hatching hair,
The winging bone that sprouted in the heels,
The itch of man upon the baby's thigh,
I would not fear the gallows nor the axe

IF I had loved you more God would have had pity;
He would never have left me here in this desolate place,
Left me to go on my knees to the door of Heaven
Crying in vain for a little sight of your face.

How could I know that the earth would be dark without you?
For you were always the lover and I the friend.
Now if there were any hope that I might find you
I would go seeking you to the world's end.

'God is a jealous God. You have loved too wildly,
You have loved too well!' one said.
I bowed my head, but my heart in scorn was crying

If I had known you--oh, if I had known you!
In other days when youth and love were strong,
I would have raised a temple to enthrone you
On some fair pinnacle of cloudless song.

If you had touched me then with your dear laughter,
As now its echo smites me in my grief,
I would have given my soul to you, and after
Lived in my love, grown old in my belief.

If you had loved me,--oh, you would have loved me!
Earth would have worshipped us, its seers sublime,
My song had been a psalm, and Saints had proved me

If I forget you, Love,
no dove
will sing songs more in the forests;
all the sparrows leaving their nests
will fly in sky
and die
crying;
no spring
will come more on this earth;
all cows will stop giving new birth
to calves; civilization will come to an end;
and God will send
all happiness to hell for good;
it should
be so because, o Love, if I
forget you, every thing will be meaningless, wrong and lie.

If I could write words
Like leaves on an autumn forest floor,
What a bonfire my letters would make.

If I could speak words of water,
You would drown when I said
'I love you.'

(Sappho LXXIV)
If death be good,
Why do the gods not die?
If life be ill,
Why do the gods still live?
If love be naught,
Why do the gods still love?
If love be all,
What should men do but love?

If I were a raindrop, and you were a leaf,
I would burst from the cloud above you
And lie on your breast in a rapture of rest,
And love you, love you, love you.


If I were a brown bee, and you were a rose,
I would fly to you, love, nor miss you;
I would sip and sip from your nectared lip,
And kiss you, kiss you, kiss you.


If I were a doe, dear, and you were a brook,
Ah, what would I do then, think you?
I would kneel by the bank, in the grasses dank,
And drink you, drink you, drink you.

IF life were but a dream, my Love,
And death the waking time;
If day had not a beam, my Love,
And night had not a rhyme, —
A barren, barren world were this
Without one saving gleam;
I'd only ask that with a kiss
You'd wake me from the dream.
If dreaming were the sum of days,
And loving were the bane;
If battling for a wreath of bays
Could soothe a heart in pain, —
I'd scorn the meed of battle's might,
All other aims above
I'd choose the human's higher right,
To suffer and to love!

Dear love, if you and I could sail away,
With snowy pennons to the wind unfurled,
Across the waters of some unknown bay,
And find some island far from all the world;

If we could dwell there, ever more alone,
While unrecorded years slip by apace,
Forgetting and forgotten and unknown
By aught save native song-birds of the place;

If Winter never visited that land,
And Summer's lap spilled o'er with fruits and flowers,
And tropic trees cast shade on every hand,
And twinèd boughs formed sleep-inviting bowers;