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Happy streams, whose trembling fall

Happy streams, whose trembling fall,
With still murmur softly gliding,
Happy birds, whose chirping call,
With sweet melody delighting,
Hath mov’d her flinty and relentless heart,
To listen to your harmony,
And sit securely in these downs apart,
Enchanted with your melody.
Sing on, and carol forth your glee,
She grants you leave her rays to see:
Happy were I, could love, but so delight her!
But Ah! alas! my love doth still despite her.

Hang Up The Swing Of Love Today

Hang the body and the mind between the arms of the beloved,
in the ecstasy of love's joy:

Bring the tearful streams of the rainy clouds to your eyes,
and cover your heart with the shadow of darkness:

Bring your face nearer to his ear,
and speak of the deepest longings of your heart.

Kabir says: 'Listen to me brother!
bring the vision of the Beloved in your heart.'

Haec Olim Meminisse

FEBRILE perfumes as of faded roses
In the old house speak of love to-day,
Love long past; and where the soft day closes,
Down the west gleams, golden-red, a ray.
Pointing where departed splendor perished,
And the path that night shall walk, and hang,
On blue boughs of heaven, gold, long cherished —
Fruit Hesperian,— that the ancients sang.
And to him, who sits there dreaming, musing,
At the window in the twilight wan,
Like old scent of roses interfusing,
Comes a vision of a day that's gone.
And he sees Youth, walking brave but dimly

Guilo

Yes, yes! I love thee, Guilo; thee alone.
Why dost thou sigh, and wear that face of sorrow?
The sunshine is to-day's, although it shone
On yesterday, and may shine on to-morrow.
I love but thee, my Guilo! be content;
The greediest heart can claim but present pleasure.
The future is thy God's. The past is spent.
To-day is thine; clasp close the precious treasure.
See how I love thee, Guilo! Lips and eyes
Could never under thy fond gaze dissemble.
I could not feign these passion-laden sighs;
Deceiving thee, my pulses would not tremble.

Grown And Flown

I loved my love from green of Spring
Until sere Autumn's fall;
But now that leaves are withering
How should one love at all?
One heart's too small
For hunger, cold, love, everything.


I loved my love on sunny days
Until late Summer's wane;
But now that frost begins to glaze
How should one love again ?
Nay, love and pain
Walk wide apart in diverse ways.


I loved my love - alas to see
That this should be, alas!
I thought that this could scarcely be,
Yet has it come to pass:

Growing Attachment

With the freshness and placid sensations of morning,
As yet all unconscious of hope or of plan,
(Sweet gleams through thin hazes the prospect adorning,)
'Twas thus that our dawn of attachment began.
If 'twere Friendship or Love, that we knew not full surely,
But yet 'twas delicious to saunter along,
Not quite quessing whither, but feeling securely,
With such omens around us—we couldn't go wrong.

With hearts thus uncertain, (for hearts have their weather,)
Full many a pathway we threaded, and grove;

Greek Love-Talk

What I have already learned as a lover,
I see you, beloved, learning angrily;
then for you it distantly departed,
now your destiny stands in all the stars.

Over your breasts we will together contend:
since as glowingly shining they've ripened,
so also your hands desire to touch them
and their own pleasure superintend.

Gray Skies

It is not well
For me to dwell
On what upon that day befell,
On that dark day of fall befell;
When through the landscape, bowed and bent,
With Love and Death I slowly went,
And wild rain swept the firmament.

Ah, Love that sighed!
Ah, Joy that died!
And Heart that humbled all its pride;
In vain that humbled all its pride!
The roses ruin and rot away
Upon your grave where grasses sway,
And all is dim, and all is gray.