Like a maiden shy for gladness,
Leaves unfold them in the wood;
" Gentle Spring, I give thee greeting! "
Laughs the sun in merry mood.

'Tis, O nightingale! thy music
'Plaining blissful in the grove;
Long and sweet thy notes are sobbing,
And thy song is utter love!

I love a tender soul thus housed
Within a body white and fair:
Great fearless eyes, and forehead wreathed
With heavy clouds of shadowy hair!

You are so right in every way;
What I have sought in every land!
Besides, your worth enables you
So well my worth to understand!

You've found in me the man you need,
And, for a time, will fully pay
With love's delight, and kisses fond—
And then, as usual, betray.

Have you love for me,
Yours my love shall be,
While the days of life are flowing.
Short was summer's stay,
Grass now pales away,
With our play will come regrowing.

What you said last year
Sounds yet in my ear, —
Birdlike at the window sitting,
Tapping, trilling there,
Singing, in would bear
Joy the warmth of sun befitting.

Litli-litli-lu,
Do you hear me too,
Youth behind the birch-trees biding?
Now the words I send, —
Darkness will attend,
May be you can give them guiding.

Take it not amiss!

Love thy neighbor, to Christ be leal!
Crush him never with iron-heel,
Though in the dust he 's lying!
All the living responsive await
Love with power to recreate,
Needing alone the trying.

Her, my own sad love divine,
Did I pierce as with a knife,
Stabbed with words that seemed not mine
Her more dear to me than life.

And she raised, she raised her head,
Slow that smile, pale to the brow:
" Lovely songs when I am dead
You will make for me; but how
Shall I hear them then? " she said,
" Make them now, O make them now! "

Come let us make love deathless, thou and I,
Seeing that our footing on the Earth is brief —
Seeing that her multitudes sweep out to die
Mocking at all that passes their belief.
For standard of our love not theirs we take;
If we go hence to-day
Fill the high cup that is so soon to break
With richer wine than they!

Ay, since beyond these walls no heavens there be
Joy to revive or wasted youth repair,
I'll not bedim the lovely flame in thee
Nor sully the sad splendour that we wear.
Great be the love, if with the lover dies

I'll sing of Love an hundred songs;
For there's an endless store.
I'll sing of Love till the listening stars
Shall crowd the ocean floor.
And then I'll sing again of Love
And then of Love once more.

Here is the riddle; here the key:
Uncoil the silken mesh.
For Otus is a human soul
And Rismel is the flesh.
And tho my theme is the age's dream
Its heart is young and fresh.

Otus quaffed white flame of sun
That gilded Gramard's noon.
But Rismel breathed where the cold weed wreathed
Round Triton's heavy shoon.

SUNLIGHT .

Thirteen long years have passed away
 Since through those autumn woods we went:
It was a bright September day,
 And I was full of sweet content;
So happy by her side to be—
In heaven, if she but looked at me.

The leaves were turning golden-red;
 The swift stream splashed along the dale;
In the far distance, blue, outspread,
 Boundless, with here and there a sail,
The sunlit sea gleamed, saying, “To-night
Reseek my green cliff's moonlit height.”

We were so happy, she and I!

Birds, flowers, and foliage of the summer days
And skies above us lordly and serene
And forests measureless and deep and green
And blue glad billows bounding through the bays
And hyacinths and honeysuckle-sprays
And roses that against the window lean
Take ye my song, and bear it to my queen:
Teach her to understand my love and lays!

As the past lengthens, far intenser grow
All noble love and passion. Love that fades
Was never love. Now the tall tree-tops throw
A longer shadow down the silent glades

Though thou art bound, and canst not love me now
Save only in spirit, can they stay my song?
Can it not find thee when night-hours are long
And print a far-off soft kiss on thy brow?
Can it not lurk within the hazel bough?
Can it not shine amid the starry throng?
Fulfil thy life's task: be thou glad and strong:
But this true homage further and allow!

Art thou asleep, love? Then my soul is there,
Watching. Dost thou the wakeful moments count?
Then am I with thee. At this crystal fount
My song speaks to thee from the maiden-hair.