We will not take Love's name; that little word,
By lips too oft profaned, we will not use.
From Nature's best and loveliest we will choose
Fit symbols for Love's message; like a bird,--
Whose warbled love-notes by its mate are heard
In greenwood glade,--shalt thou in strains profuse
The prisoned music of thy heart unloose,
While my heart's love is by sweet flow'rs averred.

Then take, O take these fresh-awakened flowers,
The symbols of my love, and keep them near,
Where they may feel thy breath and touch thy hand;

Oh, had I but the poet's voice to sing,
Then would the music prisoned in my heart
(Panting in vain its message to impart)
Hover around thee, Love, on trembling wing,
To tell thee of the soft-eyed hopes that cling
To Love's white feet, the doubts and fears that start
And pierce his bosom with a poisoned dart,--
The smiles that soothe, the cold hard looks that sting!

But 'tis not mine, the soaring joy of Song:
I strive to voice my soul, but strive in vain.
Though passion thrills, and eager fancies throng,
Deckt in the varying hues of joy and pain,

Time's cycle rolls--once more I hail the day
On which propitious Heaven sent to Earth,
Disguised in thy fair form, in mortal birth,
The Star of Love, whose pure celestial ray
Glides through the spirit's gloom and lights the way
To bliss! I hail thy coming 'midst the dearth
Of the soul's aspirations, when the worth
Of hearts like thine had ceased men's hearts to sway.

I greet thee, Love, and with thee scale the height,
That cloudless height where winged spirits rest:
Where the deep yearnings of the mortal breast,
From mortal bin set free, reveal to sight

Ah, Love, I know that to my love thou art,
And must be, in this life, a dream,--a name!
But be it joy or grief, or praise or blame,
I give thee all the worship of my heart.
'Tis not for Love to bid life's cares depart;
Love wings the soul for Heaven whence it came.
Such love from Petrarch's soul did Laura claim,
And Beatrice to Dante did impart.

To thee I turn,--be thou or near or far,
And whether on my love thou frown or smile,--
As, in mid-ocean, to some fairy isle
Palm-crowned; as, in the heav'ns, to eve's bright star

Truth is but as the eye of God doth see;
And Love is truth, and Love hath made thee mine.
What though on earth our lives may not combine,
Love makes us one for all Eternity!
God gives us to each other, bids us be
Each other's soul's fulfilment, makes Love shine
Upon our souls as His own light divine.
An effluence of His own deity.

Why ask for more? Our union is above
All earthly unions, ours those heights serene
Where Love alone is Heav'n and Heav'n is Love--
Where never comes the world's harsh breath between

Not here,--not here, where weak conventions mar
Life's hopes and joys, Love's beauty, truth and grace,
Must I come near thee, greet thee face to face,
Pour in thine ear the songs and sighs that are
My heart's best offerings. But in regions far,
Where Love's ethereal pinions may embrace
Beauty divine--in the clear interspace
Of twilight silence betwixt star and star,

And in the smiles of cloudless skies serene,
In Dawn's first blush and Sunset's lingering glow,
And in the glamour of the Moon's chaste beams--

Look in mine eyes, Beloved,--for my tongue
Must never utter what my heart doth claim,--
And read Love there, for Love's forbidden name
Dies on my trembling lips unvoiced, unsung.
Nor sighs, nor tears--the bitter tribute wrung
From hearts of woe--must e'er that love proclaim
For which the world's unpitying heart would blame
Thy pity--though from purest fountains sprung.

Fate and the world, they bid wide oceans roll
Between our yearning hearts and their desire;
Yea, lips they silence, but can ne'er control
The heart of Love, nor quench its sacred fire.

When through thine eyes the light of Heav'n doth shine
Upon my being, and thy whisper brings,
As the soft rustling of an angel's wings,
Joy to my soul and peace and grace divine;
When thus thy body and thy soul combine
To weave the mystic web thy beauty flings
Around my heart, whose thrilling silence rings
With Hope's unuttered songs that make thee mine,--

Ah, then, O Love! what need of words have we,
Who speak in feeling to each other's heart?
Words are too weak Love's message to impart,
Too frail to live through Love's eternity.

When I approach thee, Love, I lay aside
All that is mortal in me; with a heart
Absolved and pure, and cleansed in every part
Of every thought that I might wish to hide
From God, I come,--fit spirit to abide
With such a soaring spirit as thou art,
Whose eye transfixes with a fiery dart
Presumptuous passion and ignoble pride.

Yea, thus I come to thee, and thus I dare
To gaze into thine eyes; I take thy hand,
And its soft touch upon my lips and eyes
Thrills thy pure being, while it lingers there,
Into my heart and soul;--and then we stand

When on thy brow I gaze and in thine eyes--
Eyes heavy-laden with the soul's desire,
Not passion-lit, but lit with Heav'n's own fire--
I have a vision of Love's Paradise.
Gazing, my tranced spirit straightway flies
Beyond the zone to which the stars aspire;
I hear the blent notes of the white-wing'd quire
Around Immortal Love triumphant rise.

And there I kneel before th' eternal throne
Of Love, whose light conceals him,--there I see,
Veiled in his sacred light, a face well known
To me on earth, now, yearning, bend o'er me.