Victorious beauty, though your eyes
Are able to subdue an hoast,
And therefore are unlike to boast

The taking of a little prize,
Do not a single heart dispise.

It came alone, but yet so arm'd
With former love, I durst have sworne
That where a privy coat was worne,
With characters of beauty charm'd,
Thereby it might have scapt unharm'd.

But neither steele nor stony breast
Are proof against those lookes of thine,
Nor can a Beauty lesse divine
Of any heart be long possest,
Where thou pretend'st an interest.

An hour before the challenging gleam
Of dawn that heralds the day,
My love awoke in the midst of a dream
And turned to where I lay.

I felt her breath grow wild and warm
And her arms about me twine,
And she whispered a name as she turned to my arm—
A name that was not mine.

And then she slept at my breast as fast
As though she were never so dear;
But I knew that the glory of Love had passed,
And I knew that the end was near.

Last night we walked among the paths of air;
The earth with all its rude and ancient scars
Had faded out, and there was nothing there
But starlight and the stars.

Each star stood planted like a budding shoot,
And on the ground of Heaven a crescent lay—
Lay like the rind of some exotic fruit
A god had thrown away.

And further still we wandered till we came
Upon the very burning edge of space,
And saw the unborn worlds still wrapped in flame
Hiding God's face.

And then my soul in agony and fear

My song will rest while I rest. I struggle along. I'll get back to the corn and the open fields. Don't fret, love, I'll come out all right.
Back of Chicago the open fields. Were you ever there—trains coming toward you out of the West—streaks of light on the long gray plains? Many a song—aching to sing.
I've got a gray and ragged brother in my breast—that's a fact. Back of Chicago the open field—long trains go west too—in the silence. Don't fret, love. I'll come out all right.

Maidens tell me I am old;
Let me in my Glasse behold
Whether smooth or not I be,
Or if haire remaines to me.
Well, or be't or be't not so,
This for certainty I know;
Ill it fits old men to play,
When that Death bids come away.

I wish she would not ask me if I love the Kitten more than her.
Of Course I love her. But I love the Kitten, too; and It has Fur.

I purchased my love for money,
Else ne'er had I known its might;
No less did I sing to the gay harp-string
Right sweetly of love's delight.

A dream, though it soon be vanished,
Is sweet when it answers our will;
And Eden to him who is banished
Is beauteous Eden still.

Because you come to me with naught save
love, And hold my hand and lift mine eyes above, A
wider world of hope and joy I see, Be-
cause you come to me.
Because you speak to me in accents
sweet, I find the roses waking round my feet, And
I am led through tears and joy to thee, Be-
cause you speak to me.
Because God made thee
mine, I'll cherish thee Through
light and darkness, through all time to be, And
pray His love may make our love divine, Be-
cause God made thee mine.

I sigh not for rich Peru's buried ore,
Nor any part she has abundantly
Disgorged; nor power, nor state, nor pageantry;
Nor prize the wealth that heaps up Commerce' shore,
Nor that which rides her waves; nor the large store
Which Neptune has obtained too frequently
From the sunk travellers of the perilous sea;
Nor aught of that which makes rich misers poor.
Give all these life-bought nothings unto them.
Of whom they are ador'd; let them have gold
And silver in huge masses, and the gem
That would out-price the richest diadem—

The wound upon my heart glows bright and clear
With such a steady and unwavering light
That in the darkness I shall have no fear
And need no lamp to guide my steps aright.

When of the darkness of the grave I hear,
The night of death, and all the pangs thereof,
I reck not, for one thing alone I fear—
The night of separation from my Love.