Love, the winged lord of art,
That all sweet song inspires,
First-fruits from the gentle heart
Evermore requires.

Not in every field he sows,
Never sows he long,
But the swiftest path he goes
Blossoms into song.

Catch the flying seed who may,
Ere the god go by;
Little love has come my way—
Little song have I.

'T IS now you must your Virtue prove;
And fly (dear Friend) from what you love.

Scotland prides her in the “Bonnet Blue,”
That it brooks no stain in Love or War:
Be it, on Ottilie's head, a token true
Of my Scottish Love to kind Weimar!

A THOUSAND lilies, a thousand pinks,
I take in my arms and clasp them round
Close as the loving vine-branch links
The bough in its clinging tendrils wound.

For joy has taken abode with me,
And care no longer turns pale my face,
I love all life—and if these things be,
'Tis the gift, fair dream, of thy heaven-sent grace

I could climb the sky thy flight to follow …
But alas! my joy lives but a breath,
For the fleeting dream is a vision hollow,
Like clouds in the wind it vanisheth.

Ere I lose myself in the vastness and drowse myself with the peace,
While I gaze on the light and the beauty afar from the dim homes of men,
May I still feel the heart-pang and pity, love-ties that I would not release;
May the voices of sorrow appealing call me back to their succour again.

Ere I storm with the tempest of power the thrones and dominions of old,
Ere the ancient enchantment allure me to roam through the star-misty skies,
I would go forth as one who has reaped well what harvest the earth may unfold;

Sweet names, the rosary of my evening prayer,
Told on my lips like kisses of good-night
To friends who go a little from my sight,
And some through distant years shine clear and fair!—
So this dear burden that I daily bear
Mighty God taketh, and doth loose me quite;
And soft I sink in slumbers pure and light
With thoughts of human love and heavenly care;
But when I mark how into shadow slips
My manhood's prime, and weep fast-passing friends,
And heaven's riches making poor my lips,
And think how in the dust love's labor ends,

The moon is up, and soft and bright,
And tender is her light in June,
For is this not a lovely night,
And is not that a splendid moon?

Oh, that you knew how often, love,
When I was in the tropic sea,
My eyes were on the moon above
While thought was wandering back to thee.

And when we lost the polar star,
Far southward of the central line,
To you I struck the soft guitar,
And was your moonlight song like mine?

For mine was love, as still it is;
And shall it be forever crost,
And must I in a night like this

The broad magnolia's blooms are white;
Her blooms are large, as if the moon
Had lost her way some lazy night,
And lodged here till the afternoon.

Oh, vast white blossoms breathing love!
White bosom of my lady dead,
In your white heaven overhead
I look, and learn to look above.

I gaze out,
but still
the sky is empty
of all
but the autumn mist—
as aimless
as my passion,
with no place to go.

He longs
He strokes with words the place of longing
keeps long vigils on the peaks of days that collapse in cold sand
Saida over Saida
and sea that tumbles into sea
I remember having loved. . . . . .

I loved until I became love
And who saw my soul over the trees of the place
And who saw my voice across the silence opposite the city?
In silence everything happens
the rose of the volcano
the wind's glory
the talk of the ocean
the neighing of the ages
songs
moans …

They do not hear
because
they do not listen