Although thy hand and faith, and good works too,
Have seal'd thy love which nothing should undo,
Yea though thou fall back, that apostasy
Confirm thy love; yet much, much I fear thee.
Women are like the Arts, forc'd unto none,
Open to all searchers, unpriz'd, if unknown.
If I have caught a bird, and let him fly,
Another fowler using these means, as I,
May catch the same bird; and, as these things be,
Women are made for men, not him, nor me.
Foxes and goats, all beasts change when they please,
Shall women, more hot, wily, wild than these,

No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace,
As I have seen in one autumnal face.
Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape,
This doth but counsel, yet you cannot scape.
If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame;
Affection here takes reverence's name.
Were her first years the Golden Age; that's true,
But now she's gold oft tried, and ever new.
That was her torrid and inflaming time,
This is her tolerable tropic clime.
Fair eyes, who asks more heat than comes from hence,
He in a fever wishes pestilence.

In a tavern on the Southside of Chicago
a man sits with his wife. From their corner booth
each stares at strangers just beyond the other's shoulder,
nodding to the songs of their youth. Tonight they will not fight.

Thirty years of marriage sits between them
like a bomb. The woman shifts
then rubs her right wrist as the man recalls the day
when they sat on the porch of her parents' home.

Even then he could feel the absence of something
desired or planned. There was the smell
of a freshly tarred driveway, the slow heat,

“As many as I love.”—Ah, Lord, Who lovest all,
If thus it is with Thee why sit remote above,
Beholding from afar, stumbling and marred and small,
So many Thou dost love?

Whom sin and sorrow make their worn reluctant thrall;
Who fain would flee away but lack the wings of dove;
Who long for love and rest; who look to Thee, and call
To Thee for rest and love.

By the old strange seas loud-breaking
Lo! my love for ever stands,
And the waves the shingle shaking
Are not whiter than her hands;
And her breath is sweet as roses
That the dewy morn discloses
When June holds the laughing lands.

Never, though the swift years perish,
Shall she quit that ancient shore,
And the flowers her sweet hands cherish
Shall be sweet for evermore:
And the seas' eternal metre
For her sake shall echo sweeter
As their endless chant they pour.

Ever, young and pure and tender,
Doth she wait by those far streams,

Come away, come sweet Love,
The golden morning breakes:
All the earth, all the ayre,
Of love and pleasure speakes.
Teach thine armes then to embrace,
And sweet Rosie lips to kisse:
And mixe our soules in mutuall blisse.
Eyes were made for beauties grace,
Viewing, ruing Loves long paine:
Procur'd by beauties rude disdaine.

Come away, come sweet Love,
The golden morning wasts:
While the Sunne from his Sphere
His fierie arrowes casts,
Making all the shadowes flie,
Playing, staying in the Groave:
To entertaine the stealth of love.

A LAS for me for that my love is dead!
Buried deep down, and may not rise again;
Self-murdered, vanished, gone beyond recall,
And this is all my pain

'Tis not that she I loved is gone from me,
She lives and grows more lovely day by day;
Not Death could kill my love, but though she lives,
My love has died away.

Nor was it that a form or face more fair
Forswore my troth, for so my love had proved
Eye-deep alone, not rooted in the soul;
And 'twas not thus I loved

Nor that by too long dalliance with delight

I like your love the best of all:
It does not ask things of me for love's sake,
It does not demand things of me for love's sake,
It does not send me away for love's sake,
It does not call me to itself for love's sake,
It acknowledges no debts incurred for love's sake,
It places no debts upon my heart for love's sake,
It just lets me alone, just lets love alone, for love's sake,
It just loves and lets everything else take care of itself, for love's sake:
Yes, I like your love the best of all.

I like your love the best of all:

The morning spreads great wings of light
O'er sea and sod,
And breathes to the awakening soul
The sense of God.

The air is one that bends the flower
Or storms the oak,
So art and love are one in all
Us human folk.

Some praise the looks, and others praise the locks,
Of their fair queens in love, with curious words.
Some laud the breast where love his treasure locks,
All like the eye that life and love affords.
But none of these frail beauties and unstable
Shall make my pen riot in pompous style;
More greater gifts shall my grave muse enable,
Whereat severer brows shall never smile.
I praise her honey-sweeter eloquence,
Which from the fountain of true wisdom floweth,
Her modest mien that matcheth excellence,
Her matchless faith which from her virtue groweth.