Down by the river there grows a green willow;
Sing all for my true love! my true love, O!
I'll weep out the night there, the bank for my pillow,
And all for my true love, my true love, O!
When bleak blows the wind, and tempests are beating,
I'll count all the clouds as I mark them retreating,
For true lovers' joys, well-a-day! are as fleeting.
Sing, O for my true love! my true love, O!

Maids come in pity when I am departed;
Sing all for my true love! my true love, O!
When dead on the bank I am found broken-hearted,

A STRONG , calm, steadfast, single-hearted soul,
Sincere as Truth, and tender like a maid,
He lived as one whom nothing could persuade
From reticence and manly self-control.
Insight, and humour, and the rhythmic roll
Of antique lore, his fertile fancies sway'd,
And with their various eloquence array'd
His sterling English, pure and clean and whole.

Fair Nature mourns him now, as well she may
So apt a pupil and so close a friend;
But what of us, who through his lifelong day
Knew him at home, and loved him to the end?

Returne my thoughts, why fly you soe?
Sorrows may my good outgoe,
Phantsie's butt phantasticks skill
The soule alone hath onely will,

Heathen people had their Gods
Whom they implor'd to have the odds
Of mortalls all, butt 't'would nott bee
For Love was high'st inthron'd to see,

Soe love of all things hath most sight,
And noe thing more then love is light,
Then Cupid take thy honor right:
Thou'rt neither God, nor Earthly sprite.

Disconsolate and sad,
So little hope of remedy I find,
That when my matchless Mistress were inclin'd
To pity me, 'twould scarcely make me glad,
The discomposing of so fair a Mind
B'ing that which would to my Afflictions add.

For when she should repent,
This Act of Charity had made her part
With such a precious Jewel as her Heart,
Might she not grieve that e'r she did relent?
And then were it not fit I felt the smart
Until I grew the greater Penitent.

Nor were't a good excuse,
When she pleas'd to call for her Heart again,

O lovers of the future, unto you
I give the wreath my love took joy to wear—
In summer woven, when the golden air
Kissed from the meadow-sweet its pearls of dew.
I give the passion of the wide sea's blue
And the star-blossoms that the black meads bear
To you;—and all we found so very fair,—
The honeysuckle's scent, the tulip's hue.

Love ye the better that we leave you this,
Our passion-legacy:—the lofty night,
The morning's rapture and the storm-wind's bliss;
Aye, more, love's strange immeasurable delight.
Be yours—as ours—the memory of a kiss

Of no use is my pain to her nor me:
For what disease is love the remedy?
My heart that may not to her love attain
Is humble, and would even crave disdain.
O traitrous heart that my destruction sought
And me to ruin and disaster brought!
As, when the chain of life is snapt in twain,
Never shall it be linked, so ne'er again
My utterly broken heart shall be made whole.
I cannot tear the Loved One from my soul,
Nor can I leave my heart that clings to her.
O Asif, am I not Love's minister!
Who has such courage in Love's ways to dare!

O ruthless, perilous, imperious hate,
you can not thwart
the promptings of my soul,
you can not weaken nay nor dominate
Love that is mateless,
Love the rite,
the whole measure of being:
would you crush with bondage?
nay, you would love me not
were I your slave.

O love, how utterly am I bereaved
By Time, who sucks the honey of our days,
Sets sickle to our Aprils, and betrays
To killing winter all the sun achieved!
Our parted spirits are perplexed and grieved
Severed by cold, and change that never stays;
And what the clock, and what the season says
Is rumour neither valued nor believed.

Thus absence chills us to apparent death
And withers up our virtue, but together
We grow beyond vagaries of the weather
And make a summer of our mingled breath
Wherein we flourish, and forget to know

My thoughts thou hast supported without rest,
My tyred body here hath laine opprest
With love, and feare: yet be thou ever blest;
Spring, prosper, last; I am alone unblest.

If thou wouldst be a master, learn the way:
Little thou knowest of that sacred joy,
Which haunts the deep of night, and fills the day,
And makes a warrior of a dreaming boy.

To love the austerity of sea and stars:
To love the multitudes of mighty towns:
To love the hardness of thy prison bars:
This must thou know, or lose the eternal crowns.

Bear to be last, though the world's fools were first;
Endure the wealth and wage, thy service brings:
Wages enough, heart's hunger and soul's thirst,
And blessedness beyond the pride of kings.