So Love, emergent out of chaos, brought
The world to light!
And gently moving on the waters, wrought
All form to sight!
Love's appetite
Did beauty first excite,
And left imprinted in the air
Those signatures of good and fair,
CHORUS

Which since have flowed, flowed forth upon the sense,
To wonder first, and then to excellence,
By virtue of divine intelligence!

The Ingemination
And Neptune too
Shows what his waves can do,
To call the muses all to play
And sing the birth of Venus' day,
CHORUS

Look at my heart: see how it bleeds with tears,
Love's wound still open all these weary years.
Help me, dear maid, for I am sore distrest;
No surgeon's hand can lull my pain to rest.
I am poor Telephus; you Achilles be
And heal the wound your beauty made in me.

I said, “If I come to thee, wilt thou greet me with a kiss?”
Said she, “Hast thou a thousand heads that thou askest this of me?”
I said, “Thy raven tresses are like so many black cobras.”
Said she, “Why trust thyself within the cobra's reach?”
I said, “In what fashion then shall I approach thee?”
Said she, “Without sword can head parted be from body?”
I said, “I ever wander in distraction in thy search!”
Said she, “Wise art thou, why then thus disgrace thyself?”
I said, “But for a moment let us two be happy together.”

Scarred with sensuality and pain
And weary labor in a mind not hard
Enough to think, a heart too always tender,
Sits the Christ of failure with his lovers.
They are wiser than his parables,
But he more potent, for he has the gift
Of hopelessness, and want of faith, and love.

1. Wide open are Thy hands, Paying with more than gold
2. Wide open are Thine arms, A fallen world to embrace;
The awful debt of guilty men, Forever and of old.
To take to love and endless rest. Our whole forsaken race.
Ah, let me grasp those hands, That we may never part,
Lord, I am sad and poor, But boundless is Thy grace;
And let the power of their blood Sustain my fainting heart.
Give me the soultransforming joy For which I seek Thy face.

3. Draw all my mind and heart
Up to Thy throne on high,
And let Thy sacred Cross exalt
My spirit to the sky.

My love is like the lily flower
That blooms upon the lea:
I wadna gie ae blink o' her
For a' the maids I see.

Her voice is like the bonnie bird's,
That warbles 'mang the bow'rs,
Her breath is like the hawthorn when
It's wat wi' morning show'rs.

And frae the gowans o' the glen
She's caught her modest grace,
And a' the blushes o' the rose
Hae leapt into her face.

She bears aboot, I kenna hoo,
The joy o' simmer days,
The voice o' streams, and happy dreams
Amang the broomy braes.

And when the bonnie lassie smiles

I am true to my lord.
O my companions, there is nothing to be ashamed of now,
Since I have been seen dancing openly.

In the day I have no hunger.
I am always restless and sleep does not come in the night.
Leaving troubles behind, I shall go to the other side,
Because hidden knowledge has taken hold of me.

All my relations have come and surrounded me like bees.
But Mira is the servant of her beloved, the Mountain-holder.
And she cares not though the people mock her.

Her hazel eyes are deep
As the fathomless eyes of Sleep,—
Deep, deep—
And will no love declare,
And will no sorrow share,
Nor laugh, nor weep.
Warm tears may hide behind
The eyelids cold;
And treasure undivined,
For Love to find,
The depths may hold:
But daring souls who dive
Into the waters brown
To seek the secrets there,
Sink and drown,
Or else are chained alive
A thousand fathoms down.

Fate, with devoted and incessant care,
Has showered grotesqueness round us day by day.
If we turn grave, a hurdy-gurdy's air
Is sure to rasp across the words we say.
If we stand tense on brink of perilous choices,
'Tis never where Miltonic headlands loom,
But mid the sound of comic-opera voices
Or the cheap blaze of some hair-dresser's room.
Heaven knows what moonlit turrets, hazed in bliss,
Saw Launcelot and night and Guinevere!
I only know our first impassioned kiss
Was in your cellar, rummaging for beer. …

Love, that makes others speak and write,
Makes both my Tongue and Pen lie still;
Robs me of Speech and Fancy quite,
Whilst it with Cares my Brain does fill.
Thus I, by Love, for Love am made unfit,
And what shou'd give me Courage lessens it.

Struck Dumb, when I would most express,
Most modest, when I most should dare;
Most awkard is my dull Address,
When best I would my Flame declare:
Unhappy Bashfulness, that do'st betray
Thy Master's Passion, and his Bliss delay!

Yet since Respect bespeaks my Flame,
As Silence our Respect does prove;