Indeed I must confess,
When Souls mix 'tis an Happiness;
But not compleat till Bodies too combine,
And closely as our minds together join;
But half of Heaven the Souls in glory tast,
'Till by Love in Heaven at last,
Their Bodies too are plac't.

In thy immortal part
Man, as well as I, thou art.
But something 'tis that differs Thee and Me;
And we must one even in that difference be.
I Thee, both as a man, and woman prize;
For a perfect Love implies
Love in all Capacities.

Can that for true love pass,
When a fair Woman courts her glass?

Love in her Sunny Eyes does basking play;
Love walks the pleasant Mazes of her Hair;
Love does on both her Lips for ever stray;
And sows and reaps a thousand kisses there.
In all her outward parts Love's always seen;
But, oh, He never went within.

Within Love's foes, his greatest foes abide,
Malice, Inconstancy, and Pride.
So the Earths face, Trees, Herbs, and Flowers do dress,
With other beauties numberless:
But at the Center, Darkness is, and Hell;
Their wicked Spirits, and there the Damned dwell.

With me alas, quite contrary it fares;

Oh night of love, your rapt ecstatic hours
Were mine, the languor of their pale perfume
Pervades me, kisses in a fountain-fire,
Surround me,—fetter and consume.

Oh night of love, your groves of strange content
Project a thralldom over coming days;
Exalted, derelict, and blind I wend
Unmindfully along Life's misty ways.

The winter moon is beaming
From her clouded throne on high,
The stars are dimly gleaming
From the borders of the sky,
While wand'ring on the lonely beach,
I list the ocean's roar,
And mark the crested billows reach
The far extended shore;
Or watch the dim discover'd sail
Beyond the breaker's foam,
The laden ship with prosp'rous gale,
Advancing to her home:—
Joyful as she the land espies,
And speeds along the sea,
So joyfully my spirit flies,
To seek its rest with thee.

I mingle in the giddy dance,

Strict as my conscience itself, thou noticest all mine offences:
Therefore I love thee as well as—mine own conscience, at least.

Home's not merely four square walls,
Though with pictures hung and gilded;
Home is where Affection calls--
Filled with shrines the Hearth had builded!
Home! Go watch the faithful dove,
Sailing 'neath the heaven above us.
Home is where there's one to love!
Home is where there's one to love us.

Home's not merely roof and room,
It needs something to endear it;
Home is where the heart can bloom,
Where there's some kind lip to cheer it!
What is home with none to meet,
None to welcome, none to greet us?
Home is sweet, and only sweet,

Whom do you love, she said, when you look out
So far beyond my eyes as our eyes meet?
Is she so like and yet unlike you doubt
If I'm the counterfeit or she's the cheat?
Or is she some one that I never was?
Or what I was and shall not be again?
Back of your eyes I think her image has
Not only longing and much more than pain.

She never had another's face but this,
He laughed and touched her cheek. She moved as you,
And spoke upon your tongue and used your kiss,
And knew the mysteries your wisdom knew,
And had your silence, and was called your name.

But she was both,—she was both loved and love,
She was desire and the thing desired,
She was Troy flame and she was Troy town fired,
She was hope realized and the hope thereof:
Her slender body was the instant bloom
Of lovely secrecies; the shadowed swell
Of her small breast was beauty sensible;
Her stormy hair wore wonder like a plume.

Away, his sense of her was like the sense
Of moonlight under the smooth vague of sleep;
Near, at her touch, her beauty's imminence
Was like a wave that falters at the leap
And lifts in foam a moment till it fall,

And he had used love's dream of love before,
Love that hopes nothing but the hope it is,
Love that has no utterance in a kiss,
Nor eloquence in flesh, but would adore
Its perfect adoration, its desire,
As musingly in wonder as the moon
Stares back into a brook whose running rune
Burns with the imaged argent of moon-fire.

Sometimes in music when the phrase would close
And yet yearn on in silence, unfulfilled,
Once in the imperfection of a rose,
Once in an ape's face marvellously stilled,
He had imagined the perfected thing,

Some find love late, some find him soon,
—Some with the rose in May,
Some with the nightingale in June,
—And some when skies are gray;
Love comes to some with smiling eyes,
—And comes with tears to some;
For some Love sings, for some Love sighs,
—For some Love's lips are dumb.

How will you come to me, fair Love?
—Will you come late or soon?
With sad or smiling skies above,
—By light of sun or moon?
Will you be sad, will you be sweet,
—Sing, sigh, Love, or be dumb?
Will it be summer when we meet,
—Or autumn ere you come?