Ah ! well might he upon Christ's bosom leaning
The chosen few above,
Declare the truth, with zeal not overweening,
That God, our God, is love.

Our God is love: his smile clothes earth in beauty,
And robes it with delight;
And every heart that heeds the call of duty
That love shall clothe in white.

Fair as the morning is the soul that loveth
All things below, above,
Which he the wise and holy One, approveth,
Growing like him in love.

Our God is love, when fair and fragrant flowers
Our daily pathway strew,

——I LOVED your face.
Whether I loved you once I do not know;
Whether I found below
——The signs of grace.

——I would rejoice
To hear you speak, as at a heavenly token.
I know not what was spoken.
——I loved your voice.

Fullness of love sleeps in us like a sea
After night's tempest, O thou lovely thing!
The meadow breezes kiss our cheeks, the bee
Hums by us with the honey of the Spring.

I know this perilous love-lane
No whither the traveller leads,
Yet my fancy the sweet scent of
Thy tangled tresses feeds.

In the midnight of thy locks,
I renounce the day;
In the ring of thy rose-lips,
My heart forgets to pray.

The chemist of love
Will this perishing mould,
Were it made out of mire,
Transmute into gold

The understanding's copper coin
Counts not with the gold of love.

Saki, for God's love, come and fill my glass;
Wine for a breaking heart, O, Saki, bring!
For this strange love which seemed at first, alas!
So simple and so innocent a thing,
How difficult, how difficult it is!
Because the night-wind kissed the scented curl
On the white brow of a capricious girl,
And, passing, gave me half the stolen kiss,
Who would have thought one's heart could bleed and break
For such a very little thing as this?
Wine, Saki, wine—red wine, for pity's sake!

O Saki, would to God that I might die!

My longings unbearable,
I went to see my love—
the winter night's river wind
so cold the plovers cried

How can one man, how can all men,
How can we be like St. Paul,
Like St. John, or like St. Peter,
Like the least of all
Blessed Saints? for we are small.

Love can make us like St. Peter,
Love can make us like St. Paul,
Love can make us like the blessed
Bosom friend of all,
Great St. John, tho' we are small.

Love which clings and trusts and worships,
Love which rises from a fall,
Love which, prompting glad obedience,
Labours most of all,
Love makes great the great and small.

The quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves,
The full round moon and the star-laden sky,
And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves,
Had hid away earth's old and weary cry.

And then you came with those red mournful lips,
And with you came the whole of the world's tears,
And all the trouble of her labouring ships,
And all the trouble of her myriad years.

And now the sparrows warring in the eaves,
The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky,
And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves,
Are shaken with earth's old and weary cry.