Brothers and sisters I have many:
Though I know there is not any
Of them but I love, yet I
Will just name them all; and try
If there be one a little more
Loved by me than all the rest.
Yes; I do think, that I love best
My brother Henry, because he
Has always been most fond of me.
Yet, to be sure, there's Isabel;
I think I love her quite as well.
And, I assure you, little Ann,
No brother nor no sister can
Be more dear to me than she.
Only I must say, Emily,
Being the eldest, it's right her
To all the rest I should prefer.

ONE blossoming rose-tree, like a beautiful thought
Nursed in a broken mind, that waits and schemes,
Survives, though shattered, and about it caught,
The strangling dodder streams.
Gaunt weeds: and here a bayonet or pouch,
Rusty and rotting where men fought and slew:
Bald, trampled paths that seem with fear to crouch,
Feeling a bloody dew.
Here nothing that was beauty's once remains.
War left the garden to its dead alone:
And Life and Love, who toiled here, for their pains
Have nothing once their own.

I saw her crop a rose
Right early in the day,
And I went to kiss the place
Where she broke the rose away
And I saw the patten rings
Where she o'er the stile had gone,
And I love all other things
Her bright eyes look upon.
If she looks upon the hedge or up the leafing tree,
The whitethorn or the brown oak are made dearer things to me.

I have a pleasant hill
Which I sit upon for hours,
Where she cropt some sprigs of thyme
And other little flowers;
And she muttered as she did it
As does beauty in a dream,

WHERE found Love his yesterday?
When is Love's to-morrow? say.
Love has only now.
We can swear it, we who stand
In Love's present, hand in hand,
Thou and I, dear, I and thou.

By and by and Long ago;
Last month's buds, next winter's snow;
Love has only now.
Do we wot of rathe or sere
In Love's boundless summer year,
Thou and I, dear, I and thou?

Suns that rose and suns to set;
Gone for ever and Not yet;
Love has always now.
Do we count by dawn and night,
Dwelling in Love's perfect light,

When, dearest, I but think on thee,
Methinks all things that lovely be
Are present, and my soul delighted:
For beauties that from worth arise
Are like the grace of deities,
Still present with us, though unsighted.

Thus while I sit and sigh the day
With all his spreading lights away,
Till night's black wings do overtake me:
Thinking on thee, thy beauties then,
As sudden lights do sleeping men,
So they by their bright rays awake me.

Thus absence dies, and dying proves

—And when you have forgotten the bright bedclothes on a Wednesday and a Saturday,
And most especially when you have forgotten Sunday—
When you have forgotten Sunday halves in bed,
Or me sitting on the front-room radiator in the limping afternoon
Looking off down the long street
To nowhere,
Hugged by my plain old wrapper of no-expectation
And nothing-I-have-to-do and I’m-happy-why?
And if-Monday-never-had-to-come—
When you have forgotten that, I say,
And how you swore, if somebody beeped the bell,

When soul conquers our body,
love is born.
When sin gets uprooted,
love is born.

When hatred leaves our mind,
love is born.
When you say 'I love you',
love is born.

If you say 'I love you',
I can jump into fire without any fear.

When, poor in all but hope and love,
I clasped thee to my faithful heart;
For wealth and fame I vowed to rove,
That we might meet no more to part!
Years have gone by-long weary years
Of toil, to win thee comfort now-
Of ardent hopes-of sickening fears-
And wealth is mine-but where art thou?

Fame's dazzling dreams, for thy dear sake,
Rose brighter than before to me;
I clung to all I deemed could make
My burning heart more worthy thee.
Years have gone by-the laurel droops
In mockery o'er my joyless brow :
A conquered world before me stoops,

When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is—to die.

When Love was born I think he lay
Right warm on Venus' breast,
And whiles he smiled and whiles would play
And whiles would take his rest.

But always, folded out of sight,
The wings were growing strong
That were to bear him off in flight
Erelong, erelong.