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Love's Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In another's being mingle--
Why not I with thine?

See, the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower could be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--
What are all these kissings worth,

Love's Phases

Love hath the wings of the butterfly,
Oh, clasp him but gently,
Pausing and dipping and fluttering by
Inconsequently.
Stir not his poise with the breath of a sigh;
Love hath the wings of the butterfly.

Love hath the wings of the eagle bold,
Cling to him strongly--
What if the look of the world be cold,
And life go wrongly?
Rest on his pinions, for broad is their fold;
Love hath the wings of the eagle bold.

Love hath the voice of the nightingale,
Hearken his trilling--
List to his song when the moonlight is pale,--

Love's Phantom

SHUT out day's wintry beams!
Sleep, brood upon my brain!
For sweet sleep bringeth dreams
And love again!
Love cold and wan and sere
Heaped over with tears and snows;
Lo, born within its bier,
Blooms like a rose!

Its fragrance fills each vein,
Its fervour flushes my heart,
I feel through breast and brain
Its rapturous smart;
The look, the tone, the deep
Supreme smile of delight:
Ah, fickle as love, false sleep,
Why take thy flight?

Love's Phantom

Whene'er I try to read a book,
Across the page your face will look,
And then I neither know nor care
What sense the printed words may bear.

At night when I would go to sleep,
Thinking of you, awake I keep,
And still repeat the words you said,
Like sick men murmuring prayers in bed.

And when, with weariness oppressed:
I sink in spite of you to rest,
Your image, like a lovely sprite,
Haunts me in dreams through half the night.

I wake upon the autumn morn
To find the sunrise hardly-born,

Love's Paradox


Once I smiled when I saw you, when I saw you smile I was glad,
And the joy of my heart was as foam that the sea-wind shakes from the sea;
But the smile of your eyes grows strange, and the smile that my lips have had
Trembles back to my heart, and my heart trembles in me.

Once you laughed when you met me, when you met me your voice was gay
As the voice of a bird in the dawn of the day on a sunshiny tree;
But the sound of your voice grows strange, and the words that you do not say
Thrill from your heart to mine, and my heart trembles in me.

Love's Palace

IF the woodland and the heath,
And the hedgerows thick with may,
And the weed-flowers underneath,
And the clambering honey-sheath,
And the mosses green and grey,

And the flecks of sun and shade
Lying light upon the grass,
And the ripple in the glade,
And the songs that float and fade,
And the joys that come and pass,

If the dog-rose choir of bees
Whirling golden in the sun,
And the sweetness of the breeze,
And the joists of mighty trees,

Love's Own

Ah, that hair no age can dye
That is golden in Love's eye,
And that face time cannot touch
On which Love has gazed so much.
Other hair and faces may
Take on changes and decay:
Hers, if Love endures, must be
Sure of immortality,
Since no changes can occur
In the dream he's made of her.

Love's Ordeal

'Hear'st thou that sound upon the window pane?'
Said the youth softly, as outstretched he lay
Where for an hour outstretched he had lain-
Softly, yet with some token of dismay.
Answered the maiden: 'It is but the rain
That has been gathering in the west all day!
Why shouldst thou hearken so? Thine eyelids close,
And let me gather peace from thy repose.'

'Hear'st thou that moan creeping along the ground?'
Said the youth, and his veiling eyelids rose
From deeps of lightning-haunted dark profound
Ruffled with herald blasts of coming woes.

Love's Nocturne

Master of the murmuring courts
Where the shapes of sleep convene!--
Lo! my spirit here exhorts
All the powers of thy demesne
For their aid to woo my queen.
What reports
Yield thy jealous courts unseen?

Vaporous, unaccountable,
Dreamland lies forlorn of light,
Hollow like a breathing shell.
Ah! that from all dreams I might
Choose one dream and guide its flight!
I know well
What her sleep should tell to-night.

There the dreams are multitudes:
Some that will not wait for sleep,
Deep within the August woods;

Love's Nocturn

Master of the murmuring courts
Where the shapes of sleep convene!--
Lo! my spirit here exhorts
All the powers of thy demesne
For their aid to woo my queen.
What reports
Yield thy jealous courts unseen?

Vaporous, unaccountable,
Dreamland lies forlorn of light,
Hollow like a breathing shell.
Ah! that from all dreams I might
Choose one dream and guide its flight!
I know well
What her sleep should tell to-night.

There the dreams are multitudes: