Flavius, unless your delights
were tasteless and inelegant,
you’d want to tell, and couldn’t be silent.
Surely you’re in love with some feverish
little whore: you’re ashamed to confess it.
Now, pointlessly silent, you don’t seem to be
idle of nights, it’s proclaimed by your bed
garlanded, fragrant with Syrian perfume,
squashed cushions and pillows, here and there,
and the trembling frame shaken,
quivering and wandering about.
But being silent does nothing for you.
Why? Spread thighs blab it’s not so,

To overcome lies in the heart, in the streets, in the books
from the lullabies of the mothers
to the news report that the speaker reads,
understanding, my love, what a great joy it is,
to understand what is gone and what is on the way.

Let others say whatever they like, why didn't you say: ‘Love is never a sin'?
Why haven't you once said, standing for a while in the court of love:
‘The person engaged in love-making becomes the killer, becomes the fire,
becomes the storm, becomes the tidal surge
if you afford the power, either kill him or exile
but never call him a sinner'?

Did Abel command more capability to love thee, Aklima?
Was Abel more manly, more war-loving, more love-mongering than I?
Was Abel more destitute to the world of love than I?

PEACE in her chamber, wheresoe'er
It be, a holy place:
The thought still brings my soul such grace
As morning meadows wear.
Whether it still be small and light,
A maid's who dreams alone,
As from her orchard-gate the moon
Its ceiling showed at night:
Or whether, in a shadow dense
As nuptial hymns invoke,
Innocent maidenhood awoke
To married innocence:
There still the thanks unheard await
The unconscious gift bequeathed:
For there my soul this hour has breathed
An air inviolate.

you had swept back your bangs for the first time
when I saw you under the apple tree
the flower-comb in your hair
I thought you yourself were a flower too.

you stretched out your pale white hand gently
giving me an apple:
like the ripening red of the autumn fruit
my first feeling of love

my sigh, without any awareness
touched your hair
the joys of love's offerings
drinking your love...

under a tree in the apple orchard
nature's narrow road
who left this token here?

Ah me! how hard the task to bear
The weight of ills we know!
But harder still to dry the tear,
That mourns a nameless we.

If by the side of Lucy's wheel
I sit to see her spin,
My head around begins to reel,
My heart to beat within.

Or when on harvest holliday
I lead the dance along,
If Lucy chance to cross my way,
So sure she leads me wrong,

If I attempt the pipe to play,
And catch my Lucy's eye,
The trembling musick dies away,
And melts into a sigh.

Where'er I go, where'er I turn,

I ne'er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet,
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.
My face turned pale as deadly pale.
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked, what could I ail?
My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my eyesight quite away,
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.
I could not see a single thing,
Words from my eyes did start --

Ah, love is deathless! we do cheat
Ourselves who say that we forget
Old fancies: last love may be sweet,
First love is sweeter yet.

And day by day more sweet it grows
For evermore, like precious wine,
As Time's thick cobwebs o'er it close,
Until it is divine.

Grows dearer every day and year,
Let other loves come, go at will;
Although the last love may be dear,
First love is dearer still.

My long first year of perfect love,
My deep new dream of joy; She was a little chubby girl,
I was a chubby boy.

I wore a crimson frock, white drawers,
A belt, a crown was on it;
She wore some angel's kind of dress
And such a tiny bonnet,

Old-fashioned, but the soft brown hair Would never keep its place;
A little maid with violet eyes,
And sunshine in her face.

O my child-queen, in those lost days
How sweet was daily living!
How humble and how proud I grew,
How rich by merely giving!

BY the pulse that beats in my throat
By my heart like a bird
I know who passed through the dusk
Though he spoke no word!

I cannot move in my place,
I am chained and still;
I pray that the moon pause not
By my window-sill.

I have hidden my face in my hair
And my eyes are veiled--
Not even a star must know
How my lips have paled--

Was ever a night so quick
'Neath a moon so round?
I hear the earth as it turns--
And my heart's low sound!