Love, sweet love is the poet's theme;
Love, sweet love is the poet's dream.
What is the love of which they sing?
Only a phantom unreal thing.
'Tis but the dalliance, the dalliance of youth and maid;
'Tis but the passion, the passion of vows that fade.
'Tis not the Heav'n, the Heav'n-implanted glow
That true hearts call love, ah no, ah no!

See a mother gazing on her baby boy
With ecstatic eyes and heart that fills with joy;
He to her is purest gold without alloy;
For him she prays to Heav'n above!

A RE the dead as calm as those
They leave behind them, friends or foes?

However a man may love or fight
Calm he falls asleep at night!

Fast the living sleeps and well;
But the spirits — who can tell?

Are they as a rushing flame
For the Sun from whence it came,

Driven on from star to star,
Where the other dead men are?

I HAVE more sorrow, dearest, in thy love
— Than ever I knew happiness thereby.
Joy was the promise, out of reach — above.
— The sorrow is fulfilment — and I die.

I HAVE not loved the gold of the mine.
— I have not loved the image of gold.
But I have loved the gold divine
— That springs in April from the mould;
And I have loved to see thee shine,
— Thou Sun, that makest all things gold!

All that love hath to give to me is given.
— Alas for the unutterable pain!
To love that showered on me the pearls of heaven
— I have no gift that I can give again, —
Not the least gem of earth, from the rock riven —
— I search my empty treasury in vain.

" First " in my heart? Why, she is all my heart.
There is no other;
Tho' I in her esteem have but a part,
And many a brother.

" First " in my love? I have no other love
Nor recollection.
Yet many names are writ my name above
In her affection.

" First " in my life? Tell me that she must die —
My life is over!
Tell her that I am dead — she'll give a sigh
For her old lover.

I MAY not call what many call divine,
And yet my faith is faith in its degree;
I worship at a dim and lonely shrine
— — On bended knee.

The secret grace of faith's celestial part
I hoard up safely for mine own self's own;
Within the hidden chambers of the heart
— — I love alone.

Love, I renounce thy tyrant sway,
— I mock thy fascinating art,
Mine, be the calm unruffled day,
— That brings no torment to the heart;
The tranquil mind, the noiseless scene,
Where Fancy, with enchanting mien,
Shall in her right-hand lead along
The graceful patroness of Song ;
Where Harmony shall softly fling
Her light tones o'er the dulcet string;
And with her magic Lyre compose
Each pang that throbs, each pulse that glows;
Till her resistless strains dispense,
The balm of blest Indifference.

BY LI T'AI-PO

From whose house do the invisible notes of a jade flute come flying?
The Spring wind scatters them. They fill the City of Lo Yang.
To-night, as the phrases form, I hear " The Snapped Willow. "
To whom do they not bring back the love of his old, early garden?

BY LI T'AI-PO

The silver-crested love-pheasants strutted upon the Pheasant Terrace.
Now the pheasants are gone, the terrace is empty, and the river flows on its old, original way.
Gone are the blossoms of the Palace of Wu and overgrown the road to it.
Passed the generations of the Chin, with their robes and head-dresses; they lie beneath the ancient mounds.

The three hills are half fallen down from Green Heaven.
The White Heron Island cuts the river in two.
Here also, drifting clouds may blind the Sun,