In the ninth month when west winds blow,
when moonlight is cold and dew blossoms congeal,
I think of you all the long autumn night —
in one night my spirit leaps up nine times.
In the second month when the east wind comes,
when grasses sprout and the hearts of flowers unfold,
I think of you through the slow spring days —
one day and my heart takes nine turnings.
I live north of Lo River bridge,
you live south of Lo River bridge.
Since I was fifteen I've known you,
and this year I'll be twenty-three.
Like the dodder plant growing

Be grave, woman for love
Still hungering as gardens
For rain though flowerless
What perfume now to rise
From weary expectation.

Be not wild to love,
Poor witch of mysteries
Whose golden age thy body's
Alchemy aburn was
Unto haggard ember.

Beauty's flesh to phantom
Wears unprosperous
And come but devils of
Chill omen to adore
The perforce chaste idolon.

Be grave, woman, to greet
The kiss, the clasp, the shudder which
Rage of thee from crafty
Lust unrolls — and think
These are thy dead to grieve on

Bitterly have I been contested for,
Though never have I counted numbers —
They were too many, less than all.
And kindly have I warded off
Contest and bitterness,
Given each a replica of love,
Beguiled them with fine images.

To their hearts they held them.
Her dear face, its explicitness!
Clearly, of all women, the immediate one
To these immediate men.

But the original woman is mythical,
Lies lonely against no heart.
Her eyes are cold, see love far off,
Read no desertion when love removes,
The images out of fashion.

The heliotrope's fragrant breath —
The subtle sweet of jasmine on the evening air —
The flowery mead, all radiant
With sympathetic pleasure
From the glowing kiss with which
The God of Day salutes its lovely face —
The whispering, snowy surf, wherewith
Old Ocean in his kindliest mood
Murmurs soft secrets to the willing sands —
The mingled joy and anguish thrilling us
In the weird plaints of Schubert —
Great Rossini's heaven-born strains —
All graceful, lovely things,
Lifting my soul to beatific state, —

My words were delicately breathed
As Syren notes: the Cyprian's head
Never shone out more golden-wreathed
Than mine: but now I lie here dead.

A chattering swallow, bright and wild,
Whom one man loved for all her years —
Having loved her even as a child:
I leave him nothing but his tears.

s with loue,
Mout loue vnto the moone in cleerest night,
And say as she doth in the heauens mooue
In earth so wanes & waxeth my delight:
And whisper this but softly in her eares,
Hope oft doth hang the head, and trust shed teares.

And you my thoughts that some mistrust do cary,
If for mistrust my mistrisse do you blame,
Say though you alter, yet you do not varry,
As she doth change, and yet remaine the same:
Distrust doth enter harts, but not infect,

Love ran with me, then walk'd, then sate,
Then said " Come, come! it grows too late: "
And then he would have gone . . but . . no . .
You caught his eye; he could not go.

XXVI

The half-moon westers low, my love,
And the wind brings up the rain;
And wide apart lie we, my love,
And seas between the twain.

I know not if it rains, my love,
In the land where you do lie;
And oh, so sound you sleep, my love,
You know no more than I.

VERSE 1 HE :

Dozens of girls would storm up;
I had to lock my door.
Somehow I couldn't warm up
To one before.
What was it that controlled me?
What kept my love life lean?
My intuition told me
You'd come on the scene.
Lady, listen to the rhythm of my heartbeat,
And you'll get just what I mean.

REFRAIN 1

Embrace me,
My sweet embraceable you.
Embrace me,
You irreplaceable you.
Just one look at you — my heart grew tipsy in me;

Your love lurks in my veins like a bandit
Commits arson, shatters lanterns
And skulks in the corners of my veins
Like a wild cat with sharp claws
Alert to hunt moths
To pounce on birds
And I lie awake at night waiting for it to come forth
From my blood.

You came with your conquering army, and caused an upheaval
That changed my life
You sequestered all my possessions
Bound me with chains of gold
And put me under house arrest
Within the limits of your eyes
You locked me in the cell of love
And took the keys away with you.