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A Loving-Cup Song

Come, heap the fagots! Ere we go
Again the cheerful hearth shall glow;
We 'll have another blaze, my boys!
When clouds are black and snows are white,
Then Christmas logs lend ruddy light
They stole from summer days, my boys,
They stole from summer days.

And let the Loving-Cup go round,
The Cup with blessed memories crowned,
That flows whene'er we meet, my boys;
No draught will hold a drop of sin
If love is only well stirred in
To keep it sound and sweet, my boys,
To keep it sound and sweet.

Love and Beauty

Beauty and Love — and are they not the same?
The one is both — and both are but the one —
Pervasive they of all around the sun,
Of one same essence, differing but in name.
Lo! when pure Love lights his immortal flame,
He, and all Earth and Heaven in Beauty shine;
And when true Beauty shows her face divine,
Love permeates the universal frame.
Holy of holies — mystery sublime!
Who truly loves is beautiful to see,
And scatters Beauty wheresoe'er he goes.
They fill all space — they move the wheels of Time;

The Tide of Love

Love, flooding all the creeks of my dry soul.
From which the warm tide ebbed when I was born,
Following the moon of destiny, doth roll
His slow rich wave along the shore forlorn,
To make the ocean—God—and me, one whole.

So, shuddering in its ecstasy, it lies,
And, freed from mire and tangle of the ebb,
Reflects the waxing and the waning skies,
And bears upon its panting breast the web
Of night and her innumerable eyes.

Nor can conceive at all that it was blind,
But trembling with the sharp approach of love,

Desire and Hope

Desire and hope have moved my mind
To seek for that I cannot find,
Assured faith in woman-kind;
And love with love rewarded.
Self-love all but himself disdains;
Suspect as chiefest virtue reigns;
Desire of change, unchanged remains:
So light is love regarded.

True friendship is a naked name,
That idle brains in pastime frame;
Extremes are always worthy blame,
Enough is common kindness.
What floods of tears do lovers spend,
What sighs from out their hearts they send,
How many may, and will not mend?

To Emma

In the distance dark and grey
Fades my former bliss from view,
To one star my glances stray
Basking in its gentle dew —
But a star, alas! whose light
Glitters only in the night.

Didst thou sleep thy final sleep,
Were thine eyes for ever dimmed,
In my heart engraven deep
Still thy memory would be limned.
But, alas! in light enshrined,
To my worship thou art blind.

Can the hope which love instils,
Can it, Emma, transient prove?
What no longer lives and thrills,
Emma, how can that be Love?

The Tomb of Sophocles

A bounding satyr, golden in the beard,
That leaps with goat-feet high into the air,
And crushes from the thyme an odour rare,
Keeps watch around the marble tomb revered
Of Sophocles, the poet loved and feared,
Whose sovereign voice once called out of her lair
The Dorian muse severe, with braided hair.
Who loved the thyrsus and wild dances weird.
Here all day long the pious bees can pour
Libations of their honey; round this tomb
The Dionysiac ivy loves to roam:
The satyr laughs; but He awakes no more,

Love the Only Price of Love

The fairest pearls that Northern seas do breed,
For precious stones from Eastern coasts are sold;
Nought yields the earth that from exchange is freed,
Gold values all, and all things value gold:
Where goodness wants an equal change to make,
There greatness serves, or number place doth take.

No mortal thing can bear so high a price,
But that with mortal thing it may be bought;
The corn of Sicil buys the Western spice;
French wine of us, of them our cloth is sought:
No pearls, no gold, no stones, no corn, no spice,

The Kiss

I have drunk deep of love: last night she came
And with her kisses set my soul aflame.
Such fragrant nectar even gods above
May scarcely know: I have drunk deep of love.

France

My heart goes out to France, the Queen in war,
In carnival and love; the gay, the brave.
To that young blue-eyed Breton who would save
A dance for Death or for his Belle Aurore.
Who keeps so purely in his heart the lore
Of love and honor while the tyrant guns
Spume at his wisp of flesh their flaring tons,
White hot from maddened ages gone before.
The world's barometer is in that lad —
That Breton peasant against whom is hurled
The wild, down-leaping chariot of Mars.
When France is laughing all the Earth is glad.

Allegory of His Love to a Ship

The soldier worn with wars, delights in peace,
The pilgrim in his ease, when toils are past;
The ship to gain the port, when storms do cease;
And I rejoice discharged from Love at last,
Whom while I served, peace, rest, and land I lost,
With wars, with toils, with storms, worn, tired and tost.

Sweet liberty now gives me leave to sing,
What world it was, where Love the rule did bear;
How foolish chance by lots ruled ev'ry thing,
How error was main sail, each wave a tear,
The master Love himself, deep sighs were wind,