Still I love to rhyme, and still more, rhyming, to wander
Far from the commoner way;
Old time trills and falls by the brook-side still do I ponder,
Dreaming to-morrow to-day.

Come here, come, revive me, Sun-God, teach me, Apollo,
Measures descanted before;
Since I ancient verses seek, I emulous follow
Prints in the marbles of yore.

Still strange, strange, they sound in old-young raiment invested,
Songs for the brain to beget—
Young song birds elate to grave old temples benested
Piping and chirruping yet.

Solomon most glorious in array
Put not on his glories without care:—
Clothe us as Thy lilies of a day,
As the lilies Thou accountest fair,
Lilies of Thy making,
Of Thy love partaking,
Filling with free fragrance earth and air:
Thou Who gatherest lilies, gather us and wear.

Love understands the mystery, whereof
We can but spell a surface history:
Love knows, remembers: let us trust in Love:
Love understands the mystery.

Love weighs the event, the long pre-history,
Measures the depth beneath, the height above,
The mystery, with the ante-mystery.

To love and to be grieved befits a dove
Silently telling her bead-history:
Trust all to Love, be patient and approve:
Love understands the mystery.

In tempest and storm blackness of darkness for ever,
A fire unextinguished, a worm's indestructible swarm;
Where no hope shall ever be more, and love shall be never,
In tempest and storm;
Where the form of all things is fashionless, void of all form;
Where from death that severeth all, the soul cannot sever
In tempest and storm.

“Beloved, let us love one another,” says St. John,
Eagle of eagles calling from above:
Words of strong nourishment for life to feed upon,
“Beloved, let us love.”

Voice of an eagle, yea, Voice of the Dove:
If we may love, winter is past and gone;
Publish we, praise we, for lo! it is enough.

More sunny than sunshine that ever yet shone,
Sweetener of the bitter, smoother of the rough,
Highest lesson of all lessons for all to con,
“Beloved, let us love.”

Leaning her head upon my breast,
There on love's bed she lay to rest;
My panting heart rock'd her asleep,
My heedful eyes the watch did keep;
Then, love by me being harbour'd there,
(No hope to be his harbinger)
Desire his rival kept the door;
For this of him I begg'd no more,
But that, our mistress to entertain,
Some pretty fancy he would frame,
And represent it in a dream,
Of which myself should give the theme.
Then first these thoughts I bid him show,
Which only he and I did know,
Arrayed in duty and respect,

This love of nature, that allures to take
Irregularity for harmony
Of larger scope than our hard measures make,
Cherish it as thy school for when on thee
The ills of life descend.

Reject me not if I should say to you
I do forget the sounding of your voice,
I do forget your eyes, that searching through
The days perceive our marriage, and rejoice.

But, when the apple-blossom opens wide
Under the pallid moonlight's fingering,
I see your blanched face at my breast, and hide
My eyes from duteous work, malingering.

Ah, then upon the bedroom I do draw
The blind to hide the garden, where the moon
Enjoys the open blossoms as they straw
Their beauty for his taking, boon for boon.

Behold, my Love, how green the groves,
The primrose banks how fair;
The balmy gales awake the flowers,
And wave thy flaxen hair:
The lavrock shuns the palace gay,
And o'er the cottage sings;
For Nature smiles as sweet, I ween,
To shepherds as to kings.—

Let minstrels sweep the skillfu' string,
In lordly, lighted ha';
The shepherd stops his simple reed,
Blythe, in the birken shaw:
The princely revel may survey
Our rustic dance wi' scorn,
But are their hearts as light as ours
Beneath the milkwhite thorn.—

O Lovely One, when to the ravished sight
Thou wilt unveil that radiant face of thine,
Each atom of the worlds, catching thy light,
Reflecting thee, bright as a sun shall shine.

Walk not, my flower, within the garden close,
Lest thou should give the the bulbul new distress;
For at thy glance each blossom turns a rose
To lure him with her cruel loveliness.

Victorious One, thou hast unsheathed thy sword,
The scimitar of thy beauty gleams again,
So over all thy lovers thou art Lord,
Holding dominion in the hearts of men.