VOL. 2, C ANTIQUE 54

I AM fond of the Swallow — I learn from her flight,
Had I skill to improve it, a lesson of Love:
How seldom on earth do we see her alight!
She dwells in the skies, she is ever above.

It is on the wing that she takes her repose,
Suspended, and pois'd in the regions of air,
'Tis not in our fields that her sustenance grows,
It is wing'd like herself, 'tis ethereal fare.

She comes in the Spring, all the Summer she stays,
And dreading the cold, still follows the sun —

The Rose is Love's own flower, and Love's no less
The Lily's tenderness.
Then half their dignity must Roses yield
To Lilies of the field?
Nay, diverse notes make up true harmony,
All-fashioned loves agree:
Love wears the Lily's whiteness, and Love glows
In the deep-hearted Rose.

On Receiving from her a Network Purse made by Herself

M Y gentle Anne, whom heretofore,
When I was young, and thou no more
Than plaything for a nurse,
I danced and fondled on my knee,
A kitten both in size and glee!
I thank thee for my purse.
Gold pays the worth of all things here;
But not of love: — that gem's too dear
For richest rogues to win it;
I, therefore, as a proof of love,
Esteem thy present far above

Too cold almost for hope of Spring
Or firstfruits from the realm of flowers,
Your dauntless Valentine, I bring
One sprig of love, and sing
" Love has no Winter hours " — .

If even in this world love is love
(This wintry world which felt the Fall),
What must it be in Heaven above
Where love to great and small
Is all in all?

Thou canst not see him standing by —
Time — with a poppied hand
Stealing thy youth's simplicity,
Even as falls unceasingly
His waning sand.

He will pluck thy childish roses, as
Summer from her bush
Strips all the loveliness that was;
Even to the silence evening has
Thy laughter hush.

Thy locks too faint for earthly gold,
The meekness of thine eyes,
He will darken and dim, and to his fold

WOULD my Delia know if I love, let her take
My last thought at night, and the first when I wake;
With my prayers and best wishes preferr'd for her sake.

Let her guess what I muse on, when rambling alone
I stride o'er the stubble each day with my gun,
Never ready to shoot till the covey is flown.

Let her think what odd whimsies I have in my brain,
When I read one page over and over again,
And discover at last that I read it in vain.

Let her say why so fix'd and so steady my look,
Without ever regarding the person who spoke,

If I had words, if I had words
At least to vent my misery: —
But muter than the speechless herds
I have no voice wherewith to cry.
I have no strength to life my hands,
I have no heart to lift mine eye,
My soul is bound with brazen bands,
My soul is crushed and like to die.
My thoughts that wander here and there,
That wander wander listlessly,
Bring nothing back to cheer my care,
Nothing that I may live thereby.
My heart is broken in my breast,
My breath is but a broken sigh —
Oh if there be a land of rest

FAIR Amy of the terraced house,
Assist me to discover
Why you who would not hurt a mouse
Can torture so your lover.

You give your coffee to the cat,
You stroke the dog for coming,
And all your face grows kinder at
The little brown bee's humming.

But when he haunts your door . . . the town
Marks coming and marks going . . .
You seem to have stitched your eyelids down

They lie at rest asleep and dead,
The dew drops cool above their head,
They knew not when past summer fled —
Amen .

They lie at rest and quite forget
The hopes and fears that wring us yet;
Their eyes are set, their heart is set —
Amen .

They lie with us, yet gone away
Hear nothing that we sob or say
Beneath the thorn of wintry may —
Miserere .

Blessed are those who have not seen,
And who have yet believed;
The witness, here that has not been,
From heaven they have received.

Blessed are those who have not known
The things that stand before them,
And for a vision of their own
Can piously ignore them.

So let me think, whate'er befall,
That in the city duly,
Some men there are who love at all,
Some women who love truly;

And that upon two million odd
Transgressors in sad plenty,
Mercy will of a gracious God
Be shown — because of twenty.