If I have pained thee by a word,
If, May, when last we met,
A doubt shot through me, wild, absurd,
Forgive, forget.

Love is so scarce, truth is so rare,
So swift-winged is regret,
So keen the spear-points of despair—
Forgive, forget.

Believe me, if the quick tears sprang,
If thy soft eyes were wet
Almost, I also felt a pang:
Forgive, forget.

Be gracious, love, and for love's sake
Bear with me even yet.
The best of me discern and take;
The rest forget!

On the last words of what you write to me
I give you my opinion at the first,
To see the dead must prove corruption nursed
Within you, by your heart's own vanity.
The soul should bend the flesh to its decree:
Then rule it, friend, as fish by line emerced.
As to the smock, your lady's gift, the worst
Of words were not too bad for speech so free.
It is a thing unseemly to declare
The love of gracious dame or damozel,
And therewith for excuse to say, I dream'd.
Tell us no more of this, but think who seem'd

You have passed in all the collaterals of love but where is love?
You have brought me love's dresses and love's habits and love's alphabets but have not brought me love,
You have brought me soul's love that forgot the body,
You have brought me body's love that forgot the soul,
But love still waits expecting a complete return
For I, said love, when I take possession of life,
I, too, sing, and sing a song beyond the songs of song,
For I go singing not in words but in shapes and phantoms that give words leave to be.

At Traeth-y-daran the laver-weed grows,
So take your creel, O Madlen mine,
We'll gather it full ere the moon's a-shine
And bear it home from the dripping brine.
By Traeth-y-daran the laver-weed grows:
We'll cook it over the red culm-fire,
And you shall tell me your heart's desire
And I will tell you mine.

At Traeth-y-daran the laver-weed grows:
Your creel, my lass; to the cliff we'll hie
And seek in clefts where the gulls go by
Like dreams of love in a blue, blue eye.
By Traeth-y-daran the laver-weed grows;

Love, Reason, Hate, did once bespeak
Three mates to play at Barley-break;
Love, Folly took; and Reason, Fancy;
And Hate consorts with Pride; so dance they:
Love coupled last; and so it fell
That Love and Folly were in hell.

They break, and Love would Reason meet,
But Hate was nimbler on her feet;
Fancy looks for Pride, and thither
Hies, and they two hug together:
Yet this new coupling still doth tell
That Love and Folly were in hell.

The rest do break again, and Pride
Hath now got Reason on her side;

If love were but a little thing—
Strange love which, more than all, is great—
One might not such devotion bring,
Early to serve and late:

If love were but a passing breath—
Wild love—which, as God knows, is sweet—
One might not make of life and death
A pillow for love's feet!

I FEEL the shadow on my brow,
The sickness at my heart!
Alas! I look on those I love,
And am so sad to part.

If I could leave my love behind,
Or watch from yonder sky
With holy and enduring care,
I were not loath to die.

But death is terrible to Love:
And yet a love like mine
Trusts in the heaven from whence it came.
And feels it is divine.

Was what you thought love, but passing,
Was it but an idle dream,
But the passion of a moment,
But a bubble on the stream?

Has my lofty ideal fallen,
Do my hopes all shattered lay;
Have I loved once, and then in vain,
Has my idol turned to clay?

Have you won my heart for conquest,
But to cast it off when won;
And to end my bliss so quickly,
When I thought it just begun?

No, I cannot judge you harshly,
Tho' bitter thoughts my heart now fill,
For with all your faults and failings,
Yet, my own, I love you still.

All ministries of love are thine,
Of human love and love Divine;
With wife of more than maiden charms,
And children sheltered in thy arms,
And cure of souls in that vast fold
Whose millions never can be told,
Thou verily art made acquaint,
Beloved priest, with this day's Saint—
Saint Valentine!

Pregnant again with th' old twins hope, and fear,
Oft have I asked for thee, both how and where
Thou wert, and what my hopes of letters were;

As in the streets sly beggars narrowly
Watch motions of the giver's hand and eye,
And evermore conceive some hope thereby.

And now thy alms is given, thy letter is read,
The body risen again, the which was dead,
And thy poor starveling bountifully fed.

After this banquet my soul doth say grace,
And praise thee for it, and zealously embrace
Thy love, though I think thy love in this case