O Love Divine, that stooped to share
Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear,
On Thee we cast each earth-born care,
We smile at pain while Thou art near!
Though long the weary way we tread,
And sorrow crown each lingering year,
No path we shun, no darkness dread,
Our hearts still whispering, Thou art near!
When drooping pleasure turns to grief,
And trembling faith is changed to fear,
The murmuring wind, the quivering leaf,
Shall softly tell us, Thou art near!
On Thee we fling our burdening woe,
O Love Divine, forever dear,

The shuttles of the spirit ply
Swiftly between us two
Among the shining filaments that tie
My heart to you.

Threading the crimson woof they race,
Defying mould and moth,
To weave a gift for our most holy place,—
Love's altar cloth.

My loves are bronzes, crystals, porcelains,
Windows aglow like jewelled treasuries,
Hangings of florid, golden argosies,
And salvers brilliant with Venetian stains.
My loves are damosels of ancient reigns,
The old world's troubadour sweet harmonies,
The steed that bounds to Arabic caprice,
The German ballad with its tear refrains,

The ivory-carved piano-keys aflood,
The sounding horn within the forest glade,
The soft aroma from the censer fumed,
The couch of ivory, gold, and sandal-wood,
Where virgin loveliness at last is laid,

AH, HAPPY youths, ah, happy maid,
Snatch present pleasure while ye may;
Laugh, dance and sing in sunny glade,
Your limbs are light, your hearts are gay;
Ye little think there comes a day
('Twill come to you, it came to me)
When love and life shall pass away:
I, too, once dwelt in Arcady.

Or listless lie by yonder stream,
And muse and watch the ripples play,
Or note their noiseless flow, and deem
That life thus gently glides away—
That love is but a sunny ray
To make our years go smiling by.
I knew that stream, I too could dream,

Love once was like an April dawn:
—Song throbbed within the heart by rote,
And every tint of rose or fawn
—Was greeted by a joyous note.
——How eager was my thought to see
——Into that morning mystery!

Love now is like an August noon,
—No spot is empty of its shine;
The sun makes silence seem a boon,
—And not a voice so dumb as mine.
——Yet with what words I'd welcome thee—
——Couldst thou return, dear mystery!

Dear sweet, when dusk comes up the hill,
The fire leaps high with golden prongs;
I place along the chimneysill
The tiny candles of my songs.

And though unsteadily they burn,
As evening shades from grey to blue
Like candles they will surely learn
To shine more clear, for love of you.

Love came by from the riversmoke,
When the leaves were fresh on the tree,
But I cut my heart on the blackjack oak
Before they fell on me.

The leaves are green in the early Spring,
They are brown as linsey now,
I did not ask for a wedding-ring
From the wind in the bending bough.

Fall lightly, lightly, leaves of the wild,
Fall lightly on my care,
I am not the first to go with child
Because of the blowing air.

I am not the first nor yet the last
To watch a goosefeather sky,
And wonder what will come of the blast

Again I see you, ah my queen,
Of all my old loves that have been,
The first love, and the tenderest;
Do you remember or forget—
Ah me, for I remember yet—
How the last summer days were blest?

Ah lady, when we think of this,
The foolish hours of youth and bliss,
How fleet, how sweet, how hard to hold.
How old we are, ere spring be green.
You touch the limit of eighteen
And I am twenty winters old.

My rose, that mid the red roses,
Was brightest, ah, how pale she is.
Yet keeps the beauty of her prime;
Child, never Spanish lady's face

I am a fool, I can no good:
Who that me loveth, I holde him wood.
I brenne hot, I smite sore:
Who that me loveth shal thee no more.
Dredful deth out of me sprong,
For I am welle of wo;
I slow a wise king, fair and strong,
And yet I shal slee mo.

When I came to you banned, dishonored,
Brother of yours no more,
And raised my hands where your roof-tree stands,
Why did you open the door?

When I came to you starving, thirsting,
Beggared of aught but sin,
Why did you rise with welcoming eyes
And lift me and bid me in?

You have set me first at your feast,
You have robed me in tenderness,
Yet, Brothers of mine, these tears for sign
That I would your grace were less.

For I had not been crushed by your hate,
Who courted the pain thereof;
But you stab me through when you give anew,