Sing ! Who mingles with my lays?
Maiden of the primrose days!
Sing with me, and I will show
All that thou in spring should'st know;
All the names of all the flowers;
What to do with primrose hours!

Sing! who mingles with my song?
Soldier in the battle strong!
Sing, and thee I'll music teach,
Such as thunders on the beach;
When the waves run mad and white,
Like a warrior in the fight!

Sing! who loves the music tender?
Widow, who hath no defender!
Orphan!—Scholar!—Mother wild,
Who hast loved (and lost) a child!

In summer seek thyself a love,
In garden and in grove;
For then the days are long enough,
And nights are mild to rove.

In winter must the tender knot
Be found well wove and tight,
For many a cold on snow is caught,
'Neath winter moons, at night.

Love flows not from my liver but her living,
From whence all stings to perfect love are darted
All power, and thought of prideful lust depriving
Her life so pure and she so spotless hearted.
In whom sits beauty with so firm a brow,
That age, nor care, nor torment can contract it;
Heaven's glories shinning there, do stuff allow,
And virtue's constant graces do compact it.
Her mind--the beam of God--draws in the fires
Of her chaste eyes, from all earth's tempting fuel;
Which upward lifts the looks of her desires,

But dwell in darkness, for your god is blind,
Humour pours down such torrents on his eyes;
Which, as from mountains, fall on his base kind,
And eat your entrails out with ecstasies.
Color, whose hands for faintness are not felt,
Can bind your waxen thoughts in adamant;
And with her painted fires your heart doth melt,
Which beat your souls in pieces with a pant.
But my love is the cordial of souls,
Teaching by passion what perfection is,
In whose fixed beauties shine the sacred scroll,
And long-lost records of your human bliss,

I know that you whom I love today
Will sometime pass out of my life,
And all this joy and laughter,
This love that lights my heart
Will be no more,
And I will be left lonely,
As all women.

I know that the glory of this dream
That came like the breath of spring,
All this bloom and beauty,
As of a thousand dawns,
This gladness of meeting lips,
And this great calm of the spirit,
Cannot last forever.

I know that some day I shall walk alone,
Looking with eyes that cannot weep
Upon the future desolate.

Love, the most gen'rous passion of the mind,
The softest refuge innocence can find,
The safe director of unguided youth,
Fraught with kind wishes, and secured by truth,
That cordial drop heav'n in our cup hath thrown
To make the nauseous draught of life go down;
On which one only blessing God might raise
In lands of atheists subsidies of praise;
For none did e'er so dull and stupid prove,
But felt a God, and blessed his pow'r in love.

My soul, they say, is hard and cold,
And nought can move me
Perchance 'tis so 'midst life's wild whirl,
But, oh! on Beauty's lips, my girl,
'Twill melt like Cleopatra's pearl;
Then love me, love me.
I would not climb th' ambitious heights
That soar above me;
I do not ask thee to bestow
Or wealth or honours on me now,
Or wreathe with laurel leaves my brow;
But love me, love me.

Oh! I'll gaze on thee till my fond
Fix'd glances move thee;
Love's glance sometimes the coldest warms:
Pygmalion on a statue's charms

My love gave me a passion-flower.
I nursed it well—so brief its hour!
My eyelids ache, my throat is dry:
He told me that it would not die.

My love and I are one, and yet
Full oft my cheeks with tears are wet—
So sweet the night is and the bower!
My love gave me a passion-flower.

So sweet! Hold fast my hands. Can God
Make all this joy revert to sod,
And leave to me but this for dower—
My love gave me a passion-flower.

Gazing on my idol-treasure,
All my soul is lost in joy;
She affords eternal pleasure,
And can never, never cloy.

Ev'ry motion, ev'ry feature
Shines with such peculiar grace;
Never, sure, was human creature
Blest with such an angel's face.