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Immortality

Strong as the death it masters, is the hope
That onward looks to immortality:
Let the frame perish, so the soul survive,
Pure, spiritual and loving. I believe
The grave exalts, not separates, the ties
That hold us in affection to our kind.
I will look down from yonder pitying sky,
Watching and waiting those I love on earth,
Anxious in heaven until they too are there.
I will attend your guardian angel's side,
And weep away your faults with holy tears;
Your midnight shall be filled with solemn thought:
And when, at length, death brings you to my love,

The Novice

I love one, and he loveth me:
Who sayeth this? who deemeth this?
And is this thought a cause of bliss,
Or source of misery?

The loved may die, or he may change:
And if he die thou art bereft;
Or if he alter, nought is left
Save life that seemeth strange.

A weary life, a hopeless life,
Full of all ill and fear-oppressed;
A weary life that looks for rest
Alone after death's strife.

And love's joy hath no quiet even;
It evermore is variable.
Its gladness is like war in Hell,
More than repose in Heaven.

Tifty's Nanny

‘There springs a rose in Fyvie's yard,
And O but it springs bonny!
There 's a daisy in the middle of it,
Its name is Andrew Lammie.

‘I wish the rose were in my breast,
For the love I bear the daisy;
So blyth and merry as I would be,
And kiss my Andrew Lammie.

‘The first time I and my love met
Was in the wood of Fyvie;
He kissëd and he dawted me,
Calld me his bonny Annie.

‘Wi apples sweet he did me treat,
Which stole my heart so canny,
And ay sinsyne himself was kind,
My bonny Andrew Lammie.’

I never shall henceforth approve

I NEVER shall henceforth approve
The deity of Love
Since he could be
So far unjust as to wound me,
And leave my mistress free.
As if my flame could leave a print
Upon a heart of flint.
Can flesh and stone
Be e'er converted into one,
By my poor flame alone?
Were he a god, he'd neither be
Partial to her, nor me,
But by a dart
Directed into either's heart
Make both so feel the smart,
That being heated with his subtile fire,
Our loves might make us feel but one desire.

The Word

My friend, my bonny friend, when we are old,
And hand in hand go tottering down the hill,
May we be rich in love's refinèd gold,
May love's gold coin be current with us still.

May love be sweeter for the vanished days,
And your most perfect beauty still as dear
As when your troubled singer stood at gaze
In the dear March of a most sacred year.

May what we are be all we might have been,
And that potential, perfect, O my friend,
And may there still be many sheafs to glean
In our love's acre, comrade, till the end.

Love's Choice

Because I feel that I cannot forget,
I think thee, Lord!—Because for ever now
My eyes will meet the sinless eyes I met,
And see the dark hair shade a sinless brow:

Because, though she is dead,—aye, dead in shame,
Polluted through the villany of one
Who, lusting, did in love's dishonoured name
The meanest deed that ever on earth was done;

Because, though she be lost, she for whose sake
I would have gone with singing to my tomb,
I think of her … as even the ice-bound lake
Dreams of green banks divine with summer's bloom:

Against the Sky

See, where the foliage fronts the sky,
How many a meaning we descry
That else had never to the eye
A signal shown!

So we, on life's horizon-line,
To watchers waiting for a sign,
Perchance interpret Love's design,
To us unknown.

You're in Love

Have you ever awakened to find that you're glad to be awake?
Hamburger tastes like steak,
You're in love!
Have you ever experienced the thrill of a fall that feels like spring?
Then you have felt the sting,
You're in love

1. Have you found when she's around that you are so enthused?
You don't make sense, but what's the difference, you're glad to be confused.
It's quite easily explained biologically, you have found a mate,
Might I reiterate,
You're in love.

2. When he's near do you appear to be so ill at ease?

Apollo Making Love

I am,—cry'd Apollo, when Daphne he woo'd,
And panting for breath, the coy virgin pursued,
When his wisdom, in manner most ample, express'd
The long list of the graces his godship possess'd,

I'm—the god of sweet song, and inspirer of lays;
Nor for lays, nor sweet song, the fair fugitive stays;
I'm the god of the harp—stop, my fairest—in vain;
Nor the harp, nor the harper, could fetch her again.

Every plant, every flower, and their virtues I know,
God of light I'm above, and of physic below;
At the dreadful word physic, the nymph fled more fast;