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Love Was a Flower

Love was a flow'r that craved the tenderest care,
Sweet, fragile Love that tended grows more fair,
A petalled fragrance dreamy like dim skies
Illumining life more than the bright sunrise.
A shimmering blossom full of golden dower,
Love was a flower.

Cold sea-winds blew along the amber shore
Where white flow'rs glisten'd on the bank no more …
For withered buds bent on a barren bough,
Our poor, untended Love has perished now.
'Twas born eternal, but it lived an hour,
Love was a flower.

Words

in summer let's buy blue lampshades
to see your and our lovely fingers
in the star city is an angel with seashell fingernails
a selfish, shabby angel
that's you
in the shade of waves of acacia leaves
a true manicure is performed
but.

ah, touch the nails and you'll get scarred.

this was also a simple, pencil-sketched angel.

New Love, New Life

Heart ! my heart! what means this feeling?
What oppresseth thee so sore?
What strange life is o'er me stealing!
I acknowledge thee no more.
Fled is all that gave thee gladness,
Fled the cause of all thy sadness,
Fled thy peace, thine industry—
Ah, why suffer it to be?

Say, do beauty's graces youthful,
Does this form so fair and bright,
Does this gaze, so kind, so truthful,
Chain thee with unceasing might?
Would I tear me from her boldly,
Courage take, and fly her coldly,
Back to her I'm forthwith led
By the path I seek to tread.

10. Love in Autumn

It is already Autumn, and not in my heart only,
The leaves are on the ground,
Green leaves untimely browned,
The leaves bereft of Summer, my heart of Love left lonely.

Swift, in the masque of seasons, the moment of each mummer,
And even so fugitive
Love's hour, Love's hour to live:
Yet, leaves, ye have had your rapture, and thou, poor heart, thy Summer!

8. Love's Secret

As a most happy mother feels the stir
Of that new life which quickens with her life,
And knows that virtue has gone forth from her
To doubly sanctify the name of wife;
Yet, for her joy's sake, and because her pride
Is too unutterably sanctified,
And all the heaven of heavens within her breast
Too dearly and too intimately possessed,
Speaks not a word, but folds her new delight
With a rapt silence, comforting as night;
So, when I felt the quickening life that came
To bid my life's long-slumbering currents move,
I set the seal of silence on your name,

5. Love's Paradox

Once I smiled when I saw you, when I saw you smile I was glad,
And the joy of my heart was as foam that the sea-wind shakes from the sea;
But the smile of your eyes grows strange, and the smile that my lips have had
Trembles back to my heart, and my heart trembles in me.

Once you laughed when you met me, when you met me your voice was gay
As the voice of a bird in the dawn of the day on a sun-shiny tree;
But the sound of your voice grows strange, and the words that you do not say
Thrill from your heart to mine, and my heart trembles in me.

The 1. Prelude

Child, in those gravely-smiling eyes,
What memory sits apart and hears
A litany of low replies,
Love's music, in a lover's ears?

Love in your heart, a guest unsought,
Unfeared, and never known for Love,
Softer than music to the thought,
Sings in an unknown tongue of love.

The Gods said Love is Blind

The gods said Love is blind. The earth was young
With foolish, youthful laughter when iTheard;
It caught and spoke the letter of the words,
And from that time till now hath said and sung,
“Oh, Love is blind! The falsest face and tongue
Can cheat him, once his passion's thrill is stirred:
He is so blind, poor Love!”
Strange none demurred
At this, nor saw how hollow false it rang,
When all men know that sightless men can tell
Unnumbered things which vision cannot find.
Powers of the air are leagued to guide them well;

Soul-Sweetness

What do I love him for? His lustrous eyes
Of mirrored sea-change, deep as yonder wave:
Or yet the wonder of his spirits rise
When laughter woos him from reflection grave.
Or is it for the tender suppliant way
He has in seeking me at close of day
To put his head upon my breast and say
A thousand times he loves me? Is it for
His ardent lips or gentle hand's caress,
Or yet his midnight locks that I adore?
Not for these charms I love him,—nor not less
Were he to lack them: nay, I worship more
The Inner-Being in its loveliness!