L OVE'S pleadings will be heard though lips be still,
In fluttering breaths that quicken into sighs,
In timid hands that touch and cling and thrill,
And in the dear confession of the eyes;
Yes, very silence has a voice of prayer
More sweet than any old Provençal air.

As when beside a viol lying mute,
Strong chords are struck until it seems to wake
And give an answering murmur to the lute,
So heart will throb to heart for love's sweet sake,
And chant in faint, delicious harmonies
The rapturous passion-song that never dies.

She was a wet nurse, but I was afraid.
Night and day, “My child,” she sobbed,
“I'm all bones,” and saying, “If I die,”
with love fiercer than mother's,
held me tight.—As if to say, “I'll be sad.”

She was a wet nurse, but how afraid I was.
Devotion, a moment before death;
her tearless, aged eyes
with love fiercer than mother's
stared at me—bluish white.

She was a wet nurse, but I can't forget her.
Aggrieved, confused with doubts,
she huddled up like water when I cried,
“My child, it's me” (must have been two at night)

After the jostling on canal streets
and the orchids blowing in the window
I work in cut glass and majolica
and hear the plectrum of the angels.

My thoughts keep dwelling on the littoral
where china clocks tick in the cold shells
and the weeds slide in the equinox.

The night is cold for love,
a chamber for the chorus
and the antistrophe of the sealight.

Though Amaryllis dance in green
Like Fairy Queen,
And sing full clear;
Corinna can, with smiling, cheer.
Yet since their eyes make heart so sore,
Hey ho! chill love no more.

My sheep are lost for want of food,
And I so wood
That all the day
I sit and watch a herd-maid gay,
Who laughs to see me sigh so sore;
Hey ho! chill love no more.

Her loving looks, her beauty bright,
Is such delight
That all in vain
I love to like, and lose my gain
For her, that thanks me not therefore.
Hey ho! chill love no more.

'T is done!—I saw it in my dreams:
No more with Hope the future beams,
My days of happiness are few;
Chill'd by misfortune's wintry blast,
My dawn of life is overcast,
Love, Hope, and Joy, alike adieu!—
Would I could add Remembrance too!

Before a bomb buried
him in his courtyard
Salman told us:

“Loved ones,
for a long time we did not live
the way we wanted:

LOVE-MAKING is like haymaking, soon over,
And both are mutable throughout their season.
Haymaker! hear me; thou too hear me, lover,
Nor scorn experience nor be deaf to reason.
Be quick at work; the sunny hours won't last,
And storms may come before they half are past.

Where all is black,
Love is the light for creatures looking in
Behind her red rose blush and lily skin;
A lamp that yet we lack.

Thy fan is as a butterfly
Upon thy fingers lighted
Since nowhere else it could espy
A rose to take its loving eye
Until thy hand it sighted.

I hoped that he would love me,
And he has kissed my mouth,
But I am like a stricken bird
That cannot reach the south.

For though I know he loves me,
To-night my heart is sad;
His kiss was not so wonderful
As all the dreams I had.