“Oh, I will put my ship in order,
And I will set her to the sea;
And I will sail to yonder harbour,
To see if my love will marry me.”

He sailed eastward; he sailed westward;
He sailed far, far by sea and land;
By France and Flanders, Spain and Dover,
He sail'd the world all round and round,

Till he came to his love's sweet bower,
It was to hear what she would say.
“Awake, awake, ye lovely sleeper,
The sun is spreading the break of day.”
“Oh, who is this at my bower window,
That speaks so lovingly to me?”
It is your own true constant lover,

As each one knew and loved him best, so each one saw the figure of the Lord.
The great warrior kings have seen him as it were chivalry incarnate.
The demons who in guile assumed the royal guise: to them the Lord appeared as Death.
The dwellers in His city saw the two brothers: their eyes beholding the jewels of mankind were blessed.
The women's hearts were filled with joy, each seeing Him fashioned according to her own desire.
His loveliness, wearing the fairest of all fair forms, bewitched their minds.

Our first young love resembles
That short but brilliant ray,
Which smiles and weeps and trembles
Thro' April's earliest day.
And not all life before us,
Howe'er its lights may play,
Can shed a lustre o'er us
Like that first April ray.

Our summer sun may squander
A blaze serener, grander;
Our autumn beam
May, like a dream
Of heaven, die calm away;
But no—let life before us
Bring all the light it may,
'T will ne'er shed lustre o'er us
Like that first youthful ray.

Renew me with thy being.—I would take
Thy young sweet soul and press it close to mine,
I would make all my stormy yearning thine
And in thine heart mine endless longing slake;
Just as the mountain in the mountain-lake
Sees its own thunder-crowned fierce image shine
And in the blue depth doth itself outline,
And ceases then with lonely pain to ache.

Give me thyself.—Do I not sorely need
—I who have fought for years amid the dust
Of trampling hoofs, and parried stroke and thrust,
And snapped the spear of sorrow like a reed—

Friend , well I know thou knowest well to bear
Thy sword's-point, that it pierce the close-locked mail:
And like a bird to flit from perch to pale:
And out of difficult ways to find the air:
Largely to take and generously to share:
Thrice to secure advantage: to regale
Greatly the great, and over lands prevail.
In all thou art, one only fault is there:
For still among the wise of wit thou say'st
That Love himself doth weep for thine estate;
And yet, no eyes no tears: lo now, thy whim!
Soft, rather say: This is not held in haste;

Dear , when you came the day was bright;
The moments, roseate to my sight,
Flew by me, and my heart was glad
Without you; but I loved you, lad—
Loved in my own despite!

As morn, I thought, so would be night,
Nor feared eclipsing cloud, nor blight—
Nay, fancied naught to life could add,
Dear, when you came!

And now—the good I deemed my right—
But you with love will still requite
The follies that have made you sad!
You smile—there—whisper! Nothing had
Illumined for me love's altar-light.
Dear, when you came!

When first I saw that dear abode
It was a lovely winter's day;
After a night of perilous storm
The west wind ruled with gentle sway—

A day so mild it might have been
The first day of the gladsome spring;
The robins warbled, and I heard
One solitary throstle sing.

Thou man, first-comer, whose wide arms entreat,
Gather, clasp, welcome, bind,
Lack, or remember; whose warm pulses beat
With love of thine own kind:—

Unlifted for a blessing on yon sea,
Unshrined on this highway,
O flesh, O grief, thou too shalt have our knee,
Thou rood of every day!

When Winter's ahead,
What can you read in November
That you read in April
When Winter's dead?

I hear the thrush, and I see
Him alone at the end of the lane
Near the bare poplar's tip,
Singing continuously.

Is it more that you know
Than that, even as in April,
So in November,
Winter is gone that must go?

Or is all your lore
Not to call November November,
And April April,
And Winter Winter—no more?

But I know the months all,
And their sweet names, April,
May and June and October,
As you call and call

The wind at the casement enters, like a child's soul into the dusk,
With the cool, fresh scent of the garden, a fragrance of roses and musk.

Sing me a song, my love, and plead with the ivory keys
Till the soul of the organ wakes, astir with such visions as these,
While the golden day fades slowly among the garden trees
And I hear the robins coining their hearts upon the breeze.

Sing me a song, my love, of joys more sharp than pain,
The sweet, wild heart of dream athrill in the Autumn rain,
The pleasure that crowns us now, the joy that will find us again.