I ask your pardon that your pain
Should be so quick your lover's gain.
But when I know your love's distress,
My heart leaps high with happiness.
It sends kind tincture to my lips,
I walk with a new rhythm from the hips.

Eyes that are black like bramble-berries
That lustre with light the rank hedgerows
Are kindly eyes and within them there is
Love of the land where the bramble grows.

But mine are blue as a far-off distance
And grey as the water beneath the sea;
Therefore they look with a long insistence
For things that are not and cannot be.

There's mony a man loves land and life,
Loves life and land and fee;
And mony a man loves fair women,
But never a man loves me, my love,
But never a man loves me.

O weel and weel for a' lovers,
I wot weel may they be;
And weel and weel for a' fair maidens,
But aye mair woe for me, my love,
But aye mair woe for me.

O weel be wi' you, ye sma' flowers,
Ye flowers and every tree;
And weel be wi' you, a' birdies,
But teen and tears wi' me, my love,
But teen and tears wi' me.

O weel be yours, my three brethren,

A WIFELESS grave, a childless funeral
Are sadly yielded to the silvered head.
The tomb looks darker for the unloved dead
To those unwitting ones who bear his pall.
They err in pity, not accounting all
The lights on lonely pathways overshed.
Ev'n I, the loneliest man of men unwed,
Have large sweet hopes of meetings to befall.
Here with a hand upon the latch of death
I thank God humbly, thinking, through this gate
Passed Edith purely; happy Marion stands
A little way within in heaven's mild breath,
With loving Mary whom I knew too late,

The stars are waiting till our hearts are wise;
They glow and throb, all vibrant with the thought
That some day we, beholding with clear eyes
The deep celestial splendour of the skies,
Shall know all beauty out of love was wrought.

I love you as the angels love, Dear Heart;
I love you far beyond the dreams of art.
As radiant stars fling out their silver light
Across the spaces of the silent night,
No word they speak, and yet the stars are true
To one transcendent chord—so, I love you.

I love you as the blossom loves the day,
As tender leaves thrill to the breath of May,
As suns at twilight seek the rose-hued west,
I love you as the weary soul loves rest.
Till you my day with sunshine-presence bless,
I am but longing, love and loneliness.

Behind the curtain of form
The bells of being ring,
And beyond the heart of the real
There is not anything;

But Love is the music of being
And Love is the soul of art,
And to live is simply to hear
The whisper-beat of His heart.

The lotus of forgetfulness
Itself forgotten, life unfolded new,
And like a glowing sunrise,
Mounted to flaming peaks.

That was our time, great comrade,
Though forgotten ages and lives ago.
Love deepened till a sacred fire
Burned on life's altar stone,
Consuming every shred of selfishness,
Yet love and life were not consumed.

To my soul-luminous vision,
You were clothed with splendour
Of the southern stars. In you,
My heart discovered that fine alchemy
That turns all things to joy.
For you were beautiful!

Good creatures, do you love your lives
And have you ears for sense?
Here is a knife like other knives,
That cost me eighteen pence.

I need but stick it in my heart
And down will come the sky,
And earth's foundations will depart
And all you folk will die.

Not light of love, lady!
Though fancy do prick thee,
Let constancy possess thy heart.
Well worthy of blaming
They be, and defaming,
From plighted troth which back do start.
Dear dame,
Then fickleness banish
And folly extinguish,
Be skilful in guiding
And stay thee from sliding.

The constant are praised,
Their fame high is raised,
Their worthiness doth pierce the sky.
The fickle are blamed,
Their lightilove shamed,
Their foolishness doth make them die.
As well
Can Cressid bear witness,
Forge of her own distress,