Oh, thou wilt never know how fond a love
This heart could have felt for thee;
Or ever dream how love and friendship strove,
Through long, long hours for mastery;
How passion often urged, but pride restrained,
Or how thy coldness grieved, but kindness pained.

How hours have soothed the feelings, then that were
The torture of my lonely life—
But ever yet will often fall a tear,
O'er wildest hopes and thoughts then rife;
Where'er recalled by passing word or tone,
Fond memory mirrors all those visions flown.

I have tried to keep a little of myself for other uses,
But love denies my reserve: I must have all, says love.
I bargained sharply with love and love kept away,
I wondered this of love and that of love and love was still alienated.
I looked for love in the open day and in dark places and love baffled my desire,
But when I stopped looking and simply loved love came hurrying—
Came to me from hell hot with fire,
Came to me from heaven calm with justice.

I could not cheat love:
When I reminded love of my sins love smiled and loved on,

Turne all thy thoughts to eyes,
Turne all thy haires to eares,
Change all thy friends to spies,
And all thy joyes to feares:
True Love will yet be free,
In spite of Jealousie.

Turne darknesse into day,
Conjectures into truth,
Beleeve what th' envious say,
Let age interpret youth:
True love will yet be free,
In spite of Jealousie.

Wrest every word and looke,
Racke ev'ry hidden thought,
Or fish with golden hooke,
True love cannot be caught:
For that will still be free,
In spite of Jealousie.

Youth gone, and beauty gone if ever there
Dwelt beauty in so poor a face as this;
Youth gone and beauty, what remains of bliss?
I will not bind fresh roses in my hair,
To shame a cheek at best but little fair,--
Leave youth his roses, who can bear a thorn,--
I will not seek for blossoms anywhere,
Except such common flowers as blow with corn.
Youth gone and beauty gone, what doth remain?
The longing of a heart pent up forlorn,
A silent heart whose silence loves and longs;
The silence of a heart which sang its songs

Many in aftertimes will say of you
"He loved her'--while of me what will they say?
Not that I loved you more than just in play,
For fashion's sake as idle women do.
Even let them prate; who know not what we knew
Of love and parting in exceeding pain,
Of parting hopeless here to meet again,
Hopeless on earth, and heaven is out of view.
But by my heart of love laid bare to you,
My love that you can make not void nor vain,
Love that foregoes you but to claim anew
Beyond this passage of the gate of death,
I charge you at the Judgment make it plain

But if my lines may not be held excused,
Nor yet my love find favour in your eyes;
But that your eyes as judges shall be used,
Even of the fault which from themselves doth rise,
Yet this my humble suit do not despise;
Let me be judged as I stand accused:
If but my fault my doom do equalize,
Whate'er it be, it shall not be refused.
And since my love already is expressed,
And that I cannot stand upon denial,
I freely put myself upon my trial;
Let justice judge me as I have confessed:
For if my doom in Justice' scales be weighed

There never yet was honest man
That ever drove the trade of love;
It is impossible, nor can
Integrity our ends promove:
For Kings and Lovers are alike in this
That their chief art in reigne dissembling is.

Here we are lov'd, and there we love,
Good nature now and passion strive
Which of the two should be above,
And laws unto the other give.
So we false fire with art sometime discover,
And the true fire with the same art do cover.

What Rack can Fancy find so high?
Here we must Court, and here ingage,
Though in the other place we die.

Sought by the world, and hath the world disdained,
Is she, my heart, for whom thou dost endure;
Unto whose grace sith kings have not obtained,
Sweet is thy choice, though loss of life be sour;
Yet to the man, whose youth such pains must prove,
No better end than that which comes by love.

Steer then thy course unto the port of death,
(Sith thy hard hap no better hap may find,)
Where, when thou shalt unlade thy latest breath,
Envy herself shall swim, to save thy mind;
Whose body sunk in search to gain that shore

“Love me, for I love you”—and answer me,
“Love me, for I love you”—so shall we stand
As happy, equals in the flowering land
Of love, that knows not a dividing sea.
Love builds the house on rock and not on sand,
Love laughs what while the winds rave desperately;
And who hath found love's citadel unmanned?
And who hath held in bonds love's liberty?
My heart's a coward tho' my words are brave—
We meet so seldom, yet we surely part
So often; there's a problem for your art!
Still I find comfort in his Book, who saith,

Trust me, I have not earned your dear rebuke,
I love, as you would have me, God the most;
Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost,
Nor with Lot's wife cast back a faithless look
Unready to forego what I forsook;
This say I, having counted up the cost,
This, tho' I be the feeblest of God's host,
The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook.
Yet while I love my God the most, I deem
That I can never love you overmuch;
I love Him more, so let me love you too;
Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such
I cannot love you if I love not Him,