Bright things, blest things, to look on you,
Eyes that are in their wane
Grow bright, and hearts at ebb of age
Fill with life's tide again.

And you, not age nor death should touch,
If human love might save;
But stronger is the love that blights,
And gathers to the grave.

We know that you the angels love,—
They love all gentle things—
And often o'er you fondly stoop,
And spread their viewless wings.

And tenderly their starry eyes
Watch you by night and day,
And sweetly as they smile on you,
So you on us alway.

My noble, lovely, little Peggy,
Let this my First Epistle beg ye,

At dawn of morn, and close of even,
To lift your heart and hands to Heaven.
In double beauty say your prayer:
Our Father first, then Notre Père.
And, dearest child, along the day,
In every thing you do and say,
Obey and please my lord and lady,
So God shall love and angels aid ye.

If to these precepts you attend,
No second letter need I send,
And so I rest your constant friend.

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?

I know the ways of learning; both the head
And pipes that feed the press, and make it run;
What reason hath from nature borrowed,
Or of it self, a good huswife, spun
In laws and policy; what the stars conspire,
What willing nature speaks, what forc'd by fire;

Both th' old discoveries, and the new-found seas,
The stock and surplus, cause and history:
All these stand open, or I have the keys:
Yet I love thee.

I know the ways of honour, what maintains
The quick returns of courtesy and wit:
In vies of favours whether party gains,

Sitting by a river side,
Where a silent stream did glide,
Bank'd about with choice flowers,
Such as spring from April showers,
When fair Iris smiling shows
All her riches in her dews;
Thick-leav'd trees so were planted,
As nor art nor nature wanted,
Bordering all the brook with shade,
As if Venus there had made,
By Flora's wile, a curious bower,
To dally with her paramour;
At this current as I gaz'd,
Eyes intrapt, mind amaz'd,
I might see in my ken
Such a flame as fireth men,
Such a fire as doth fry
With one blaze both heart and eye,

There is a voice, and there is only one,
Thrilling my bosom, as if tuned on high
Amid the spheres revolving round the sky,
Whose roll is tempered to the sweetest tone,
Whose blended harmonies are heard at night,
Now falling distant, now ascending nigh,
And with the saffron burst of dawning light
Peal like the long, loud clarion-swell of fight,
When columns in the deadly charge rush by.
As sweet, but fainter, of as a clear a note,
Yet softened into calmness, is that sound
Whose tones in recollection round me float,

In some far-off
cleft of the rock
let me live alone,
thinking no longer of outsiders' eyes,
thinking only of my love

Love is a beggar, most importunate,
Uncalled he comes and makes his dear demands.
He storms my heart which doth capitulate
And then he asks the homage of my hands.
He claims my eyes, and wistfully they turn,
He craves my lips, half-willingly they yield
Their soft obeisance to his own that burn
With potent passion in the power they wield.
And when, with woman's faith, I give my whole,
I wonder if dear Love doth recognize
That, with it all, unless he claim my soul,
He gives me naught and asks but sacrifice!
For Love, if Love be Love, should wish no dole,

Ah my dear angry Lord,
Since thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise;
I will bewail, approve;
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament, and love.

Dear friend, sit down: the tale is long and sad,
And in my faintings I presume your love
Will more comply than help. A lord I had,
And have, of whom some grounds which may improve,
I hold for two lives, and both lives in me.
To him I brought a dish of fruit one day,
And in the middle placed my heart. But he
(I sigh to say)
Looked on a servant, who did know his eye
Better than you know me, or (which is one)
Than I my self. The servant instantly
Quitting the fruit, seized on my heart alone,
And threw it in a font, wherein did fall