Very tranquil lies the sea,
Rowers to your places move:
Even this is the ship of love.
While new songs the sirens sing
To their cadence you shall row,
Sorrow to your oars shall cling,
And in sadness and in woe
New sighs from old sighs shall grow,
And more griefs your spirit prove:
Even this is the ship of love.
And as thus you row distressed,
Fresh distresses shall you find,
Seas of danger and unrest,
Storms and buffeting of wind;
Yet content will in your mind
Reign all pain and grief above:
Even this is the ship of love.

O love of mine, some months ago
(Emotion my speech hinders)
Our passion lost its ruddy glow
And flickered out in cinders.

And yet, old dear, that winter through
(Before our paths divided)
Did any other care for you
As ardently as I did?

But now resumes love's festival,
Rekindling ancient embers—
And all the former fever shall
Revivify your members.

Again I'll woo you, and will deem
You worthy of your wages,
And, as a gauge of my esteem,
Keep steam up in your gauges.

When bitter blasts howl wintrily

Some day when Death shall come with quiet footsteps
To lead me far away,
And memories it took a life to gather
Are scattered in a day,

I think that there is one will never leave me
Through all the changing years,
And that your love will follow me undaunted
Across those dark frontiers.

I hear it is charged against me that I seek to destroy institutions;
But really I am neither for nor against institutions,
(What indeed have I in common with them?—Or what with the destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta, and in every city of these States, inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large, that dents the water,
Without edifices, or rules, or trustees, or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.

Within a forest, as I strayed
Far down a sombre autumn glade,
I found the god of love;
His bow and arrows cast aside,
His lovely arms extended wide,
A depth of leaves above,
Beneath o'erarching boughs he made
A place for sleep in russet shade.

His lips, more red than any rose,
Were like a flower that overflows
With honey pure and sweet;
And clustering round that holy mouth,
The golden bees in eager drouth
Plied busy wings and feet;
They knew, what every lover knows,
There's no such honey-bloom that blows.

Love's records, written on a heart like mine,
Not Time's last effort can efface a line.

D ANTE A LIGHIERI , Cecco, your good friend
And servant, gives you greeting as his lord,
And prays you for the sake of Love's accord,
(Love being the Master before whom you bend,)
That you will pardon him if he offend,
Even as your gentle heart can well afford.
All that he wants to say is just one word
Which partly chides your sonnet at the end.
For where the measure changes, first you say
You do not understand the gentle speech
A spirit made touching your Beatrice:
And next you tell your ladies how, straightway,

Grown old in Love from Seven till Seven times Seven
I oft have wished for Hell for Ease from Heaven

This passion is but an ember
Of a Sun, of a Fire, long set;
I could not live and remember,
And so I love and forget.

You say, and the tone is fretful,
That my mourning days were few,
You call me over forgetful—
My God, if you only knew!

Soft follower of the early star,
Once more I feel you drawing near.
Come! for my evening is not come
Till you are here.

You make it—as yourself is made—
Of loveliest, sweet, untroubled things,
Fled with love's day. I feel love's night
Fall from your wings.