Oft the confession of my changeless love
Your close-drawn lattice in the night must hear:
The moon, befriending hearts bereft of cheer,
Knows well my longing as she gleams above:
Your name is cooed to me by that wild dove
Whose haunts I visit when the eve is near:
At morn my madrigals glad-voiced and clear
Fill with their ecstasy the hill and grove.
To you alone my secret reaches never,
Howe'er my heartbeat strives to tell the tale
Unbidden, ardent in a dear endeavor.
Perchance for all time shall its message fail,

Your talk was most in praise of these poor features,
And of my body—not unequalled 'mongst God's creatures.
And even did your courteous fancy find
Some small perfection in a woman's mind.
But of my soul, sir, not a word!
Till your quite reasonable anger stirred
To bring our love to sudden wreck.
'Twas then you stayed my ecstasies
With truth! Which ended in this wise:—
“Woman! Your soul's a stone about your neck.”

Maybe our love had happier consummation
Had this part known more quick consideration!

Verily the young would love me
For what I should say;
For I sing in graceful accents,
I can sweetly talk.

Waves are stirring, winds are playing,
Peaceful is their interflow.
Rye, through parted boughs half-hinted,
Ripples golden-tinted
To and fro.
Thou alone art elsewhere straying.
Softlier the pulses leap.
Far-off music, faintly playing,
Stills me nigh to sleep.

Clouds go past like lovely shining
Swans across the sea of sky,
Floating soundlessly and lonely;
Swans break silence only
When they die.
Through the day with dull repining
I have labored wearily.
I would join the lovely shining
Swans and float to thee.

When all the loves that loved her for her soul
Have married fleshly wives and comfortable,
When all the loves that loved her over well
For her sweet virtue have endured control,
When all the loves that loved her down the roll
Of every excellence she should excel
Have lost their adjectives—then I shall tell
Wherefore I loved her, and tell true the whole.

I loved her for her youth that could not last,
I loved her for her laugh that could but die,
I loved her face that death should overcast,
I loved her but a day and it was past,—

We've cast off, for love of the winehouse, The usance of dawntide prayer;
The produce and gain of devotion We've laid in the path of the fair.

This caut'ry, wherewith we have branded, For passion, our frenzied hearts,
The harvest of hundreds of sages With pity hath set a-flare.

The Lord of Eternity gave us The treasure of love and grief,
When first to this wasted desert Our faces we set whilere.

There cannot a worse dissembler Than we in the patchcoat be,
Who've stablished in toper-usance The basis of our affair.

Soul parted from thy Love, kindle a lamp within the shrine.

There is no wick, nor lamp, nor oil, yet shall there be light, I know not how.
The Lord of my soul to my house has come: let my bed be decked with coverings rare.

In the bed of my heart with bliss transported the Eternal Essence rested, my Lord transcendant, without form.
Come and with one heart sing the joyful bridal song: for Yari has met his Love.

Endowed with soul and body, happiness and riches, why did you not find love in the midst of these?
What doest thou? What was thy promise at thy coming? Why hast thou left it to pursue another aim?
Practice Joga, renunciation and the recluse life, O Dharni: why wear yourself to death in pursuit of riches?
At the last all these will desert thee: why not, O fool, desert them now?

Julia—at her name my mind
Throws its griefs and cares behind:
She, the love of early years,
Smiling through her childish tears—
Julia! child of love and pain,
One I ne'er shall see again.

And forgive me, Julia dear,
For the sins of that long year!
Think of me with kindly thought,
And condemn me not for naught.

By thine eyes, so softly brown,
By the light and glistening crown
That so gently o'er thy head
Did its shining lustre shed;
By that sad yet loving mouth,
Rose of fragrance from the South;
By thy form, oh, lovelier far

To every man some doting woman lends
A halo of enchantment; in her eyes
He is most noble, loving, brave and wise;
This worship like to incense pure ascends
And with her dreams in painted glamour blends
Like rainbow melting in the western skies;
His lightest word is something dear to prize
His chance caress for sorrow full amends.

Oh, mystery! that woman cannot see
Her own superiority to man,
Which soars on high like eagle's wing above—
Just as it was, has been, will ever be,
Because ordained by God's primeval plan,