A single night,
that is all
one needs to know
it was a lie;
what am I hoping for,
then,
to persevere

My very life
I would give
in pursuit
of the one I love.
Why then
do I begrudge
the ruin
of my good name?

Behold the tree, the lordly tree,
That fronts the four winds of the storm,
A fearless and defiant form
That mocks wild winter merrily!
Behold the beauteous, budding tree
With censers swinging in the air,
With arms in attitude of prayer,
With myriad leaves, and every leaf
A miracle of color, mold,
More gorgeous than a house of gold!
Each leaf a poem of God's plan,
Each leaf as from His book of old
To build, to bastion man's belief:
Man's love of God, man's love of man.

Aye, love His trees, leaf, trunk, or root,

O fast we hold to those we love
And clutch them to our hearts
But still the soul desires the whole—
And what are these but parts?

O fast we hold to those we love
As we would drink them dry—
But still our hearts are not sufficed
And still for hunger cry—

Sweet is the love of man and maid—
The mother for the child
But there's a love more tender far;
More passionate and wild.

Close is the love of one for one
But there is larger worth
In the dear love of human kind
All over the green earth.

When the sweet air grows bitter,
And the leaf falls from the branch,
And the birds change their chatter,
I also sigh and sing here
Of love which holds me tied and bound,
For I have never had it in my power.

Alas! I have never gained anything from love
Except the suffering and the anguish,
And nothing is so hard to win over
As that which I desire;
And nothing fills me with such desire
As does that which I cannot have.

I exult for a fine jewel,
And nothing have I ever loved as much;
When I am with her, I am so overcome

A butterfly alights
On a bright green hedge,
Sways with grace
On its very edge:
Like an airy spectre it seems to cling,
Then, off again upon the wing.

Ah, Love, is yours
The same wily art,
Poised with grace
On the edge of my heart,
Just for a moment there to cling,
Then off again upon the wing?

The sweet-mouthed shore hath wed the singing sea,
And winds are joyous with their kissing chime.
The voice-beseeching rapture of the time
An utterance hath found in every tree,
In bursts of happy rhyme.

All nature loves, and loves are all fulfilled.
Me only hope deferred and waitings long
Keep silent; me these rich completions wrong:
Ah! when shall I have leave my lips to gild
With a sweet marriage-song?

From scenes of glad love crownéd, long gone down
The droning-billowed reaches of the years,
The lotus-flutes are shrilling in mine ears,

But yesternight we laughed to view
The stars that sailed in seas of blue—
To-day we wake 'neath greyer skies,
To look on life with diff'rent eyes,
To look on life with diff'rent eyes, with diff'rent eyes—

Alas! how many stars are set,
For which we're longing, watching yet,
O useless hope! O eyes that burn!
The stars you love will not return,
The stars you love will not return.

O WHA 's that at my chamber door?—
“Fair widow, are ye wawking?”—
Auld carle, your suit give o'er,
Your love lies a' in tawking:
Gi'e me the lad that 's young and tight,
Sweet like an April meadow;
'Tis sic as he can bless the sight
And bosom of a widow.

“O widow! wilt thou let me in,
“I 'm pawky, wise, and thrifty,
“And come of a right gentle kin;
“I 'm little mair than fifty.”
Daft carle, dit your mouth,
What signifies how pawky,
Or gentle born ye be; but youth,
In love you 're but a gawky.

When your head leans back slowly, and gazing eyes
Muse earnest upon mine and starry swim
With depths unfathomed that still well and rise,
And the words fail, and sight with love grows dim,
Whence comes that almost sadness, almost wound
Of joy, whose thoughts sink like the wearied flight
Of birds on seas, lost in love's deeps profound,
Inscrutable as odours blown through night?

We know not: and we know not whence love rose
Pouring its beauty over us, as the moon
On this dim garden rises, and none knows
Where she was wandering, those blind nights of June.