I have loved my land yet hailed it as a stranger
When birth-wracks wrecked me on a faerie shore:
I have kept the Faith yet hardly grasped it more
Than groping shepherds when they found the Manger.
I have loved my friends yet feared them more than foes
Lest they should ask the name God only knows;
And in long years of mating have been blest
Restlessly wondering why I was at rest.

Tying her bonnet under her chin,
She tied her raven ringlets in;
But not alone in the silken snare
Did she catch her lovely floating hair,
For, tying her bonnet under her chin,
She tied a young man's heart within.

They were strolling together up the hill,
Where the wind comes blowing merry and chill;
And it blew the curls, a frolicsome race,
All over the happy peach-colored face,
Till, scolding and laughing, she tied them in,
Under her beautiful dimpled chin.

And it blew a color, bright as the bloom
Of the pinkest fuchsia's tossing plume,

'T IS highly rational, we can't dispute,
The Love, being naked, should promote a suit:
But doth not oddity to him attach
Whose fire's so oft extinguished by a match?

Since we parted yester eve,
I do love thee, love, believe,
Twelve times dearer, twelve hours longer,—
One dream deeper, one night stronger,
One sun surer,—thus much more
Than I loved thee, love, before.

S ATURNIAN mother! why dost thou devour
Thy offspring, who by loving thee are curst?
Why must they fear thee who would fain be first
To add new glories to thy matchless dower?
Why must they flee before thy cruel power,
That punishes their best as treason's worst,—
The treason that despotic chains would burst,—
That makes men heroes who in slavery cower?
Upon thy brow the stars of empire burn;
Thy bearing has a majesty sublime.
Thy exiled children ever toward thee yearn;
Nor should their ardent love be deemed a crime.

This, this is what I love, and what is this?
I ask'd the beautiful earth, who said—‘not I.’
I ask'd the depths, and the immaculate sky
And all the spaces said—‘not He but His.’
And so, like one who scales a precipice,
Height after height, I scaled the flaming ball
Of the great universe, yea, pass'd o'er all
The world of thought, which so much higher is.
Then I exclaimed, ‘To whom is mute all murmur
Of phantasy, of nature, and of art,
He, than articulate language bears a firmer
And grander meaning in his own deep heart.

Go , Rose, and in her golden hair
You shall forget the garden soon;
The sunshine is a captive there
And crowns her with a constant noon.

And when your spicy odor goes,
And fades the beauty of your bloom,
Think what a lovely hand, O Rose,
Shall place your body in the tomb!

GOOD-BY : nay, do not grieve that it is over—
The perfect hour;
That the winged joy, sweet honey-loving rover,
Flits from the flower.

Grieve not,—it is the law. Love will be flying—
Yea, love and all.
Glad was the living; blessed be the dying!
Let the leaves fall.

Deep in your heart understand
the love of a man for a man;
He'll go with you over the trail,
the trail that is lonesome and long;
His hith will not falter nor fail,
nor falter the lilt of his song.
He knows both your soul and your sins,
and does not too carefully scan,—
The Highway to Heaven begins
with the love of a man for a man.

The lofty worth and lovely excellence
Dear lady, that thou hast,
Hold me consuming in the fire of love:
That I am much afeared and wildered thence,
As who, being meanly plac'd,
Would win unto some height he dreameth of
Yet, if it be decreed,
After the multiplying of vain thought,
By Fortune's favour he at last is brought
To his far hope, the mighty bliss indeed.

Thus, in considering thy loveliness,
Love maketh me afear'd,—
So high art thou, joyful, and full of good;—
And all the more, thy scorn being never less.