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To A Child

Whenas my life shall time with funeral tread
The heavy death-drum of the beaten hours,
Following, sole mourner, mine own manhood dead,
Poor forgot corse, where not a maid strows flowers;
When I you love am no more I you love,
But go with unsubservient feet, behold
Your dear face through changed eyes, all grim change prove;--
A new man, mock-ed with misname of old;
When shamed Love keep his ruined lodging, elf!
When, ceremented in mouldering memory,
Myself is hears-ed underneath myself,
And I am but the monument of me:-

To a Castillan Song

We held the book together timidly,
Whose antique music in an alien tongue
Once rose among the dew-drenched vines that hung
Beneath a high Castilian balcony.
I felt the lute strings' ancient ecstasy,
And while he read, my love-filled heart was stung,
And throbbed, as where an ardent bird has clung
The branches tremble on a blossomed tree.
Oh lady for whose sake the song was made,
Laid long ago in some still cypress shade,
Divided from the man who longed for thee,
Here in a land whose name he never heard,

Think Not, Not For A Moment Let Your Mind

Think not, not for a moment let your mind,
Wearied with thinking, doze upon the thought
That the work's done and the long day behind,
And beauty, since 'tis paid for, can be bought.
If in the moonlight from the silent bough
Suddenly with precision speak your name
The nightingale, be not assured that now
His wing is limed and his wild virtue tame.
Beauty beyond all feathers that have flown
Is free; you shall not hood her to your wrist,
Nor sting her eyes, nor have her for your own
In an fashion; beauty billed and kissed

The Rose And The Fern

LADY, life's sweetest lesson wouldst thou learn,
Come thou with me to Love's enchanted bower
High overhead the trellised roses burn;
Beneath thy feet behold the feathery fern,--
A leaf without a flower.

What though the rose leaves fall? They still are sweet,
And have been lovely in their beauteous prime,
While the bare frond seems ever to repeat,
'For us no bud, no blossom, wakes to greet
The joyous flowering time!'

Heed thou the lesson. Life has leaves to tread
And flowers to cherish; summer round thee glows;

The Pangs of Love areConsuming Me

The pangs of love are consuming me.
Beloved, I offer you my life.

He has gone along the green bank.
But I'll pursue him down every stream,
Like Heemaal in search of Naagiray.

I'm bathed in sweat, with strength ebbed out,
Following my love over hill and dale.
Why can't he halt and hear my prayer ?

The king of hunters pierced my heart
With well-aimed shafts of dalliance.
God alone knows why he's cross with me !

If my love comes, I'll wait on him

The New Love

If it shine or if it rain,
Little will I care or know.
Days, like drops upon a pane,
Slip, and join, and go.

At my door's another lad;
Here's his flower in my hair.
If he see me pale and sad,
Will he see me fair?

I sit looking at the floor.
Little will I think or say
If he seek another door;
Even if he stay.

Tis Sweet, In The Shade Of The Lofty Trees

'Tis sweet, in the shade of the lofty trees,
In the dewy morning time,
To hear the song of the joyous lark,
Or the distant village chime;
Or to sit and think,
By a streamlet's brink,
Breathing our thoughts in rhyme.

Tis sweet, in the shade of the lofty trees,
In the sultry hour of noon,
To lie at length on the cooling sward,
Secure from the heats of June;
To read our book
In a lonely nook,
While lulled by the cuckoo's tune.

But sweeter far than morn or noon,
In the pleasant time of night,

Tis Sweet to Think

Tis sweet to think that, where'er we rove,
We are sure to find something blissful and dear,
And that, when we're far from the lips that we love,
We've but to make love to the lips we are near.
The heart, like a tendril, accustom'd to cling,
Let it grow where it will, cannot flourish alone,
But will lean to the nearest and loveliest thing
It can twine with itself, and make closely its own.
Then oh! what pleasure, where'er we rove,
To be sure to find something, still, that is dear,
And to know, when far from the lips we love,

Tis Said, That Some Have Died For Love

'Tis said, that some have died for love:
And here and there a churchyard grave is found
In the cold north's unhallowed ground,
Because the wretched man himself had slain,
His love was such a grievous pain.
And there is one whom I five years have known;
He dwells alone
Upon Helvellyn's side:
He loved--the pretty Barbara died;
And thus he makes his moan:
Three years had Barbara in her grave been laid
When thus his moan he made:

"Oh, move, thou Cottage, from behind that oak!
Or let the aged tree uprooted lie,