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Love Indestructible -

They sin who tell us Love can die.
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.
In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell,
Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell;
Earthly these passions of the Earth,
They perish where they have their birth;
But Love is indestructible.
Its holy flame for ever burneth,
From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth;
Too oft on Earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at time opprest,
It here is tried and purified,
Then hath in Heaven its perfect rest:
It soweth here with toil and care,

Annie Livingston

Bonnie Annie Livingstone
Was walking out the way,
By came the laird of Glendinning,
And he 's stolen her away.
The Highlands are no for me, kind sir,
The Highlands are no for me,
And, if you wad my favour win,
You 'd take me to Dundee.

He mounted her on a milk-white steed,
Himself upon a grey,
He 's taen her to the Highland hills,
And stolen her quite away.

When they came to Glendinning gate,
They lighted on the green;
There many a Highland lord spoke free,
But fair Annie she spake nane.

When bells were rung, and mass begun,

Psyche

Love came to me one morn in May,
Bringing all glad things on his way,
" Lo, here are Autumn and Summer and Spring,
All three seasons in one I bring. "
He spake me smooth,
And he sware for sooth,
That his gold was good, and his troth was truth.
Alack, the day!
Heigho, Sing Sorrow!
Man sows in vain what he reaps with pain,
And the joy once gone shall be never again
Heigho, Sing Sorrow!
'Tis ever thus
Love deals with us;
Builds his bower for to-day, and then flies away
To-morrow.

I gave him all in my garden's girth,

Love Is a Flame

Love is a flame that burns with sacred fire,
And fills the being up with sweet desire;
Yet, once the altar feels love's fiery breath,
The heart must be a crucible till death.

Say love is life; and say it not amiss,
That love is but a synonym for bliss.
Say what you will of love — in what refrain,
But knows the heart, 'tis but a word for pain.

Ad Carissimam Amicam

Now that our mirth is o'er, now that our Dream is done,
Now that a Hand creeps out across the heavenly blue
Putting the lights of Heaven out sadly one by one,
What dream beneath the moon, what hope beneath the sun
Shall our poor souls pursue?

Startled amid the feast we look around and lo!
The Word of Doom that flames along Life's palace walls—
The music dies away—the last musicians go—
(Bards with their golden harps, gods in their robes of snow)
And the dread Silence falls!

What is the word we read in wonder and despair?

The Message of a Dead Rose

The rose you gave me, dear, is dead,
The hope which it begot
Is gone. An aching heart and head,
Is my unhappy lot.

Perhaps you could not fully know,
The danger of your smiles,
How often hearts are poisoned so,
By thoughtless maiden wiles.

I would not think so hard of heart
You thoughtfully could be;
To gratify a flirting art,
Such passion stirred in me.

Yet many a trusting heart has been
From honor made to rove,
In darksome ways and paths of sin,
By lightly feeding love.

This rose cut from its mother stem,

Love Needing a Visible Object

How love whom we see not, and cannot see
With mortal sight, the Invisible, Unknown?
To highest angel still a mystery,
Who nearest stands before his awful throne.
Yet by the worlds we see is God revealed,
On earth below and in the starry sky;
The Invisible Spirit, else from man concealed,
Reveals his goodness, power, to every eye.
And by his son, who did his image bear,
The image of his mercy and his grace,
He doth his love, a Father's love declare,
That we, though sinful, yet might see his face.
Yea, our own hearts do tell us of his love,

A Dream

I was a child with all a child's wild prayers,
That followed Love yet ever saw him flee,
His splendid feet on-speeding silently;
His wings gold tinctured spread athwart life's stairs
Ascending ever, and yet unawares
Oft turning his fair face and suddenly
Fixing his deep eyes smilingly on me:
So climbing girlhood caught at unguessed cares

But one Spring day Love halted in his flight
And straight let flash an arrow at my heart,
So that I swooned, who strove to reach his side …
When I awoke, a sea of saffron light

Translated from Geibel

O say, thou wild, thou oft deceived heart,
What mean these noisy throbbings in my breast?
After thy long, unutterable woe
Wouldst thou not rest?

Fall'n from Life's tree the sweet rose-blossom lies,
And fragrant youth has fled. What made to seem
This earth as fair to thee as Paradise,
Was all a dream.

The blossom fell, the thorn was left to me;
Deep from the wound the blood-drops ever flow,
All that I have are yearnings, wild desires,
And wrath and woe.

They brought me Lethe's water, saying, 'Drink!'

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