How fair doth Nature

Appear again!
How bright the sunbeams!

How smiles the plain!

The flow'rs are bursting

From ev'ry bough,
And thousand voices

Each bush yields now.

And joy and gladness

Fill ev'ry breast!
Oh earth!--oh sunlight!

Oh rapture blest!

Oh love! oh loved one!

As golden bright,
As clouds of morning

On yonder height!

Thou blessest gladly

The smiling field,--
The world in fragrant

Vapour conceal'd.

Oh maiden, maiden,

The wind is tossing the lilacs,
The new leaves laugh in the sun,
And the petals fall on the orchard wall,
But for me the spring is done.

Beneath the apple blossoms
I go a wintry way,
For love that smiled in April
Is false to me in May.

What I propose is not
Marxism, which
is not dead yet in
the English department,
Not maximalism, which was
a still-born alternative
to minimalism,
Nor Maxism, which rests on
adulation of Max
Beerbohm, parodist
nonpareil,
But maximism, the love
of adages,
Or Maximism, the advocacy of
maximum gastronomic
pleasure on the model
of a meal at Maxim's
in Paris in, say, 1950.
Is that clear?

Out of the church she followed them
With a lofty step and mien:
His bride was like a village maid,
Maude Clare was like a queen.

“Son Thomas, ” his lady mother said,
With smiles, almost with tears:
“May Nell and you but live as true
As we have done for years;

“Your father thirty years ago
Had just your tale to tell;
But he was not so pale as you,
Nor I so pale as Nell.”

My lord was pale with inward strife,
And Nell was pale with pride;
My lord gazed long on pale Maude Clare

There is an awe in mortals' joy,
A deep mysterious fear
Half of the heart will still employ,
As if we drew too near
To Eden's portal, and those fires
That bicker round in wavy spires,
Forbidding, to our frail desires,
What cost us once so dear.

We cower before th' heart-searching eye
In rapture as its pain;
E'en wedded Love, till Thou be nigh,
Dares not believe her gain:
Then in the air she fearless springs,
The breath of Heaven beneath her wings,
And leaves her woodnote wild, and sings

The trembling pulses of the dawn
Fill with faint glow the violet skies,
And on the moist, day-smitten lawn
The peace of morning lies.

A blessed truce of woe and sin,
A glad surcease of care's annoy;
The waking world has pleasure in
Its matin light and joy.

And all the joy that fills the air,
And all the light that gilds the blue,
I see it in your eyes and hair,
I know it, love, in you.

O'er lips and eyes and golden floss
There floats a charm I cannot reach,
A glimpse of gain, a threat of loss,

In the endless nights, from my bed, where sleepless in anguish I lie,
I startle the stillness and gloom with a bitter and strong cry:
0 Love! 0 Beloved long lost! come down from thy Heaven above,
For my heart is wasting and dying in uttermost famine for love!

Come down for a moment! oh, come! Come serious and mild
And pale, as thou wert on this earth, thou adorable Child!
Or come as thou art, with thy sanctitude, triumph and bliss,
For a garment of glory about thee; and give me one kiss,
One tender and pitying look of thy tenderest eyes,

Mad March, with the wind in his wings wide-spread,
Leaps from heaven, and the deep dawn's arch
Hails re-risen again from the dead
Mad March.

Soft small flames on rowan and larch
Break forth as laughter on lips that said
Nought till the pulse in them beat love's march.

But the heartbeat now in the lips rose-red
Speaks life to the world, and the winds that parch
Bring April forth as a bride to wed
Mad March.

You call yourself a man,
For all you used to swear,
An' leave me, as you can,
My certain shame to bear?
I 'ear! You do not care --
You done the worst you know.
I 'ate you, grinnin' there. . . .
Ah, Gawd, I love you so!

Nice while it lasted, an' now it is over --
Tear out your 'eart an' good-bye to your lover!
What's the use o' grievin', when the mother that bore you
(Mary, pity women!) knew it all before you?

It aren't no false alarm,
The finish to your fun;
You -- you 'ave brung the 'arm,

majestic, majic
infinite
my little girl is
sun
on the carpet-
out the door
picking a flower, ha!
an old man,
battle-wrecked,
emerges from his
chair
and she looks at me
but only sees
love,
ha!, and I become
quick with the world
and love right back
just like I was meant
to do.