love

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What shall I your true love tell,
Earth forsaking maid?
What shall I your true love tell
When life's spectre's laid?
"Tell him that, our side the grave,
Maid may not believe
Life should be so sad to have,
That's so sad to leave!"
What shall I your true love tell
When I come to him?
What shall I your true love tell
Eyes growing dim?
"Tell him this, when you shall part
From a maiden pined;
That I see him with my heart,
Now my eyes are blind."

What needeth these threnning words and wasted wind?
All this cannot make me restore my prey.
To rob your good, iwis, is not my mind,
Nor causeless your fair hand did I display.
Let love be judge or else whom next we meet
That may both hear what you and I can say:
She took from me an heart, and I a glove from her.
Let us see now if th'one be worth th'other.

What magic is there in thy mien
What sorcery in thy smile,
Which charms away all cark and care,
Which turns the foul days into fair,
And for a little while
Changes this disenchanted scene
From the sere leaf into the green,
Transmuting with love's golden wand
This beggared life to fairyland?

My heart goes forth to thee, oh friend,
As some poor pilgrim to a shrine,
A pilgrim who has come from far
To seek his spirit's folding star,
And sees the taper shine;

Love is like
a pineapple,
sweet and
undefinable.

What counsel has the hooded moon
Put in thy heart, my shyly sweet,
Of Love in ancient plenilune,
Glory and stars beneath his feet -- -
A sage that is but kith and kin
With the comedian Capuchin?

Believe me rather that am wise
In disregard of the divine,
A glory kindles in those eyes
Trembles to starlight. Mine, O Mine!
No more be tears in moon or mist
For thee, sweet sentimentalist.

Westron wind, when wilt thou blow
That small rain down can rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again!

SO, we'll go no more a-roving
   So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
   And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
   And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
   And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
   And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
   By the light of the moon.

St. John tells how, at Cana's wedding feast,
The water-pots poured wine in such amount
That by his sober count
There were a hundred gallons at the least.

It made no earthly sense, unless to show
How whatsoever love elects to bless
Brims to a sweet excess
That can without depletion overflow.

Which is to say that what love sees is true;
That this world's fullness is not made but found.
Life hungers to abound
And pour its plenty out for such as you.

Now, if your loves will lend an ear to mine,

We were four sisters, four sisters were we,
All four of us loved, but had different "becauses:"
One loved because father and mother told her to,
another loved because her lover was rich,
the third loved because he was a famous artist,
and I loved because I fell in love.

We were four sisters, four sisters were we,
All four of us wished, but had different wishes:
one wished to raise children and cook oatmeal,
another wished to wear a new dress every day,
the third wished everyone would talk about her,

We needs must be divided in the tomb,
   For I would die among the hills of Spain,
   And o'er the treeless, melancholy plain
Await the coming of the final gloom.
But thou -- O pitiful! -- wilt find scant room
   Among thy kindred by the northern main,
   And fade into the drifting mist again,
The hemlocks' shadow, or the pines' perfume.

Let gallants lie beside their ladies' dust
   In one cold grave, with mortal love inurned;
Let the sea part our ashes, if it must,