pain

For every hour that thou wilt spare me now,
I will allow,
Usurious God of Love, twenty to thee,
When with my brown, my grey hairs equal be;
Till then, Love, let my body reign, and let
Me travel, sojourn, snatch, plot, have, forget,
Resume my last year's relict: think that yet
We had never met.

Let me think any rival's letter mine,
And at next nine
Keep midnight's promise; mistake by the way
The maid, and tell the Lady of that delay;
Only let me love none, no, not the sport;

LOVE, mistress is of many minds,
Yet few know whom they serve;
They reckon least how little Love
Their service doth deserve.

The will she robbeth from the wit,
The sense from reason's lore;
She is delightful in the rind,
Corrupted in the core.

She shroudeth vice in virtue's veil,
Pretending good in ill
She offereth joy, affordeth grief,
A kiss where she doth kill.

A honey-shower rains from her lips,
Sweet lights shine in her face;

Beloved, this the heart I offer thee
Is purified from old idolatry,
From outworn hopes, and from the lingering stain
Of passion's dregs, by penitential pain.

Take thou it, then, and fill it up for me
With thine unstinted love, and it shall be
An earthy chalice that is made divine
By its red draught of sacramental wine.

'Tis men who say that through all hurt and pain
The woman's love, wife's, mother's, still will hold,
And breathes the sweeter and will more unfold
For winds that tear it, and the sorrowful rain.
So in a thousand voices has the strain
Of this dear patient madness been retold,
That men call woman's love. Ah! they are bold,
Naming for love that grief which does remain.

Love faints that looks on baseness face to face:
Love pardons all; but by the pardonings dies,

Draw not away thy hands, my love,
With wind alone the branches move,
And though the leaves be scant above
The Autumn shall not shame us.

Say; Let the world wax cold and drear,
What is the worst of all the year
But life, and what can hurt us, dear,
Or death, and who shall blame us?

Ah, when the summer comes again
How shall we say, we sowed in vain?
The root was joy, the stem was pain
The ear a nameless blending.

The root is dead and gone, my love,
The stem's a rod our truth to prove;

There is a looker-on who sits behind my eyes. I seems he has seen
things in ages and worlds beyond memory's shore, and those
forgotten sights glisten on the grass and shiver on the leaves. He
has seen under new veils the face of the one beloved, in twilight
hours of many a nameless star. Therefore his sky seems to ache with
the pain of countless meetings and partings, and a longing pervades
this spring breeze, -the longing that is full of the whisper of
ages without beginning.

"Black is the sky, but the land is white--
(O the wind, the snow and the storm!)--
Father, where is our boy to-night?
Pray to God he is safe and warm."

"Mother, mother, why should you fear?
Safe is he, and the Arctic moon
Over his cabin shines so clear--
Rest and sleep, 'twill be morning soon."

"It's getting dark awful sudden. Say, this is mighty queer!
Where in the world have I got to? It's still and black as a tomb.

When your love begins to wane,
Spare me from the cruel pain
Of all speech that tells me so -
Spare me words, for I shall know,

By the half-averted eyes,
By the breast that no more sighs
By the rapture I shall miss
From your strangely-altered kiss;

By the arms that still enfold
But have lost their clinging hold,
And, too willing, let me go,
I shall know, love, I shall know.

Bitter will the knowledge be,
Bitterer than death to me.
Yet, 'twill come to me some day,

Love walked alone.
The rocks cut her tender feet,
And the brambles tore her fair limbs.
There came a companion to her,
But, alas, he was no help,
For his name was heart's pain. .

Love walked alone.
The rocks cut her tender feet,
And the brambles tore her fair limbs.
There came a companion to her,
But, alas, he was no help,
For his name was heart's pain.