Is it to love, to fix the tender gaze,
To hide the timid blush, and steal away;
To shun the busy world, and waste the day
In some rude mountain's solitary maze?
Is it to chant one name in ceaseless lays,
To hear no words that other tongues can say,
To watch the pale moon's melancholy ray,
To chide in fondness, and in folly praise?
Is it to pour th' involuntary sigh,
To dream of bliss, and wake new pangs to prove;
To talk, in fancy, with the speaking eye,
Then start with jealousy, and wildly rove;
Is it to loathe the light, and wish to die?

Fair is my love, and cruel as she's fair;
Her brow shades frowns, although her eyes are sunny;
Her smiles are lightning, though her pride despair;
And her disdains are gall, her favors honey.
A modest maid, deck'd with a blush of honor,
Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love,
The wonder of all eyes that look upon her,
Sacred on earth, design'd a saint above.
Chastity and Beauty, which are deadly foes,
Live reconciled friends within her brow;
And had she pity to conjoin with those,

O! How can LOVE exulting Reason queil!
How fades each nobler passion from his gaze!
E'en Fame, that cherishes the Poet's lays,
That fame, ill-fated Sappho lov'd so well.
Lost is the wretch, who in his fatal spell
Wastes the short Summer of delicious days,
And from the tranquil path of wisdom strays,
In passion's thorny wild, forlorn to dwell.
O ye! who in that sacred Temple smile
Where holy Innocence resides enshrin'd;
Who fear not sorrow, and who know not guile,
Each thought compos'd, and ev'ry wish resign'd;

By what word's power, the key of paths untrod,
Shall I the difficult deeps of Love explore,
Till parted waves of Song yield up the shore
Even as that sea which Israel crossed dryshod?
For lo! in some poor rhythmic period,
Lady, I fain would tell how evermore
Thy soul I know not from thy body, nor
Thee from myself, neither our love from God.
Yea, in God's name, and Love's, and thine, would I
Draw from one loving heart such evidence
As to all hearts all things shall signify;
Tender as dawn's first hill-fire, and intense

'Tis hard to love not, whilst to love
Be sad joy, if by lust misled,
Thoughts too sweetly gaze on things
That perforce must change and decay.

Who's the man could savour his fill
Of gold, fame, sceptre, delights, false
Count'nance fair, that a heart he'd
Have sated and all cares might allay?

Love's surely our being's just course,
Aye, but 'tis flesh, from matter wrought,
Praising what knows like inception,
Guiles the soul, for which all's little

If Thee, Beauty real and e'erlasting,

Most near, most dear, most loved, and most far,
Under the huge window where I often found her
Sitting as huge as Asia, seismic with laughter,
Gin and chicken helpless in her Irish hand,
Irresistible as Rabelais but most tender for
The lame dogs and hurt birds that surround her,—
She is a procession no one can follow after
But be like a little dog following a brass band.
She will not glance up at the bomber or condescend
To drop her gin and scuttle to a cellar,
But lean on the mahogany table like a mountain

AH , Love! ere yet I knew thy fatal power,
Bright glow'd the colour of my youthful days,
As on the sultry zone the torrid rays,
That paint the broad-leav'd plantain's glossy bower:
Calm was my bosom as this silent hour,
When o'er the deep, scarce heard, the zephyr strays,
'Midst the cool tamarinds indolently plays,
Nor from the orange shakes its od'rous flower:--
But ah! since Love has all my heart possest,
That desolated heart what sorrows tear!
Disturb'd, and wild as ocean's troubled breast,
When the hoarse tempest of the night is there!

Let me not, ever, to the marriage in Cana
Of Galilee admit the slightest sentiment
Of doubt about the astonishing and sustaining manna
Of chance and choice to throw a shadow's element
Of disbelief in truth -- Love is not love
Nor is the love of love its truth in consciousness
If it can be made hesitant by any crow or dove or
seeming angel or demon from above or from below
Or made more than it is knows itself to be by the authority
of any ministry of love.

Look how the golden ocean shines above
Its pebbly stones, and magnifies their girth;
So does the bright and blessed light of Love
Its own things glorify, and raise their worth.
As weeds seem flowers beneath the flattering brine,
And stones like gems, and gems as gems indeed,
Ev'n so our tokens shine; nay, they outshine
Pebbles and pearls, and gems and coral weed;
For where be ocean waves but half so clear,
So calmly constant, and so kindly warm,
As Love's most mild and glowing atmosphere,
That hath no dregs to be upturn'd by storm?

How many holy women mothered me
And brought me to perfection for this hour,
When from my being all the living power
Of sweetest woman should at last flow free?
Aeons on Aeons on a loving knee
Some woman rocked me in her scented bower,
Till my soul bloomed an everlasting flower
Calling with fragrance to a singing bee.

You came. You saw me. And because in you
A myriad mothers all their love had spread,
Those holy women since the dawn of day
Gave you the promise of a master true…
Dearest, that bee unto the flower was wed