I DO not care for kisses. 'Tis a debt
We paid for the first privilege of love.
These are the rains of April which have wet
Our fallow hearts and forced their germs to move.
Now the green corn has sprouted. Each new day
Brings better pleasures, a more dear surprise,
The blade, the ear, the harvest—and our way
Leads through a region wealthy grown and wise.
We now compare our fortunes. Each his store
Displays to kindred eyes of garnered grain,
Two happy farmers, learned in love's lore,
Who weigh and touch and argue and complain—

Sweet nymphs, if, as ye stray,
Ye find the froth-borne goddesse of the sea,
All blubb'red, pale, undone,
Who seeks her giddy son,
That little god of love,
Whose golden shafts your chastests bosomes prove,
Who leaving all the heavens hath run away;
If ought to him that finds him she'll impart,
Tell her he nightly lodgeth in my heart.

Ah, child, thou art but half thy darling mother's;
Hers couldst thou wholly be,
My light in thee would outglow all in others;
She would relive to me.
But niggard Nature's trick of birth
Bars, lest she overjoy,
Renewal of the loved on earth
Save with alloy.

The Dame has no regard, alas, my maiden,
For love and loss like mine--
No sympathy with mind-sight memory-laden;
Only with fickle eyne.
To her mechanic artistry
My dreams are all unknown,
And why I wish that thou couldst be
But One's alone!

Just Home and Love! the words are small
Four little letters unto each;
And yet you will not find in all
The wide and gracious range of speech
Two more so tenderly complete:
When angels talk in Heaven above,
I'm sure they have no words more sweet
Than Home and Love.

Just Home and Love! it's hard to guess
Which of the two were best to gain;
Home without Love is bitterness;
Love without Home is often pain.
No! each alone will seldom do;
Somehow they travel hand and glove:
If you win one you must have two,
Both Home and Love.

He is Sadhu, he is perfect: his words are true, his heart is brave.
He, O Dadu, is a mighty muni, who ever stands before the Lord.
He is true, he is faithful, he is devout and virtuous.
He is wise, he is learned, whose love is given to Bhagwan.
Dadu, he is Jogi and Jangam: he is Sufi, he is Sheikh.
He is Sanyasi, he is mighty: Dadu, at once and many.
He is Qazi, he is Mulla: he is the faithful Musalman.
He is wisest, best of all, whose love is given to Rahman.
Traffic in Rama's name is opened, and a mart therefor established.

When young, I loved. At that enchanting age,
So sweet, so short, love was my sole delight;
And when I reached the time for being sage,
Still I loved on, for reason gave me right.

Snows come at length, and livelier joys depart,
Yet gentle ones still kiss these eyelids dim;
For still I love, and love consoles my heart;
What could console me for the loss of Him?

We'll walk the woods no more,
But stay beside the fire,
To weep for old desire
And things that are no more.
The woods are spoiled and hoar,
The ways are full of mire;
We'll walk the woods no more,
But stay beside the fire.
We loved, in days of yore,
Love, laughter, and the lyre.
Ah God, but death is dire,
And death is at the door—
We'll walk the woods no more.

O Love, that dost with goodness crown
The years through all the ages down,
Our highest faith, our deepest cheer,
Is that thy life is ever near!

From planets singing on their way
To flowers that fear the eye of day,
From rivers that rejoicing go
To brooks that murmur sweet and low,

Well know I that the pageant vast,
So beautiful from first to last,
Is but the smile upon thy face,
The sign of love's unmeasured grace.

The seasons roll at thy command;
'Tis in thy strength the mountains stand;

I sing of the woods where the languid mosses dwell,
Of the shimmering forests of May which the sun loves well,
Of the gleaming gold of the jonquil buds that sway
In the soft caress of the evening breeze at play.

I sing of the silver stars that shine in the sky,
Of the argent glow of the moonbeams fluttering by,
Of the rainbow surf that breaks on the pallid sand,
Of the purple sea embracing the blossom-land.

I sing of the meadows a-bright with flowery dew,
Of the scarlet starling that soars from the desert blue,—

You the one woman who could have me all
because you would, because it multiplied,
all that I said and did, your joy and pride
to have and hold me; you Love's gladsome thrall
and hence exactress that you must forestall
nor yet remit to all the world beside
love of that lover whom your love defied
to rate himself less than itself should call:

Death that is dire to all, most dreadful here
to you the smitten and this stricken man
you made and call'd your own, let him have done
that thing he can, the one, no more to fear