I will not follow you, my bird,
I will not follow you.
I would not breathe a word, my bird,
To bring thee here anew.

I love the free in thee, my bird,
The lure of freedom drew;
The light you fly toward, my bird,
I fly with thee unto.

And there we yet will meet, my bird,
Though far I go from you
Where in the light outpoured, my bird,
Are love and freedom too.

O ye who love today,
Turn away
From Patience with her silver ray:
For Patience shows a twilight face,
Like a half-lighted moon
When daylight dies apace.

But ye who love tomorrow
Beg or borrow
Today some bitterness of sorrow:
For Patience shows a lustrous face,
In depth of night her noon;
Then to her sun gives place.

If I entreat this lady that all grace
Seem not unto her heart an enemy,
Foolish and evil thou declarest me,
And desperate in idle stubbornness.
Whence is such cruel judgement thine, whose face,
To him that looks thereon, professeth thee
Faithful, and wise, and of all courtesy,
And made after the way of gentleness?
Alas! my soul within my heart doth find
Sighs, and its grief by weeping doth enhance,
That, drowned in bitter tears, those sighs depart:
And then there seems a presence in the mind,
As of a lady's thoughtful countenance

Let the light flame consume them and be done
While their charred fragments in the embers lie,
The old, sweet record of the days gone by.
Read them and burn them, lingering, one by one;
The swift months gather and the seasons run
With none to tell us of the when or why;
Let them as ashes vanish in the sky,
Since this our courtship has but just begun.

Better to miss them when we parted be
Than through some fault or lapsing of the years,
To have them made a target for the sneers
Or jest, or scorn, of Curiosity;

Like a willow, like a reed
Is my Love's grace:
And her face

Like a soft, pale-petaled rose:
And my Love's breast
Like the rest

Of a snow-drift bright and white:
And to kiss there—
Ah! what compare

Can I find in rhyme for that!
Where is Love's own
Jewelled throne.

Love, when I die, your thought of me
Shall make the earth a magic bed.
Though buried in the deepest sea,
I shall not join the weary dead.

For you shall make me live and rise,
Your thought shall be my blood and breath—
And only when your memory dies
Will I too die—a double death.

The stars were bright as at their birth,
And angel-voices thrilled the air;
When, spirit-like, and pure as fair,
She came to bless our home on earth.

Her new-born life, like budding flower,
Awoke as from the slumbering night,
And smiled to greet the morning light,
And grew in love and artless power.

And, with the lapse of speeding years,
She grew in graces which adorn
The woman, lovely as the morn,
And beautiful 'mid hopes and fears.

With modest mien, enchanting all,
She seemed a vision from the sky,
The cynosure of every eye

O POWER of Love, O wondrous mystery!
How is my dark illumined by thy light,
That maketh morning of my gloomy night,
Setting my soul from Sorrow's bondage free
With swift-sent revelation! yea, I see
Beyond the limitation of my sight
And senses, comprehending now, aright,
To-day's proportion to Eternity.
Through thee, my faith in God is made more sure,
My searching eyes have pierced the misty veil;
The pain and anguish which stern Sorrow brings
Through thee become more easy to endure.
Love-strong I mount, and Heaven's high summit scale;

Now the wheat is in the ear And the rose is on the brere
And blue caps so divinely blue With corn poppy's o' scarlet hue
Maiden at the close o' Eve Wilt thou dear thy Cottage leave
And walk with one that loves thee

When the Evens tiney tears Beads upon the horny spears
And the spiders lace wets through With its pinhead blebs o' dew
Wilt thou lay thy work aside And walk by brooklets dim descried
When my delight could love thee

While thy footfall lightly prest Tramples bye the skylarks nest
And the cockles streaky eyes Marks the snug place where it lies

"These Gothic windows, how they wear me out
With cusp and foil, and nothing straight or square,
Crude colours, leaden borders roundabout,
And fitting in Peter here, and Matthew there!

"What a vocation! Here do I draw now
The abnormal, loving the Hellenic norm;
Martha I paint, and dream of Hera's brow,
Mary, and think of Aphrodite's form."