Live Jesus, Live, and let it bee
My life to dye, for love of thee.

A thousand housetops under the dome
And every house is one man's home,
With love and quarrel and truth and sin.
I should find if I walked therein
Under the eaves of every house
Secrets, laughter and sullen brows,
And bitter battles and comrades kind
And the love of a woman I should find
[Every anger] and hope there comes,
In any home of a thousand homes.

And strangest yet, find them in the press
Who say that the world is emptiness.

Love, you have broken my wings—I cried—
And oh, the sky!
Never, never to lift me high!

Only the broken-winged can fly.
Look!—Love replied.

Love, you have shattered the songs of me
And oh, the pain!
Never, never to sing again!

Singing lives on when song is dead.
Listen!—Love said.

There is a sky for a broken wing,
That I have found;
And in the stillness after song,
There is a Sound!

When weight of all the garnered years
—Bows me, and praise must find relief
In harvest-song, and smiles and tears
—Twist in the band that binds my sheaf;

Thou known Unknown, dark, radiant sea
—In whom we live, in whom we move,
My spirit must lose itself in Thee,
—Crying a name—Life, Light, or Love.

When you kiss me I am blind,
My senses
Are filled with ecstasy.
I only feel how strong my life is,
And so know myself.
From love I understand all things that live,
And even the dead.

I am like a tree
Shaken in wind.
Or like water that is drawn into the air
Through the strong loving of the sun.

When you are gone,
I am myself earthquake and eclipse,
And all cold darkness, and rending grief.
When you kiss me I am blind.

Lo! an old song, yellow with centuries!
She, she who with her young dust kept it sweet;
She, in some green court on a carvëd seat,
Read it at dusk fair-paged upon her knees;
And, looking up, saw there, beyond the trees,
Tall Helen through the darkling shadows fleet;
And heard, out in the fading river-street,
The roar of battle like the roar of seas.
Love, weeping, laid this song when she was dead
In that sealed chamber, strange with nard and musk.
Outliving Egypt, see it here at last.
We touch its leaves: back rush the seasons sped;

Come all you hustling gamblers,
Who have one dollar to spend.
Tomorrow my pockets will be empty,
I'll be without money or friends.
Just see that pretty girl coming,
With curls all around her head.
I think how well I love her,
And I wish that I was dead.

I'm just a hustling gambler,
I've staked my last red cent.
If fortune goes against me,
My last thin dime is spent.
I'll meet that pretty young damsel,
I'll take her by her hand.
She'll whisper to her mother,
“I love that gamblin' man.”

Come all you hustling gamblers,

The fountains serenade the flowers;
Upon their silver lute—
And, nestled in their leafy bowers,
The forest-birds are mute:
The bright and glittering hosts above
Unbar their golden gates,
While Nature holds her court of love,
And for her client waits.
Then, lady, wake—in beauty rise!
'T is now the promised hour,
When torches kindle in the skies
To light thee to thy bower.

The day we dedicate to care—
To love the witching night;
For all that's beautiful and fair
In hours like these unite.
E'en thus the sweets to flowerets given—

Love oped a vista rare with stars
That overshone a dewy height;
Glad-Heart enwrapt in dreams, saw naught
Save radiance and bloom and light.

The fairest dove sang in the boughs
The sweetest songs that e'er were heard;
Glad-Heart strayed reckless down the glades,
Lured strangely by the cooing bird.

Yes! strangely lured, till suddenly
The dove did moan and wail, and lo!
The stars went out in darkness: all
Was bitterness and gloom and woe.

Ah! haste, Glad-Heart, go back, go back!
The vistas are not bloomy now;

O Rama, thy nature to thy servant is loving kindness.
Of cast and clan, of family or name he recks not—nor whether he be king or beggar.
Brahma and his train, and Siva, what is their caste, O Lord? I know not in my ignorance.
Where there are lords many, there the Lord is not—why then put faith in gods?
The tongue is but one, Rama's praises numberless—how then can I recount them?
O Sur Das, all glory is the Lord's: Vedas and Puranas bear witness.