For the tie is snapt asunder,
Trust and loving hope are fled;
Can I tell, in fear and wonder,
With what dangers now bested,
I, cut off from friend and brother,
Like the widow in her woe,
With the one and not the other,
On and on, my way must go!

Lady, for the love of God,
Have some pity upon me!
See my eyes, a river-flood
Day and night, oh, see!
Brothers, cousins, uncles, all,
Have I lost for thee;
If thou dost not me recall,

Day's sweetest moments are at dawn;
Refreshed by his long sleep, the Light
Kisses the languid lips of Night,
Ere she can rise and hasten on.
All glowing from his dreamless rest
He holds her closely to his breast,
Warm lip to lip and limb to limb,
Until she dies for love of him.

Oh, how long, how long was the night!
And I spent it in passion and tears,
Thinking only of you, of you,
At the night-bird's song, at the dawn and the dew,
Love, how long, how long, was the night!

O love, that you and I might wing our way
Far from the restlessness of earth and sea,
Past the fresh well-heads of the springing day,
To where grey hills sleep everlastingly!

They through the lapse of ages sleep unchanged
(From the primeval deeps they never burst)
In that sweet land where yet unborn we ranged,
By those swift rivers where I loved you first.

In the time of early love,
Hill & field with promise blush'd:
Ours flew like a milky Dove,
And the night was Angel-hush'd.
Heaven open'd east & west,
Purer feet sped on the green.
Higher creature Earth possess'd:
I have known the bliss of Eden,
I on Eden's heart have been,
In the hour of Love's awaking,
In the time of early love.

Come to me, dearest, I'm lonely without thee;
Daytime and night-time, I'm thinking about thee;
Night-time and daytime, in dreams I behold thee;
Unwelcome the waking which ceases to fold thee.
Come to me, darling, my sorrows to lighten,
Come in thy beauty to bless and to brighten;
Come in thy womanhood, meekly and lowly,
Come in thy lovingness, queenly and holy.

Swallows will flit round the desolate ruin,
Telling of spring and its joyous renewing;
And thoughts of thy love and its manifold treasure,
Are circling my heart with a promise of pleasure.

Why should I hold back, dear body?
I hear many voices, dear body, mingling voices of lust,
And they do not tell the truth about you:
Let me speak out, let me tell the truth, I will not make more seem less:
Let me tell what I see but let me avoid the tangled phrases of the scholars,
Let me tell what I see in the virile direct syllables of love:
The truth about you, dear body, so long misunderstood:
The truth about you, dear body, so long suborned to base uses:
The truth about you, dear body, made the plaything of law and license:

What man dare say that he is quite immune
From charms and spells that ev'ry girl possesses?
A budding love is like the warmth of June,
That lulls and dulls his senses ere he guesses;
Yet who should seek to fly from such attack?
Though stricken sore, I hold my charmer blameless;
My truant heart I would not summon back,
I leave it in the care of one who's nameless.

He jests at scars who never felt the blow
That comes when love first smites and sends him reeling;
The stinging arrow speeds and brings him low,

When Charles was deceived by the maid he loved,
We saw no cloud his brow o'ercasting,
But proudly he smiled as if gay and unmoved,
Tho' the wound in his heart was deep and lasting.
And oft at night when the tempest rolled
He sung as he paced the dark deck over—
“Blow, wind, blow! thou art not so cold
As the heart of a maid that deceives her lover.”

Yet he lived with the happy and seemed to be gay,
Tho' the wound but sunk more deep for concealing;
And Fortune threw many a thorn in his way,
Which, true to one anguish, he trod without feeling!