Love heeds no more the sighing of the wind
Against the perfect flowers: thy garden's close
Is grown a wilderness, where none shall find
One strayed, last petal of one last year's rose.

O bright, bright hair! O mouth like a ripe fruit!
Can famine be so nigh to harvesting?
Love, that was songful, with a broken lute
In grass of graveyards goeth murmuring.

Let the wind blow against the perfect flowers,
And all thy garden change and glow with spring:
Love is grown blind with no more count of hours
Nor part in seed-time nor in harvesting.

Lassie I love thee
The heavens above thee
Look downwards to move thee
And prove my love true
My arms round thy waist love
My head on thy breast love
By a true man cares[s]t love
Ne'er bid me adieu

Thy cheeks full o' blushes
Like the rose in the bushes
In a love stream it gushes
With over delight
Though clouds may come o'er thee
Sweet maid I'll adore thee
As I do now before thee
I Love thee outright

It stings me to madness
To see thee all gladness
While I'm full o sadness
Thy meaning to guess
Thy gown is deep blue love

Love in my heart: oh, heart of me, heart of me!
Love is my tyrant, Love is supreme.
What if he passeth, oh, heart of me, heart of me!
Love is a phantom, and Life is a dream!

What if he changeth, oh, heart of me, heart of me!
Oh, can the waters be void of the wind?
What if he wendeth afar and apart from me,
What if he leave me to perish behind?

What if he passeth, oh, heart of me, heart of me!
A flame i' the dusk, a breath of Desire?
Nay, my sweet Love is the heart and the soul of me
And I am the innermost heart of his fire!

‘O PEN the door! Thou canst not understand
My mission, thou spoilt child of many a god,
Thou who dost claim the heart for thy abode;
Open the door, lest I put forth my hand
And touch thee too, or give such dire command
To thy vile brother, Hatred,—now I hear
The quills of thy unquiet wings with fear
Quiver against thy flanks: no more withstand’

‘Oh Death, why comest thou so soon so far?
Why comest thou before the appointed hour?
I shall not make way for a fate so dire.’
‘Poor child, I pass despite thy bolt and bar,

I cry your mercy--pity--love!--aye, love!--
Merciful love that tantalizes not,
One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,
Unmasked, and being seen--without a blot!

O! let me have thee whole, --all--all--be mine!
That shape, the fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss,--those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,--
Yourself--your soul--in pity give me all,
Withhold no atom's atom or I die,
Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall,
Forget, in the midst of idle misery,

My love will end
in hopelessness—
these longing sighs
I bring on myself
are empty as the cicada's shell

Was my love so slight a thing,
Only a pebble at your feet,
Or a faded rose we fling
To the river or the street?

Nought but peace I wish you, though
For my wearier heart I pray
You may some day learn to know
What it was you cast away!

ON the axis of Love, wheels the Universe round,
In rotation continued, and thrifty;
While some tender minds at fifteen feel the wound,
And some hold it out till they're fifty.

O ye Gods, then defend me from fifty, in love,
When that language has left the bright eye,
Which speaks to the soul, tho' our tongues never move,
And shall conquer, when accent must die.

Love was ever the touchstone to try the sine mind,
Sterling Virtue 'twill never debase;
No alloy can we know, from a passion refin'd,
But to Beauty it still adds a grace.

I loved thee ere I loved a woman, Love.

Love, I adore the contours of thy shape,
Thine exquisite breasts and arms adorable;
The wonders of thine heavenly throat compel
Such fire of love as even my dreams escape:
I love thee as the sea-foam loves the cape,
Or as the shore the sea's enchanting spell:
In sweets the blossoms of thy mouth excel
The tenderest bloom of peach or purple grape.

I love thee, sweet! Kiss me again, again!
Thy kisses soothe me, as tired earth the rain;
Between thine arms I find mine only bliss;
Ah let me in thy bosom still enjoy
Oblivion of the past, divinest boy,