I never knew a night so black
Light failed to follow on its track.
I never knew a storm so gray
It failed to have its clearing day.
I never knew such bleak despair
That there was not a rift, somewhere.
I never knew an hour so drear
Love could not fill it full of cheer!

I never knew a night so black
Light failed to follow on its track.
I never knew a storm so gray
It failed to have its clearing day.
I never knew such bleak despair
That there was not a rift, somewhere.
I never knew an hour so drear
Love could not fill it full of cheer!

Walking in a valley green,
Pied with Flora, summer queen,
Where she heaping all her graces,
Niggard seemed in other places,
Spring it was and here did spring
All that nature forth can bring.
Groves of pleasant trees there grow,
Which fruit and shadow could bestow.
Thick-leaved boughs small birds cover,
Till sweet notes themselves discover;
Tunes for number seemed confounded,
Whilst their mixtures music sounded,
'Greeing well, yet not agreed,
That one the other should exceed.
A sweet stream here silent glides,
Whose clear water no fish hides.

Some act of Love's bound to rehearse,
I thought to bind him, in my verse:
Which when he felt, Away (quoth he)
Can poets hope to fetter me?
It is enough, they once did get
Mars, and my mother, in their net:
I wear not these my wings in vain.
With which he fled me: and again,
Into my rhymes could ne'er be got
By any art. Then wonder not,
That since, my numbers are so cold,
When Love is fled, and I grow old.

The stars stand up in the air,
The sun and the moon are gone,
The strand of its waters is bare.
And her sway is swept from the swan.

The cuckoo was calling all day,
Hid in the branches above,
How my stóirín is fled away,
'Tis my grief that I gave her my love.

Three things through love I see—
Sorrow and sin and death—
And my mind reminding me
That this doom I breathe with my breath.

But sweeter than violin or lute
Is my love—and she left me behind.
I wish that all music were mute,
And I to all beauty were blind.

Thou knowest, love, I know that thou dost know
that I am here more near to thee to be,
and knowest that I know thou knowest me:
what means it then that we are sundered so?

If they are true, these hopes that from thee flow,
if it is real, this sweet expectancy,
break down the wall that stands 'twixt me and thee;
for pain in prison pent hath double woe.

Because in thee I love, O my loved lord,
what thou best lovest, be not therefore stern:
souls burn for souls, spirits to spirits cry!

I seek the splendour in thy fair face stored;

A moon rising white
Is the beauty of my lovely one.
Ah, the tenderness, the grace!
Heart's pain consumes me.

A moon rising bright
Is the fairness of my lovely one.
Ah, the gentle softness!
Heart's pain wounds me

A moon rising in splendor
Is the beauty of my lovely one
Ah, the delicate yielding!
Heart's pain torments me

Her whom I loved in early years
So well, so tenderly,—who filled
With a first passion's hopes and fears
A heart which time has not yet stilled,—
Can I forget her? Day by day I strive
Her well-loved image from my mind to drive;
To find new dreams my old dreams to efface,
And let another love my early love replace.
But all in vain. I strive and strive, and yet
Whate'er I do I never can forget.
When in the silent hours of night I sleep,
She comes in dreams; once more I see her stand
Beside my couch; once more her accents steep

Permit not, Lord, the hope of heaven to urge
To turn to thee the longing of thy child;
Nor to forsake offending, terror-filled,
The pains of hell become for me a scourge.

Suffer me, Saviour, to approach the verge
Of Life, see thee alive, and nailed, reviled,
Thy body torn and bloody and defiled;
In thy death torment grant my love to merge.

Suffer me, Lord, to love thee in such wise
That though I had not heaven I love thee still,
That though I had not hell I fear thy will.

Because I love thee hold me out no prize.

‘I loue the rose both red & white.’
‘Is that your pure perfite appetite?’
‘To here talke of them is my delite!’
‘Ioyed may we be,
oure prince to se,
&rosys thre!’