Dear sweet, when dusk comes up the hill,
The fire leaps high with golden prongs;
I place along the chimneysill
The tiny candles of my songs.

And though unsteadily they burn,
As evening shades from grey to blue
Like candles they will surely learn
To shine more clear, for love of you.

Love came by from the riversmoke,
When the leaves were fresh on the tree,
But I cut my heart on the blackjack oak
Before they fell on me.

The leaves are green in the early Spring,
They are brown as linsey now,
I did not ask for a wedding-ring
From the wind in the bending bough.

Fall lightly, lightly, leaves of the wild,
Fall lightly on my care,
I am not the first to go with child
Because of the blowing air.

I am not the first nor yet the last
To watch a goosefeather sky,
And wonder what will come of the blast

Again I see you, ah my queen,
Of all my old loves that have been,
The first love, and the tenderest;
Do you remember or forget—
Ah me, for I remember yet—
How the last summer days were blest?

Ah lady, when we think of this,
The foolish hours of youth and bliss,
How fleet, how sweet, how hard to hold.
How old we are, ere spring be green.
You touch the limit of eighteen
And I am twenty winters old.

My rose, that mid the red roses,
Was brightest, ah, how pale she is.
Yet keeps the beauty of her prime;
Child, never Spanish lady's face

I am a fool, I can no good:
Who that me loveth, I holde him wood.
I brenne hot, I smite sore:
Who that me loveth shal thee no more.
Dredful deth out of me sprong,
For I am welle of wo;
I slow a wise king, fair and strong,
And yet I shal slee mo.

When I came to you banned, dishonored,
Brother of yours no more,
And raised my hands where your roof-tree stands,
Why did you open the door?

When I came to you starving, thirsting,
Beggared of aught but sin,
Why did you rise with welcoming eyes
And lift me and bid me in?

You have set me first at your feast,
You have robed me in tenderness,
Yet, Brothers of mine, these tears for sign
That I would your grace were less.

For I had not been crushed by your hate,
Who courted the pain thereof;
But you stab me through when you give anew,

There is an eye that never sleeps
Beneath the wing of the night;
There is an ear that never shuts
When sink the beams of light.

There is an arm that never tires
When human strength gives way;
There is a love that never fails
When earthly loves decay.

That eye is fixed on seraph throngs;
That arm upholds the sky;
That ear is filled with angel songs;
That love is throned on high.

But there's a power which man can wield,
When mortal aid is vain,
That eye, that arm, that love to reach,
That listening ear to gain.

What makes a garden?
Flowers, grass and trees,
Odor, grace and color:
Lovely gifts like these.

What makes a garden
And why do gardens grow?
Love lives in gardens—
God and lovers know!

Others call it love in laziness,
or violence in loveliness,
or affectation on the couchness,
or Won't you ever get up for lunchness,
or I have made an awful mistake, Miss,
or You're prurient, yes you are, Sis,
whereas I prefer beer in beer glassness
and to dwell on the past less.

In old jokes a monarch is referred to as Your Lowness.
Maidens exist, but no one anymore calls them this.
I don't think any less of them. Nevertheless,
this thing you're going to find for us?
It's called love-in-idleness—

You call me cold: you wonder why
The marble of a mien like mine
Gives fiery sparks of Poesy,
Or softens at Love's touch divine.

Go, look on Nature, you will find
It is the rock that feels the sun:
But you are blind,—and to the blind
The touch of ice and fire is one.

Children of the future Age,
Reading this indignant page:
Know that in a former time,
Love! sweet Love! was thought a crime.

In the Age of Gold,
Free from winters cold:
Youth and maiden bright,
To the holy light,
Naked in the sunny beams delight.

Once a youthful pair
Fill'd with softest care:
Met in garden bright,
Where the holy light,
Had just remov'd the curtains of the night.

There in rising day,
On the grass they play:
Parents were afar:
Strangers came not near:
And the maiden soon forgot her fear.