As Love and Hope together
Walk by me for a while,
Link-armed the ways they travel
For many a pleasant mile—
Link-armed and dumb they travel,
They sing not, but they smile.

Hope leaving, Love commences
To practise on the lute;
And as he sings and travels
With lingering, laggard foot,
Despair plays obligato
The sentimental flute.

Until in singing garments
Comes royally, at call—
Comes limber-hipped Indiff’rence
Free stepping, straight and tall—
Comes singing and lamenting,
The sweetest pipe of all.

"Youth, love and beauty, all were hers,
Why should she not be happy?"

"'Twas one of love's wild freaks, I do suppose,
And who is there can reason upon those?
I'd like to see the one so bold."

"It was the calm, moonshiny hour,
And earth was hushed and sleeping;
The hour when faithful love is e'er
Its fondest vigils keeping."

"I tell you I love him dearly,
And he loves me well I know;
It seems as if I could nearly
Eat him up, I love him so."

"Adown the lovely waters,
Behold the vessel glide,
While beauty's fairest daughters
Gaze on the laughing tide."

"She sought no notice, therefore gained it all,
As thus she stood apart from all the throng
Of heartless ones that passed before her eyes."

"And I did love thee, when so oft we met
In the sweet evenings of that summer-time,
Whose pleasant memory lingers with me yet,
As the remembrance of a better clime
Might haunt a fallen angel. And O, thou--
Thou who didst turn away and seek to bind
Thy heart from breaking--thou hast felt e'er now
A heart like thine o'ermastereth the mind;
Affection's power is stronger than thy will.
Ah, thou didst love me, and thou lovst me still!"

"It was a face one loved to gaze upon,
For calm serenity of thought was there.
The eyes were soft and gentle in their glance,
And looked with trusting artlessness in yours.
Placid her mien, like that of lofty souls
That after storm sink down in tranquil rest."

"It is an era strange, yet sweet,
Which every woman's heart hath known,
When first her bosom learns to beat
To the soft music of a tone;
That era, when she first begins
To know what love alone can teach,
That there are hidden depths within
Which friendship never yet could reach."

"They loved;--and were beloved. O happiness.
I have said all that can be said of bliss
In saying that they loved. The young heart has
Such store of wealth in its own fresh, wild pulse,
And it is love that works the mind, and brings
Its treasure to the light. I did love once,
Loved as youth, woman, genius loves; though now
My heart is chilled and seared, and taught to wear
The falsest of false things--a mask of smiles;
Yet every pulse throbs at the memory
Of that which has been."