My friend, my bonny friend, when we are old,
And hand in hand go tottering down the hill,
May we be rich in love's refinèd gold,
May love's gold coin be current with us still.

May love be sweeter for the vanished days,
And your most perfect beauty still as dear
As when your troubled singer stood at gaze
In the dear March of a most sacred year.

May what we are be all we might have been,
And that potential, perfect, O my friend,
And may there still be many sheafs to glean
In our love's acre, comrade, till the end.

Because I feel that I cannot forget,
I think thee, Lord!—Because for ever now
My eyes will meet the sinless eyes I met,
And see the dark hair shade a sinless brow:

Because, though she is dead,—aye, dead in shame,
Polluted through the villany of one
Who, lusting, did in love's dishonoured name
The meanest deed that ever on earth was done;

Because, though she be lost, she for whose sake
I would have gone with singing to my tomb,
I think of her … as even the ice-bound lake
Dreams of green banks divine with summer's bloom:

See, where the foliage fronts the sky,
How many a meaning we descry
That else had never to the eye
A signal shown!

So we, on life's horizon-line,
To watchers waiting for a sign,
Perchance interpret Love's design,
To us unknown.

Have you ever awakened to find that you're glad to be awake?
Hamburger tastes like steak,
You're in love!
Have you ever experienced the thrill of a fall that feels like spring?
Then you have felt the sting,
You're in love

1. Have you found when she's around that you are so enthused?
You don't make sense, but what's the difference, you're glad to be confused.
It's quite easily explained biologically, you have found a mate,
Might I reiterate,
You're in love.

2. When he's near do you appear to be so ill at ease?

I am,—cry'd Apollo, when Daphne he woo'd,
And panting for breath, the coy virgin pursued,
When his wisdom, in manner most ample, express'd
The long list of the graces his godship possess'd,

I'm—the god of sweet song, and inspirer of lays;
Nor for lays, nor sweet song, the fair fugitive stays;
I'm the god of the harp—stop, my fairest—in vain;
Nor the harp, nor the harper, could fetch her again.

Every plant, every flower, and their virtues I know,
God of light I'm above, and of physic below;
At the dreadful word physic, the nymph fled more fast;

Great love, death-humbled, yields awhile to earth
Its bright one, waiting there the immortal birth:
Rich love, made poor, can trust one hope alone,
Its best, its holiest, to the cold grave-stone:
Eternal Easter of that hope, be born!
The pure make perfect; comfort the forlorn.

When night's dark mantle veil'd the seas,
And nature's self was hush'd to sleep,—
When gently blew the midnight breeze,
Louisa sought the boundless deep.
On the lone beach, in wild despair,
She sat recluse from soft repose,
Her artless sorrows rent the air,
So sad were fair Louisa's woes.

Three years she nurs'd the pleasing thought
Her love, her Henry would return;
But ah! the fatal news were brought,
The sea was made his watery urn.
Sweet maids, who know the power of love,
Ye best can tell what she must feel,

Inside the temple door the sullen light
Fell on the mouthing man, who, stern and drear,
Poured down upon the listening crowd the blight
Of his believing, “Find thy God through fear!”

But out within the green, beneath the blue,
Deep in the heart of nature's festival,
“Love! Love!” the glad birds caroled as they flew,
“O Love! Love! Love!” they sang, “For that is all.”

This is the image of my last content:
My soul shall be a little lonely lake,
So hidden that no shadow of man may break
The folding of its mountain battlement;
Only the beautiful and innocent
Whiteness of sea-born cloud drooping to shake
Cool rain upon the reed-beds, or the wake
Of churn'd cloud in a howling wind's descent.
For there shall be no terror in the night
When stars that I have loved are born in me,
And cloudy darkness I will hold most fair;
But this shall be the end of my delight:
That you, my lovely one, may stoop and see

I wish to sing the hero's praise,
But love alone employs my lays;
My strings I vary'd, chang'd my lyre,
If diff'rent themes might chance inspire.

In martial verse I try'd to sing
The mighty son of Jove;
My lyre resounds from ev'ry string,
The gentle notes of love.

In vain I other themes essay,
In vain I elevate my lay,
Alike my heart, my hand, my lyre,
The softer theme of love require.

Heroes farewell—No more my song
Of warlike deeds shall be;
Henceforth shall now my lays belong
Alone, O Love! to thee