Heart of all holiness,
Gladness and glory,
God of all wisdom,
Wondrous the story:
Thou hast ordained me
Mother to be
Of a child of the ages
Born unto Thee.

Now is my spirit
Strong and uplifted,
To Thy great goodness
Holily gifted;
Be Thy bright splendour
Rayed on my child,
Kindness incarnate,
Lowliness mild.

Perfect, ennoble,
Sanctify woman;
Crown her with beauty,
Strengthen, illumine,
Till each love-offering
Humble as mine
Be joy-sacrificial,
Human-divine.

Now shall my body,

Come, my loved one, to the feast
Ere the rosy fringe of dawn
Steal into the slumbering east
And the last faint stars are gone.
Holy, holy is the night,
Blazing with its jewels bright.

Elfin lanterns gem the sea;
Thou than heaven more beauteous art;
Lo, I bring the gift to thee
Wonder-flaming in my heart.
Come, my loved one, ere the light
Banishes the lingering night.

Not where sultry southern skies
Languish over lilied bowers;
Where the artist Nature dyes
Scarlet the pomegranate flowers,

A thousand martyrs I have made,
All sacrific'd to my desire;
A thousand beauties have betray'd,
That languish in resistless fire.
The untam'd heart to hand I brought,
And fixed the wild and wandering thought.

I never vow'd nor sigh'd in vain
But both, tho' false, were well receiv'd.
The fair are pleas'd to give us pain,
And what they wish is soon believ'd.
And tho' I talk'd of wounds and smart,
Love's pleasures only touched my heart.

Alone the glory and the spoil
I always laughing bore away;
The triumphs, without pain or toil,

My love is good, my love is feäir,
She's comely to behold, O,
In ev'rything that she do wear,
Altho' 'tis new or wold, O.
My heart do leäp to see her walk,
So straïght do step her veet, O,
My tongue is dum' to hear her talk,
Her vaice do sound so sweet, O.
The flow'ry groun' wi' floor o' green
Do bear but vew, so good an' true.

When she do zit, then she do seem
The feäirest to my zight, O,
Till she do stan' an' I do deem,
She's feäirest at her height, O.
An' she do seem 'ithin a room
The feäirest on a floor, O,

Dear love, life has dewy mornings,
And the shadeless blaze of noon,
Flowers, that we stop to gather,
That fade from our hands so soon.

Dear love, there are meetings, partings,
We have sunshine, we have shade,
There's no continuing city
That our human hands have made.

We go onward, joy and sorrow
Checkers all the path we tread,
But our Father loves His children
And with loving care they're led.

Dear love, His great wisdom chooseth
The path that we both have trod,
And through storm, and calm, and sunshine,

Very tranquil lies the sea,
Rowers to your places move:
Even this is the ship of love.
While new songs the sirens sing
To their cadence you shall row,
Sorrow to your oars shall cling,
And in sadness and in woe
New sighs from old sighs shall grow,
And more griefs your spirit prove:
Even this is the ship of love.
And as thus you row distressed,
Fresh distresses shall you find,
Seas of danger and unrest,
Storms and buffeting of wind;
Yet content will in your mind
Reign all pain and grief above:
Even this is the ship of love.

O love of mine, some months ago
(Emotion my speech hinders)
Our passion lost its ruddy glow
And flickered out in cinders.

And yet, old dear, that winter through
(Before our paths divided)
Did any other care for you
As ardently as I did?

But now resumes love's festival,
Rekindling ancient embers—
And all the former fever shall
Revivify your members.

Again I'll woo you, and will deem
You worthy of your wages,
And, as a gauge of my esteem,
Keep steam up in your gauges.

When bitter blasts howl wintrily

Some day when Death shall come with quiet footsteps
To lead me far away,
And memories it took a life to gather
Are scattered in a day,

I think that there is one will never leave me
Through all the changing years,
And that your love will follow me undaunted
Across those dark frontiers.

I hear it is charged against me that I seek to destroy institutions;
But really I am neither for nor against institutions,
(What indeed have I in common with them?—Or what with the destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta, and in every city of these States, inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large, that dents the water,
Without edifices, or rules, or trustees, or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.

Within a forest, as I strayed
Far down a sombre autumn glade,
I found the god of love;
His bow and arrows cast aside,
His lovely arms extended wide,
A depth of leaves above,
Beneath o'erarching boughs he made
A place for sleep in russet shade.

His lips, more red than any rose,
Were like a flower that overflows
With honey pure and sweet;
And clustering round that holy mouth,
The golden bees in eager drouth
Plied busy wings and feet;
They knew, what every lover knows,
There's no such honey-bloom that blows.