The Garden that I love is full of Light;
—It lies upon the sloping of a hill,
Where Dawn first stirs the curtains of the Night,
—And the breeze whispers when the Noon is still.

The garden that I love is full of Peace;
—The voices of the vale are faint and far,
The busy murmurs of the highway cease,
—And silently, at evening, comes the Star.

The garden that I love is full of Dreams;
—Visions of joy gone by, and bliss that waits,
Beyond the furthest verge of sunset gleams,
—With the wide opening of the Golden Gates.

Baby loves to play with me,
Peek-a-boo! Peek-a-boo!
She goes and hides behind a tree,
I see you! I see you!

Baby is so very wee,
Hiding's easy as can be!

The Lord in heav'n has fix'd his throne,
His eye surveys the world below;
To him all mortal things are known,
His eye-lids search our spirits through.

If he afflict his saints so far,
To prove their love, and try their grace;
What must the bold transgressors fear?
His very soul abhors their ways.

On impious wretches he shall rain
Tempests of brimstone, fire and death,
Such as he kindled on the plain
Of Sodom, with his angry breath.

The righteous Lord loves righteous souls,
Whose thoughts and actions are sincere,

Rose-bloom and lilies that no frost can kill;
Visions of youthful grace that yet persist;
Maidens with pleading arms at twilight tryst,
Ye were the lures that made the young heart thrill:
For you the passion, unrequited still;
O vanished lips that loved us, never kissed,
Only the worn heart knows what it hath missed—
How Heaven itself can not that dream fulfill!

Dear wraiths of Maidens bearing fragrant urns
Exhaling incense of remembered years
When we, in shadowy walks of woodland ferns
Poured out our first-love in those tender vows,

How can I tell thee when I love thee best?
In rapture or repose? how shall I say?
I only know I love thee every way,
Plumed for love's flight, or folded in love's nest.
See, what is day but night bedewed with rest?
And what the night except the tired-out day?
And 'tis love's difference, not love's decay,
If now I dawn, now fade, upon thy breast.
Self-torturing sweet! Is't not the self-same sun
Wanes in the west that flameth in the east,
His fervour nowise altered nor decreased?
So rounds my love, returning where begun,

Queen of all streets, you stand alway
Lovely by dusk or dark or day.
Cruellest of streets that I do know,
I love you wheresoe'er I go.

The daytime knows your lyric wonder:
Your tunes that rhyme and chime and thunder,
And exiles vision with delight
Your million-blossomed charm of night.

Sweet frivolous frock and fragrant face
Your shadow-fretted pavements trace;
And all about your haunted mile
Hangs a soft air, a girlish smile.

But other steps make echo here,
With curse and prayer and wasted tear;
And under the silver wings of sleep

OH , loving and forgiving—
Ye angel-words of earth,
Years were not worth the living
If ye toOHad not birth!
Oh, loving and forbearing—
How sweet your mission here;
The grief that ye are sharing
Hath blessings in its tear.

Oh, stern and unforgiving—
Ye evil words of life,
That mock the means of living
With never-ending strife.
Oh, harsh and unrepenting—
How would ye meet the grave,
If Heaven, as unrelenting,
Forbore not, nor forgave!

Oh, loving and forgiving—
Sweet sisters of the soul,
In whose celestial living

There is a country full of wine
And liquor of the sun,
Where sap is running all the year,
And spring is never done,
Where all is good as it is fair,
And love and will are one.
Old age may never come there,
But ever in today
The people talk as in a dream
And laugh slow time away.

But would you stay as now you are,
Or as a year ago?
Oh, not as then, for then how small
The wisdom we did owe!
Or if forever as today,
How little we could know!

Then welcome age, and fear not sorrow;
Today's no better than tomorrow.

Down in a garden, sat my dearest love;
Gay saffron flowers grew all around her;
The bluest sky shone in the heavens above:
Nay! had, but thus, the bright-limbed Cynthius found her,
He would have loved her, so that she had been
His Daphne, and his laurels green.

I leave the marts where gold, where silver's won,
For places where their hues alone are seen,
In yellow flowers, that burnish in the sun—
And white, that silver-tip the May-banks green.
And on his scrambled heaps the miser's eyne,
Amorous of his bane, did never gloat
With half of my delight when as I note
The moonlight silvering the waters sheen,
And herein am I richer far and wiser
Than him who barters life for Commerce' wealth,
And as he groweth rich turns poor and miser,
Losing the life of life—delight and health—