My true love still is all that's fair,
She is flower and blossom blowing free,
For all her silence lying there
She sings a spirit song to me.

New lovers seek her in her bower,
The rain, the dew, the flying wind,
And tempt her out to be a flower,
Which throws a shadow on my mind.

O THOU long-silent, solitary house,
Where Love once came and went with joyous cries,
Or lingered long, sighing as Summer sighs
When Autumn's breath begins her fear to rouse
With fierce caress that shall make bare her boughs
Her tender boughs, and all her beauty's prize
Deliver, faded, to the winds that rise
And rend her crown from her dishonored brows!—

O solitary house! thine open door
Again shall welcome sweet Love's wingèd tread
His eyes shall light thee, as they lit of yore
In days when Love and Joy were newly wed;

Lone warbler! thy love-melting heart supplies
The liquid music-fall, that from thy bill
Gushes in such ecstatic rhapsodies,
Drowning night's ear. Yet thine is but the skill
Of loftier love, that hung up in the skies
Those everlasting lamps, man's guide, until
Morning return, and bade fresh flowers arise,
Blooming by night, new fragrance to distil

Why are these blessings lavish'd from above
On man, when his unconscious sense and sight
Are closed in sleep; but that the few who rove,
From want or woe, or travels urge by night,

My heaven is full of words but I desire love,
My heaven is crowded to the doors with good people but I hunger for sinners,
My heaven is dazed with suns—everywhere suns—but I crave for the shadows,
My heaven is the confirmation of the prophets but I am wayward and the prophets bore me,
My heaven is the home of the saints but I shrink from the saints and disdain their prerogatives.
I had done all I could to enrich life and point it the way of my heaven:
Finally I arrived—the last doubting step was taken

If I could purge my love and make it pure
Of all except the essence of divine;
If I could turn to crystal flood its wine
And change to peace its passion and allure,
Then, like a holy flame in paths obscure,
Lift its translucent light and make it shine
A beacon to some other soul than mine,
Perchance I might my loneliness endure.
But I am weak and woman, and my heart
Falters before the last great sacrifice,
A stumbling-block to stay my ardent will;
And thus I must accept the lesser part
And try forever just to blind my eyes

Servant of God, of thee the world had need,
For this thy glory, this thy triple crown,
Thy soul from out its battlemented creed
Glowed with that love which melts all barriers down.

I AM an exile, in disgrace,
And sorrow banished from her face:
Now some such woe as mine, I ween,
Napoleon knew at Saint Helene.

I am an exile, fettered, ta'en
To deserts drear of her disdain;
Will pity ne'er her bosom stir
For my high crime of loving her?

Wait a moment
there
on the rim
of the mountain,
you moon at midnight!
If you come out now,
I will be
bereft
of explanations.

What are you, love? A flame from heaven?
A radiant smile are you?
The heaven has not your eyes' bright gleams,
The heaven has not their blue.

The rose has not your snowy breast;
In the moon's face we seek
In vain the rosy flush that dyes
Your soft and blushing cheek.

By night you smile upon the stars,
And on the amorous moon,
By day upon the waves, the flowers—
Why not on one alone?

But, though I pray to you with tears,
With tears and bitter sighs,
You will not deign me yet one glance
Cast by your shining eyes.

Why should I blush to own I love?
'Tis love that rules the realms above.
Why should I blush to say to all,
That virtue holds my heart in thrall?

Why should I seek the thickest shade,
Lest Love's dear secret be betray'd?
Why the stern brow deceitful move,
When I am languishing with love?

Is it weakness thus to dwell
On passion that I dare not tell?
Such weakness I would ever prove;
'Tis painful, though 'tis sweet to love.