LOVE found them sitting in a woodland place,
His amorous hand amid her golden tresses;
And Love looked smiling on her glowing face
And moistened eyes upturned to his caresses.

'O sweet,' she murmured, 'life is utter bliss!'
'Dear heart,' he said, 'our golden cup runs over!'
'Drink, love,' she cried, 'and thank the gods for this!'
He drained the precious lips of cup and lover.

Love blessed the kiss; but, ere he wandered thence,
The mated bosoms heard this benediction:
“Love lies within the brimming bowl of sense:

Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart;
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears,
Ah! she did depart!

Soon as she was gone from me,
A traveler came by,
Silently, invisibly
He took her with a sigh.

As a most happy mother feels the stir
Of that new life which quickens with her life,
And knows that virtue has gone forth from her
To doubly sanctify the name of wife;
Yet, for her joy's sake, and because pride
Is too unutterably sanctified,
And all the heaven of heavens within her breast
Too dearly and too intimately possessed,
Speaks not a word, but folds her new delight
With a rapt silence, comforting as night;
So, when I felt the quickening life that came
To bid my life's long-slumbering currents move,

When the bees are humming in the honeysuckle vine
And the summer days are in their bloom,
Then my love is deepest, oh, dearest heart of mine,
When the bees are humming in the honeysuckle vine.

When the winds are moaning o'er the meadows chill and gray,
And the land is dim with winter gloom,
Then for thee, my darling, love will have its way,
When the winds are moaning o'er the meadows chill and gray.

In the vernal dawning with the starting of the leaf,
In the merry-chanting time of spring,

Some lip will use her name--a rapt surprise,
Passing the heart's set ward, upon me steals.
One word, to me, doth one saint canonize;
And all the acquest of earth and heaven it seals.
I name that name, and doubt for me has ending,
And Sorrow, strong of old, forgets her part;
The battle-cry it is, to God ascending,
For all the triumphs of my labouring heart.
Ah, what is beauty's charge, what true, what dearest,
But that one lovely word will speak it home?
To splendour, to humility, 'tis nearest;

'And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head.'


The eyes He turned on her who kneeling wept
Were filled with tenderness and pity rare;
But looking on the Pharisee, there crept
A sorrow and a hint of sternness there.

'Simon, I have somewhat to say to thee,'
The Master's voice rang clearly out, and stirred,

LOVE'S Herald flew o'er all the fields of Greece,
Crying: '
Love's altar waits for sacrifice!'
And all folk answered, like a wave of peace,
With treasured offerings and gifts of price.

Toward high Olympus every white road filled
With pilgrims streaming to the blest abode;
Each bore rich tribute, some for joys fulfilled,
And some for blisses lingering on the road.

The pious peasant drives his laden car;
The fisher youth bears treasure from the sea;
A wife brings honey for the sweets that are;

When I asked my dear Edwin to shave
I'd never a thought of denial;
He'd been such an absolute slave,
I put his devotion on trial.
But his eye threw a sinister dart,
His features grew dogged and grave ;
Still I hardly expected to part
When I asked him to shave.

He refused, and seemed eager to jest,
Till he saw my determined expression.
A moustache, he said, suited him best,
And helped in his budding profession.
' What! Like yours' I replied with a sneer.
He smiled when my temper grew hot,

I.
Hopes, that swell in youthful breasts,
Live not through the waste of time!
Love’s rose a host of thorns invests;
Cold, ungenial is the clime,
Where its honours blow.
Youth says, ‘The purple flowers are mine,’
Which die the while they glow.

II.
Dear the boon to Fancy given,
Retracted whilst it’s granted:
Sweet the rose which lives in Heaven,
Although on earth ’tis planted,
Where its honours blow,
While by earth’s slaves the leaves are riven
Which die the while they glow.

III.
Age cannot Love destroy,

It was a knight of the southern land
Rode forth upon the way
When the birds sang sweet on either hand
About the middle of the May.

But when he came to the lily-close,
Thereby so fair a maiden stood,
That neither the lily nor the rose
Seemed any longer fair nor good.

“All hail, thou rose and lily-bough!
What dost thou weeping here,
For the days of May are sweet enow,
And the nights of May are dear?”

“Well may I weep and make my moan,
Who am bond and captive here;
Well may I weep who lie alone,