You promised me, a year ago,
When autumn bleach'd the mistletoe,
That you and I should be as one;
But now another autumn's gone —
Its solemn knell is in the blast,
And love's bright sun is overcast;
Yet flowers will bloom and birds will sing,
And e'en the winter claim the spring.

By A Cottage Near A Wood
Where The Small Birds Build & Sing
In My Dreaming Hours I've Stood
To Review The Lovely Spring
There Once Dwelt A Lovely Maiden
Whose Name I Sought In Vain
Some Called Her Lovely Lucey
& Others Honest Jane

Bye That Cottage Near A Wood
I Have Often Stood Alone
In A Sad Or Happy Mood
& Wished She Was My Own
The Small Birds Flitted Round Me
But Nature Pleased in Vain
For The Dark & Lovely Maiden
I Never Saw Again.

Bye The Cottage Near The Wood
I Wished With Peace To Be

The thunder of Hate may be lost on the gale,
May be stilled in the storm, in the tempest may fail,
But the whisper of Love wings unerring its way
From a star to a star, through the ages for aye.

O woe is me, my heart is sad,
For I should never know
If Love came by like any lad,
Without his silver bow.

Or if he left his arrows sharp
And came a minstrel weary,
I'd never tell him by his harp
Nor know him for my dearie.

" O go your ways and have no fear,
For though Love passes by,
He'll come again a hundred times,
Before your turn to die. "

Oh if I were the velvet rose
Upon the red rose vine,
I'd climb to touch his window
And make his casement fine.

And if I were the bright-eyed bird
That twitters on the tree,
All day I'd sing my love for him
Till he should harken me.

But since I am a maiden
I go with downcast eyes,
And he will never hear the songs
That he has turned to sighs.

And since I am a maiden
My love will never know
That I could kiss him with a mouth
More red than roses blow.

" Girl, gazing in the crystal pool,
What see you there to make you merry? "
" I see within the waters cool
My image — very like me, very. "
" You find it beautiful? "
" Indeed I do. "
" And that is why you're glad? "
" Why, certainly.
" My beauty, 'tis, — face, form, and hue —
That holds Sebastian dead in love with me. "
" Girl, so fair and frank and pure,
Sebastian's dying now to net you:
God grant that he may not forget you
If dies your beauty as the lure. " ...

" Poor woman gazing in the crystal pool,

Living and loving and dying,
Life is complete in the three.
Smiling or sobbing or sighing,
Which is for you or for me?
Hoping and struggling and striving,
Dreaming success by and by;
But whether we're driven or driving,
We live and we love and we die.

Aiming and hitting and missing,
Life is complete in the three.
The fickle world praising or hissing,
Which is for you or for me?
Striding or limping or creeping,
Time drives us heartlessly by;
Meeting and parting and weeping,
We live and we love and we die.

Little bird, little bird, singing in the tree,
Tell me pray, tell me pray, what your song may be?
Little child, little child, I will tell you true,
God is love, God is love, this I sing to you.

Little flower, little flower, in your dress so gay,
Tell me pray, tell me pray, what have you to say?
Little child, little child, I will tell you true,
God is love, God is love, He clothed me and you.

Pretty stars, pretty stars, shining all the night,
Tell me pray, tell me pray, why you look so bright?

We loved of yore, in warfare bold,
Nor laurelless. Now all must go;
Let this left wall of Venus show
The arms, the tuneless lyre of old.

Here let them hang, the torches cold,
The portal-bursting bar, the bow,
We loved of yore.

But thou, who Cyprus sweet dost hold,
And Memphis free from Thracian snow,
Goddess and queen, with vengeful blow,
Smite, — smite but once that pretty scold
We loved of yore!

Shall any man for whose strong love another
Has thrown away his wealth and name in one,
Shall he turn mocker of a more than brother
To slight his need when his adventure's done?
Or shall a breedless boy whose mother won him
In great men's great concerns his little place
Turn when his farthing honours come upon him
To mock her yeoman air and conscious grace?

Then mock me as you do my narrow scope,
For you it was put out this light of mine:
Wrongfully wrecked my new adventured hope,
Wasted my wordy wealth, spilt my rich wine,