For love-I would
split open your head and put
a candle in
behind the eyes.

Love is dead in us
if we forget
the virtues of an amulet
and quick surprise.

Men of our race, we send you one
Round whom Victoria's holy name
Is halo from the sunken sun
Of her grand Summer's day aflame.
The heart of your loved Motherland,
To them she loves as her own blood,
This Flower of Ocean bears in hand,
Assured of gift as good.

Forth for our Southern shores the fleet
Which crowns a nation's wisdom steams,
That there may Briton Briton greet,
And stamp as fact Imperial dreams.
Across the globe, from sea to sea,
The long smoke-pennon trails above,
Writes over sky how wise will be

The night lamp is faintly gleaming
Within my chamber still,
And the heavy shades of midnight
Each gloomy angle fill,
And my worn and weary watchers
Scarce dare to move or weep,
For they think that I am buried
In deep and quiet sleep.

But, hush! what are those voices
Heard on the midnight air,
Of strange celestial sweetness,
Breathing of love and prayer?
Nearer they grow and clearer,
I hear now what they say—
To the Kingdom of God’s glory,
They’re calling me away!

See my gentle mother softly

THE TWILIGHT fleeted away in pearl on the stream,
And night, like a diamond done, stood still in our dream.
Your eyes like burnished stones or as stars were bright
With the sudden vision that made us one with the night.

We loved in infinite spaces, forgetting here
The breasts that were lit with life and the lips so near;
Till the wizard willows waved in the wind and drew
Me away from the fulness of love and down to you.

Our love was so vast that it filled the heavens up:

I remember a marvellous instant,
Unto me bending down from above,
Thy radiant vision appearing
As an angel of beauty and love.
'Mid the torments of desperate sadness,
In the torture of bondage and sighs,
To me rang thy voice so beloved--
And I dreamed thy miraculous eyes.
But the years rolled along--and life's tempests
My illusions, my youth overcame,
I forgot that sweet voice full of music--
And thy glance like a heavenly flame.
In the covert and grief of my exile,
The days stretched unchanged in their flight,

Man of virtue has need;-into life with boldness he plunges,
Entering with fortune more sure into the hazardous strife;
But to woman one virtue suffices; it is ever shining
Lovingly forth to the heart; so let it shine to the eye!

The wine of Love is music,
   And the feast of Love is song:
And when Love sits down to the banquet,
   Love sits long:

Sits long and arises drunken,
   But not with the feast and the wine;
He reeleth with his own heart,
   That great, rich Vine.

I
Tomorrow let loveless, let lover tomorrow make love :
O spring, singing spring, spring of the world renew!
In spring lovers consent and the birds marry
When the grove receives in her hair the nuptial dew.

Tomorrow may loveless, may lover tomorrow make love.

II
Tomorrow's the day when the prime Zeus made love:
Out of lightning foam shot deep in the heaving sea
(Witnessed by green crowds of finny horses)
Dione rising and falling, he made to be!

Tomorrow may loveless, may lover tomorrow make love.

III

Let those love now, who never lov'd before,
Let those who always lov'd, now love the more.

The Spring, the new, the warb'ling Spring appears,
The youthful Season of reviving Years;
In Spring the Loves enkindle mutual Heats,
The feather'd Nation chuse their tuneful Mates,
The Trees grow fruitful with descending Rain
And drest in diff'ring Greens adorn the Plain.
She comes; to morrow Beauty's Empress roves
Thro' Walks that winding run within the Groves;
She twines the shooting Myrtle into Bow'rs,

ILLA CANTAT: NOS TACEMUS: QUANDO VER VENIT MEUM?
QUANDO FIAM UTI CHELIDON, UT TACERE DESINAM?
PERDIDI MUSAM TACENDO, NEC ME PHOEBUS RESPICIT.
SIC AMYCLAS, CUM TACERENT, PERDIDIT SILENTIUM.
CRAS AMET QUI NUNQUAM AMAVIT: QUIQUE AMAVIT CRAS AMET.

She sings, but we are silent: when shall Spring
Of mine come to me? I as the swallow make
Me vocal, and this desolate silence break?
The Muse has left me for I cannot sing;
Nor does Apollo now his splendour bring
To aid my vision, blinded for her sake—
Thus mute Amyclas would not silence wake