Say not he loves me as before, as truly, dearly
As once he did... Oh no! My life
He would destroy, he does destroy - though see I clearly
The trembling of the hand that holds the knife.

Resentment, anger, tears, a pain now fierce, now muffled -
I'm wounded, stung, and yet I love... He is
All of my life, but I... I do not live - I suffer...
How bitter is existence such as this!

As to a mortal foe, in dozes scant and meagre
The air I breathe he measures out.. Each breath
I take is painful, yet... I breathe, for fresh air eager...

Would we but love what will not pass away!
The sun that on each morning shines as clear
As when it rose first on the world's first year;
The fresh green leaves that rustle on the spray.
The sun will shine, the leaves will be as gay
When graves are full of all our hearts held dear,
When not a soul of those who loved us here,
Not one, is left us--creatures of decay.

Yea, love the Abiding in the Universe
Which was before, and will be after us.
Nor yet for ever hanker and vainly cry
For human love--the beings that change or die;

In the st season of the infant earth
When all from Chaos took their orderd birth
When mankind from the hand of heaven came
All pure & white ere vice had gott a name
But evry act with innocence indu'd
Was more by nature then from knowledge good
Love mighty powr did graciously descend
grew fond of man & here wth man remaind
In their unsullyd hearts he chose to stay
their bliss anights their buisness all the day
Nor wonder if in such he made abode
No temples better can befitt a god
His gentle influence did their soules inspire

Within the four walls of this sonnet’s form
(while outside spring rain gathers in a pail) ,
there is at least one happy story to tell,
something lovely brought on by a storm.

Fresh thrifts have sprouted, and a fat worm
lazily crawls out of someone’s cracked bell,
crawls out of the centre of someone’s hell,
out of a skull atop a uniform,

while not too far away, in someone’s rib cage,
in a sunlit temple without a steeple,
two tiny beetles in the place of people,

(their love too pure to ever turn into rage,

Maurice, weep not, I am not here under this pine tree.
The balmy air of spring whispers through the sweet grass,
The stars sparkle, the whippoorwill calls,
But thou grievest, while my soul lies rapturous
In the blest Nirvana of eternal light!
Go to the good heart that is my husband,
Who broods upon what he calls our guilty love: --
Tell him that my love for you, no less than my love for him,
Wrought out my destiny -- that through the flesh
I won spirit, and through spirit, peace.
There is no marriage in heaven,
But there is love.

THIS was the summer whose gradual splendor
Burned the meridian while the deep sea
Whispering, murmuring, watched the surrender,
Cradled my union, my loved one, with thee.

Mute was the music and mystic the pæan
That skirted the magical days as they fled.
These were the nights when the starred empyrean
Bent o'er the passion it silently fed.

Turn, ancient Earth! as with slumbering motion
Thou steerest thy course through the spaces divine,
The dome of thy stars, and the caves of thine ocean

The twilight's inner flame grows blue and deep,
And in my Lesbos, over leagues of sea,
The temples glimmer moonwise in the trees.
Twilight has veiled the little flower face
Here on my heart, but still the night is kind
And leaves her warm sweet weight against my breast.
Am I that Sappho who would run at dusk
Along the surges creeping up the shore
When tides came in to ease the hungry beach,
And running, running, till the night was black,
Would fall forespent upon the chilly sand
And quiver with the winds from off the sea?

I cannot tell what this love may be
That cometh to all but not to me.
It cannot be kind as they'd imply,
Or why do these gentle ladies sigh?
It cannot be joy and rapture deep,
Or why do these gentle ladies weep?
It cannot be blissful, as 'tis said,
Or why are their eyes so wondrous red?

If love is a thorn, they show no wit
Who foolishly hug and foster it.
If love is a weed, how simple they
Who gather and gather it, day by day!
If love is a nettle that makes you smart,
Why do you wear it next your heart?

Those lovers, young, may think they know,
But they won't know the score,
Until they're married twenty years,
And then they add some more.

Some lovers must experiment
On ways that 'sex is best; '
But practicing eroticism
Doesn't meet the test.

The thing they need to learn is that
Good sex is tied to love;
And love is the ingredient
There is too little of.

With love they'd learn the meaning of
The many ways to give,
The many ways successful lovers
Learn to love and live.

He sleeps beside me in the bed;
Upon my breast I hold his head;
Oh how I would that we were wed,
For he sails in the morning.

I wish I had not been so kind;
But love is fain and passion blind,
While out of sight is out of mind,
And he ships in the morning.

I feel his bairn stir in my womb;
Poor wee one, born to bitter doom;
How dreary dark will be the gloom,
When he goes in the morning!

A sailor lad has need to court
A loving lass in every port;
To him it's just a bit of sport . . .