O Pathos of Love! You are a glossy pearl
Beware, you should not appear among strangers

The theatre of your display is concealed under the veil
The modern audience' eye accepts only the visible display

New breeze has arrived in the Existence' garden
O Pathos of Love! Now there is no pleasure in display

Beware! You should not be striving for ostentation!
You should not be obligated to the nightingale's lament!

The tulip's wine‐cup should be devoid of wine
The dew's tear should be a mere dropp of water

[LE ROI S'AMUSE, Act II]


My child! oh, only blessing Heaven allows me!
Others have parents, brothers, kinsmen, friends,
A wife, a husband, vassals, followers,
Ancestors, and allies, or many children.
I have but thee, thee only. Some are rich;
Thou art my treasure, thou art all my riches.
And some believe in angels; I believe
In nothing but thy soul. Others have youth,
And woman's love, and pride, and grace, and health;
Others are beautiful; thou art my beauty,
Thou art my home, my country and my kin,

I.

LOVE, oh, Love's a dainty sweeting,
Wooing now, and now retreating;
Brightest joy and blackest care,
Swift as light, and light as air.


II.

Would you seize and fix and capture
All his evanescent rapture?
Bind him fast with golden curls,
Fetter with a chain of pearls?


III.

Would you catch him in a net,
Like a white moth prankt with jet?
Clutch him, and his bloomy wing
Turns a dead, discoloured thing!


IV.

Pluck him like a rosebud red,

As they say,
'the incident is closed.'
The love boat
wrecked by daily life
I'm all even with life
and nothing would be gained by listing
mutual hurts,
troubles,
and insults.

Don't think I'm a coward. Seriously, it could not be helped.

Death devours all lovely things;
Lesbia with her sparrow
Shares the darkness,—presently
Every bed is narrow.

Unremembered as old rain
Dries the sheer libation,
And the little petulant hand
Is an annotation.

After all, my erstwhile dear,
My no longer cherished,
Need we say it was not love,
Now that love is perished?

He. Dear, I must be gone
While night Shuts the eyes
Of the household spies;
That song announces dawn.

She. No, night's bird and love's
Bids all true lovers rest,
While his loud song reproves
The murderous stealth of day.

He. Daylight already flies
From mountain crest to crest

She. That light is from the moon.

He. That bird...

She. Let him sing on,
I offer to love's play
My dark declivities.

Whose love is given over-well
Shall look on Helen's face in hell,
Whilst those whose love is thin and wise
May view John Knox in Paradise.

Love is our Reasons Paradox, which still
Against the judgment doth maintain the Will:
And governs by such arbitrary laws,
It onely makes the Act our Likings cause:
We have no brave revenge, but to forgo
Our full desires, and starve the Tyrant so.
They whom the rising blood tempts not to taste,
Preserve a stock of Love can never waste;
When easie people who their wish enjoy,
Like Prodigalls at once their wealth destroy.
Adam till now had stayd in Paradise
Had his desires been bounded by his eyes.

The first snow of the year
& you lying between my breasts
in my husband's house
& the snow gently rising in my throat
like guilt,
& the windows frosted over
as if etched by acid.

You have come from the desert
& have left a little sand
between my legs
where it rubs & rubs
& secretes a milky fluid,
finally a poem
or a pearl.

I am your oyster shell,
your mother of pearl
gleaming like oil on water
for two hours on a snowy day.

'Poets fall in love to write about it!'

MEN have made them gods of love,
Sun-gods, givers of the rain,
Deities of hill and grove:
I have made a god of Pain.

Of my god I know this much,
And in singing I repeat,
Though there’s anguish in his touch,
Yet his soul within is sweet.