Axe is needed to cut wood;
Love is to cut a heart.

Living in a house
near the Black Forest,
without any clocks,
she's begun

to listen to the walls.
Her neighbors have clocks,
not one
but twenty clocks apiece.

Sometimes
a claque of clocks
applauds
the passing of each day.

Listen to the walls
& wind your watch.
Poor love, poor love,
have they caught you

by the pendulum?
Do they think they've
got you stopped?
Have you

already gathered how,
living near the Black Forest,
she gets by
on cups of borrowed time?

I love my native land with such perverse affection!
My better judgement has no standing here.
Not glory, won in bloody action,
nor yet that calm demeanour, trusting and austere,
nor yet age-hallowed rites or handed-down traditions;
not one can stir my soul to gratifying visions.

And yet I love - a mystery to me -
her dreary steppelands wrapped in icy silence,
her boundless, swaying, forest-mantled highlands,
the flood waters in springtime, ample as the sea;
I love to jolt along a narrow country byway

Rather I hold with those that tell it thus,
That they, who had made proof of their great faith,
Were joined no less with honour in love's house
By Holy Church, which binding looseneth,
Since it is written that 'twixt maid and man
The wedded contract joining hand and heart
For this life is and passeth not the span
Of victor death which all our bonds doth part.
And it were grievous one should suffer all,
Even death's last pang and an untimely grave,
If overcoming he again should fall
Prisoner to penance and to sorrow slave.

Oh, miracle of love! That death, which seems
So hard a master when he holds his prize,
Whom no cajoleries, nor stratagems
Of beauty's power, nor wisdom's sophistries,
E'er turned aside from his appointed way,
But falcon--like, who with relentless foot
And pinions spread above his captured prey,
Holds his high way in heaven absolute,
Nor heeds our questionings: that this same death
Should have grown soft and yielded to love's tears,
And drawn his talons from their fleshly sheath,
And spared awhile his harvest of the years!

'Twas thus with my Natalia, suppliant soul,
Who loved young Adrian to her heart's despite,
And loved him dearly, yet could not cajole
Her fears of ill nor use her woman's right
To grant his wish, but ever put away
The sweet fulfilment of each day's desire
To a new to--morrow void as yesterday.
Adrian in vain, with wild hopes high and higher,
Essayed to make her convert to his creed.
No laggard he to do, devise or dare.
But still she failed him ever at his need,
And still she gave but tears to his heart's prayer.

Who can contain his joy, say, on seeing the lotus-like lovely face of Nanda's darling child when he awakes?

His beauty infatuates sages,and destroys the pride of Kama, it captivates the hearts of hundreds of young girls. When he softly smiles the gleam of his teeth seems as though rubies have been stringed with pearls.

When my Lord, Nanda's lovely child goes out, says Suradasa, the people of Braj are bewitched by his loveliness.

From each, Love demands a mystic silence.
What do all seek so earnestly? Tis Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts,
In Love no longer 'Thou' and 'I' exist,
For self has passed away in the Beloved.
Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,
And in the temple of mine inmost soul
Behold the Friend, Incomparable Love.
He who would know the secret of both worlds
Will find that the secret of them both is Love.

I search for love and find my soul
With you, my love, I am whole
And the mystic love that binds us
Reminds me of divinity.

In your heart, I find,
The love that lacked in mine
your touch and your scent
open the doors to a heavenly vent

With you I realize
What I lack
What I have to find

When you drown me in your arms
And give love
It feels like its raining nectar from above

Even the taste of my soul would lack
The glory and of your hearts lilacs{flowers like lily}

And how it amazes me

My true-love hath my heart and I have his,
By just exchange one for the other given:
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a bargain better driven.
His heart in me keeps me and him in one;
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:
He loves my heart, for once it was his own;
I cherish his because in me it bides.
His heart his wound received from my sight;
My heart was wounded with his wounded heart;
For as from me on him his hurt did light,
So still, methought, in me his hurt did smart: