With pleasure we would love to dwell
On the charming themes of Lowell.

After you left
only after you left
I could guess
that your shadow spreads
beneath my lonely heart,
and you are a stranger
the most loving stranger;
time came to a halt
pain sprinkled over my earth.

This contention crushed me to dust
clipped my wings
addicted to fly
pushed me off the branch
where I was resting, relaxed
in an endless sphere;
my heart broke.
The vibrations
spread across the sky.

Can I ever write a love poem
for you? Exclusively for you?
Time is ripe
sharpening its claw

Life is a certainty,
Death is a doubt;
Men may be dead
While they’re walking about.
Love is as needful
To being as breath;
Loving is dreaming,
And waking is death.

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That She, dear She, might take some pleasure of my pain,
—Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain—
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburnt brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay;
Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows;

Henry, Henry, do you love me?
Do I love you, Mary?
Oh, can you mean to liken me
To the aspen tree.
Whose leaves do shake and vary,
From white to green
And back again,
Shifting and contrary?

Henry, Henry, do you love me,
Do you love me truly?
Oh, Mary, must I say again
My love's a pain,
A torment most unruly?
It tosses me
Like a ship at sea
When the storm rages fully.

Henry, Henry, why do you love me?
Mary, dear, have pity!
I swear, of all the girls there are
Both near and far,

When I led you to the altar
Vows were made, you'll call to mind
Darling wife. Now a defaulter
Must I seem if I'd be kind.
For you know how well I love you,
How I've sought work far and near;
But to keep a roof above you
I must now desert you, dear.

Because I love you I must leave you,
Wife o' mine I cherish so;
Yet the parting should not grieve you
When the whole mad tale you know.
Well you know I don't deceive you.
Since the glad day we were wed
I have loved you; I must leave you
If I'd gain our daily bread.

Or whether sad or joyous be her hours,
Yet ever is she good and ever fair.
If she be glad, 'tis like a child's wild air,
Who claps her hands above a heap of flowers;
And if she's sad, it is no cloud that lowers,
Rather a saint's pale grace, whose golden hair
Gleams like a crown, whose eyes are like a prayer
From some quiet window under minister towers.

But ah, Beloved, how shall I be taught
To tell this truth in any rhymed line?
For words and woven phrases fall to naught,
Lost in the silence of one dream divine,

I.
SHE stood against the Orient sun,
Her face inscrutable for light;
A myriad larks in unison
Sang o'er her, soaring out of sight.

A myriad flowers around her feet
Burst flame-like from the yielding sod,
Till all the wandering airs were sweet
With incense mounting up to God.

A mighty rainbow shook, inclined
Towards her, from the Occident,
Girdling the cloud-wrack which enshrined
Half the light-bearing firmament.

Lit showers flashed golden o'er the hills,
And trees flung silver to the breeze,

Afflictions do not come alone,
A voice attends the rod;
By both he to his saints is known,
A Father and a God!

Let not my children slight the stroke
I for chastisement send;
Nor faint beneath my kind rebuke,
For still I am their friend.

The wicked I perhaps may leave
Awhile, and not reprove;
But all the children I receive
I scourge, because I love.

If therefore you were left without
This needful discipline;
You might, with cause, admit a doubt,
If you, indeed, were mine.

Even now the night's intoxication has not passed,
eyes filled with passion;
the string of ?iuli-flowers in the parting of my hair
has wilted, the world is overwhelmed with scent.
I have kept the window-shutters open,
extinguishing my lamp -
so the dew may enter and cool
the fearful outcry of my heart!
Dream's intoxication in my eyes, in my breast
a message of hope -
the distant woodland song, birds' twittering
will enter here I know.
Rising with a sudden start I see: my heart's monarch,