He kissed her in those woodland haunts, and she
Clung to his lip with that which love resembled.
O the sweet hours they spent beside the sea!
O on his breast how the sweet lady trembled
With love's divine delirium! Can it be
That she, so stately and so calm, dissembled?
" No," thought young Rupert — yet the diamond ring
Shone on his finger, an unaltered thing.

Miss Plumpness did not faint — she only tittered:
Where was the girl who would not like a kiss
From Vandyke-bearded Rupert, whose eyes glittered
With most mysterious meaning? But there is
In love's own sweet lip-contact an embittered
Ecstasy, making laughter all amiss.
Girl, trust no love, however strangely sweet,
If you can laugh, or he, when your lips meet.

Then — if she loves you — at the touch of lips,
The white light of the diamond has fled,
Not as a star which suffers strange eclipse
When in the wild blue sky its life is dead,
But with a marvellous apocalypse —
The virgin diamond blushes passionate red;
Sudden its icy pureness must depart;
It reddens like a rose's amorous heart.

Well—as I said—my love, my bride, my wife,
Is here, and gazes on me piteously.
It seems that reason and passion are at strife
As she comes in with strange humility.
‘O love and lord!’ she cries, ‘O love and life!
O author of my maiden agony!
Am I forgotten utterly? Am I
Left in the cold dark chancel vault to die?’

An un-sonnet sequence in Blues
1. Twilight Reverie

Here I set with a bitter old thought,
Something in my mind better I forgot.
Setting here thinking feeling sad.
Keep feeling like this I'm gonna start acting bad.
Gonna go get my pistol, I said forty-four —
Make you walk like a ghost if you bother me any more.
Gonna go get my pistol, I mean thirty-two,
And shoot all kinds o' shells into you.
Yal, here I set thinking — a bitter old thought
About two kinds o' pistols that I ain't got.
If I just had a Owl Head, old Owl Head would do,

The rhyme o' The Raggedy Man's 'at's best
Is Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs,
'Cause that-un's the strangest of all o' the rest,
An' the worst to learn, an' the last one guessed,
An' the funniest one, an' the foolishest. —
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!

I don't know what in the world it means —
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs! —
An' nen when I tell him I don't, he leans

O, die Liebe macht uns selig

" Oh, 'tis Love that makes us grateful,
Oh, 'tis Love that makes us rich! "
So sings man, and every fateful
Echo bears his amorous speech.

You, you know the song's own spirit
And its inner meaning, too;
Joyfully you wait and hear it
Till the great day dawns for you.

Till the bride, with a caressing
Smile is yours, from head to feet,
And her father gives his blessing —

Dear Tim, no more such angry speeches,
Unbutton and let down your breeches,
Tear out the tail, and wipe your a—
I know you love to act a farce.

My Deare Deare Lord, I know not what to say:
Speech is too Course a web for me to cloath
My Love to thee in or it to array,
Or make a mantle. Wouldst thou not such loath?
Thy Love to mee's too great, for mee to shape
A Vesture for the Same at any rate.

When as thy Love doth Touch my Heart down tost
It tremblingly runs, seeking thee its all,
And as a Child when it his nurse hath lost
Runs seeking her, and after her doth Call.
So when thou hidst from me, I seek and sigh.
Thou saist return return Oh Shulamite.

What placed in the Sun: and yet my ware,
A Cloud upon my head? an Hoodwinke blinde?
In middst of Love thou layst on mee, despare?
And not a blinke of Sunshine in my minde?
Shall Christ bestow his lovely Love on his,
And mask his face? allowing not a kiss?

Shall ardent love to Christ enfire the Heart?
Shall hearty love in Christ embrace the Soule?
And shall the Spirituall Eye be wholy dark,
In th'heart of Love, as not belov'd, Condole?
In th'midst of Loves bright Sun, and yet not see
A Beame of Love allow'd to lighten thee?