Is love the passion that the poets feign,
Drawn from the ruins of old Grecian time,
Born of the Hermae and all earthly slime,
And tricked by troubadours in trappings vain
Of flowers fantastic, like a Hindoo fane,
Or the long meter of an antique rhyme
Dancing in dactyls? Is love, then, a crime —
A rosy day's eternity of pain?

If we love God, we know what loving is;
For love is God's: He sent it to the earth,
Half-human, half-divine, all glorious —
Half-human, half-divine, but wholly His;
Not loving God, we know not true love's worth,

I dare not hope my lady-love
Will smile on me again;
She knows no pity, and my life
I care not to retain,
Since all my prayers are vain.

To fall in love with womankind
Is my unlucky fate;
If only it were otherwise,
I might appreciate
Some men, whom now I hate.

Not rhapsodies for what we cannot reach
Nor longing for what lies beyond our power,
But just to make life lovely as a flower
By gift of tenderness in thought and speech;
Thus rain and dew their loving lessons teach
In lace-like gleam or sudden-dropping shower
And so shall we, through every passing hour,
Hold fast to higher visions, each for each.

Fidelity and courtesy; and touch
Of hopefulness to meet the coming years,
And strength to view the days that backward roll, —
These will I give you, and in pledging such

Too short the lovely summer night,
Too soon 'tis passed away;
I watched to see behind which cloud
The moon would chance to stay,
And here's the dawn of day!

How beautiful she looks, opening the pearly casement,
And how quiet she leans, and how troubled her brow is!
You may see the tears now, bright on her cheek,
But not the man she so bitterly loves.

The youth beneath her balcon sings of love —
Old Shylock's gone: " O Jessica, come thou
Unto this heart which in one fervent vow
Has burned its flesh and blood! " The moments move
As days in Eden; she goes, like a dove,
From great St. Mark's at Venice, to endow
Her lover with her life. The rosy Now
Seems Heaven itself, and he the Lord thereof.
But love is rainbow-tinted, and as short
As is the life of rainbows. " Mine? Oh, nay! "
Say'st thou, fair Jessica, who maketh sport
Of that old Jew, thy father? In love's court

In old Assisi, Francis loved so well
His Lady Poverty, that to his heart
He pressed her heart, nor felt the deadly smart
From lips of frost, nor saw the fire of hell
From lurid eyes that fevered Dante's cell,
And parches souls who, hating, feel her dart.
He chose her, and he dwelt with her apart,
The two were one, illumined through Love's spell:

He loved her, and she glowed, a lambent star;
He loved her, and the birds came at his call —
Her frosts were pearls, her face was fair to see.
He sang his lady's praises near and far,

If as my spirit yearns for thine
Thine yearns for me, why thus delay?
And yet, what answer might be mine
If, pausing on her way,
Some gossip bade me tell
Whence the deep sighs that from my bosom swell?

And thy dear name my lips should pass,
My blushes would our loves declare;
No, no! I'll say my longing was
To see the moon appear
O'er yonder darkling hill;
Yet 'tis on thee mine eyes would gaze their fill!

If poesy have truth at all,
And if a Lion of the Gael
Shall rule the Lovely Land of Fal!
O yellow mast! O roaring sail!
Carry a message o'er the sea!
Carry the leadership from me
To great O Neill!