The Love of the World Reproved or, Hypocrisy Detected

Thus says the prophet of the Turk;
Good musselman, abstain from pork!
There is a part in every swine
No friend or follower of mine
May taste, whate'er his inclination,
On pain of excommunication.
Such Mahomet's mysterious charge,
And thus he left the point at large.
Had he the sinful part expressed,
They might with safety eat the rest;
But for one piece they thought it hard
And set their wit at work to find
What joint the prophet had in mind.

Much controversy straight arose,


The Love Of God The End Of Life

Since life in sorrow must be spent,
So be it--I am well content,
And meekly wait my last remove,
Seeking only growth in love.

No bliss I seek, but to fulfil
In life, in death, thy lovely will;
No succours in my woes I want,
Save what thou art pleased to grant.

Our days are numbered, let us spare
Our anxious hearts a needless care:
'Tis thine to number out our days;
Ours to give them to thy praise.

Love is our only business here,
Love, simple, constant, and sincere;


The Love Song of Har Dyal

Alone upon the housetops to the North
I turn and watch the lightnings in the sky--
The glamour of thy footsteps in the North.
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die.

Below my feet the still bazar is laid--
Far, far below the weary camels lie--
The camels and the captives of thy raid.
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!

My father's wife is old and harsh with years,
And drudge of all my father's house am I--
My bread is sorrow and my drink is tears.
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!


The Love Of Christ Which Passeth Kowledge

I bore with thee long weary days and nights,
Through many pangs of heart, through many tears;
I bore with thee, thy hardness, coldness, slights,
For three and thirty years.

Who else had dared for thee what I have dared?
I plunged the depth most deep from bliss above;
I not My flesh, I not My spirit spared:
Give thou Me love for love.

For thee I thirsted in the daily drouth,
For thee I trembled in the nightly frost:
Much sweeter thou than honey to My mouth:
Why wilt thou still be lost?


The Lost Thrill

I grow so weary, someway, of all things
That love and loving have vouchsafed to me,
Since now all dreamed-of sweets of ecstasy
Am I possessed of: The caress that clings—
The lips that mix with mine with murmurings
No language may interpret, and the free,
Unfettered brood of kisses, hungrily
Feasting in swarms on honeyed blossomings
Of passion's fullest flower—For yet I miss
The essence that alone makes love divine—
The subtle flavoring no tang of this
Weak wine of melody may here define:—


The Love a Life can show Below

673

The Love a Life can show Below
Is but a filament, I know,
Of that diviner thing
That faints upon the face of Noon—
And smites the Tinder in the Sun—
And hinders Gabriel's Wing—

'Tis this—in Music—hints and sways—
And far abroad on Summer days—
Distils uncertain pain—
'Tis this enamors in the East—
And tints the Transit in the West
With harrowing Iodine—

'Tis this—invites—appalls—endows&mda sh;
Flits—glimmers—proves—di ssolves—
Returns—suggests—co nvicts—enchants—


The Love Poem Unwritten

The poem he wished to write began this way:
Is it come to this
That I am reduced to writing love poems
To you....
There he stopped. A heavy onus
Of unresolved emotions
Seemed to gag him.
He wished to say:
How ironic it was that separation
Had revived their love,
How she still defined his existence
By absence, as she had once done
Through her presence;
How distance generated intimacy,
So that now they were in love again.
And how corny, how odd, how unusual that felt.


The Love of Thyonichus

AESCHINES.
Hail, sir Thyonichus.

THYONICHUS.
Æschines, to you.

AESCHINES.
I have missed thee.

THYONICHUS.
Missed me! Why what ails him now?

AESCHINES.
My friend, I am ill at ease.

THYONICHUS.
Then this explains
Thy leanness, and thy prodigal moustache
And dried-up curls. Thy counterpart I saw,
A wan Pythagorean, yesterday.
He said he came from Athens: shoes he had none:
He pined, I'll warrant,-for a quartern loaf.

AESCHINES.


The Love Of The People For The Duke Of Shaou

O fell not that sweet pear-tree!
See how its branches spread.
Spoil not its shade,
For Shaou's chief laid
Beneath it his weary head.

O clip not that sweet pear-tree!
Each twig and leaflet spare.
'Tis sacred now,
Since the lord of Shaou,
When weary, rested him there.

O touch not that sweet pear-tree!
Bend not a twig of it now.
There long ago,
As the stories show,
Oft halted the chief of Shaou.


The Love Letter

Letter of love so strangely thrilling
With all your countless wonder yet,
Though Time our heart's hot fires have mastered,
Bringing a pang of pained regret!
The while your blest receiver holds you,
His banished passions still rebel,
No longer reason sacrifices
His sentiment,--so then farewell!
Destroyed be this love-token treasured!
For if 'tis read when time has flown,
Deep in the buried soul 'twill waken
The torment vanished days have known.
At first but a light scorn arousing


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