My love is in a light attire
Among the apple trees,
Where the gay winds do most desire
To run in companies.
There, where the gay winds stay to woo
The young leaves as they pass,
My love goes slowly, bending to
Her shadow on the grass.
And where the sky’s a pale blue cup
Over the laughing land,
My love goes lightly, holding up
Her dress with dainty hand.
I came to the door of the House of Love
And knocked as the starry night went by;
And my true love cried "Who knocks?" and I said
"It is I."
And Love looked down from a lattice above
Where the roses were dry as the lips of the dead:
"There is not room in the House of Love
For you both," he said.
I plucked a leaf from the porch and crept
Away through a desert of scoffs and scorns
To a lonely place where I prayed and wept
And wove me a crown of thorns.
I came once more to the House of Love
WHO calls me bold because I won my love,
And did not pine,
And waste my life with secret pain, but strove
To make him mine?
I us’d no arts; ’t was Nature’s self that taught
My eye to speak,
And bid the burning blush to paint unsought
My flashing cheek;
That made my voice to tremble when I bid
My love “Goodby,”
So weak that every other sound was hid,
Except a sigh.
Oh, was it wrong to use the truth I knew,
That hearts are mov’d,
456
So well that I can live without—
I love thee—then How well is that?
As well as Jesus?
Prove it me
That He—loved Men—
As I—love thee—
And sometimes it happens that you are friends and then
You are not friends,
And friendship has passed.
And whole days are lost and among them
A fountain empties itself.
And sometimes it happens that you are loved and then
You are not loved,
And love is past.
And whole days are lost and among them
A fountain empties itself into the grass.
And sometimes you want to speak to her and then
You do not want to speak,
Then the opportunity has passed.
Your dreams flare up, they suddenly vanish.
Sometimes I wish that I were Helen-fair
And wise as Pallas,
That I might have most royal gifts to pour
In love's sweet chalice.
Then I reflect my dear love is no god
But mortal only
And in this heavenly wife might deem himself
Not blest, but lonely.
Sometimes I think the happiest of love's moments
Is the blest moment of release from loving.
The world once more is all one's own to model
Upon one's own and not another's pattern.
And each poor heart imprisoned by the other's
Is suddenly set free for splendid action.
For no two lovers are a single person
And lovers' union means a soul's suppression.
Oh, happy then the moment of love's passing
When those strong souls we sought to slay recover.
sometimes a human mammal is not to be seen
some love these moments, even create them
however others act like pumpkins
The boy that shovelled snow last month
Oft thought his lot a hard un ;
And now when lovely spring is here,
He breaks his shovel with a cheer ;
But, lo ! his father's striding near,;
He holds a spade and pulls his ear
' Go, Johnny, dig the garden.'
I approach with such
a careful tremor, always
I feel the finally foolish
question of how it is,
then, supposed to be felt,
and by whom. I remember
once in a rented room on
27th street, the woman I loved
then, literally, after we
had made love on the large
bed sitting across from
a basin with two faucets, she
had to pee but was nervous,
embarrassed I suppose I
would watch her who had but
a moment ago been completely
open to me, naked, on
