The suitors sinned, but with a fair excuse,
Whom all this elegance might well seduce;
Nor can our censure on the husband fall,
Who, for a wife so lovely, slew them all.
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
Oh, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
And if no other misery, yet age!
Rest in soft peace, and asked, say, Here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry.
For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such
From Town fair Arabella flies,
The Beaux unpowder'd grieve,
The Rivers play before her eyes,
The Breezes softly breathing rise
The Spring begins to live.
Her Lovers swore they must expire
Yet quickly find their Ease,
For as she goes, their Flames retire
Love thrives before a nearer fire
Esteem by distant Rays.
Yet soon the Fair one will return
When Summer quits the Plain
Ye Rivers pour the weeping Urn,
Ye Breezes sadly sighing mourn,
Ye Lovers burn again.
'Tis constancy enough in Love
Thine is the gentle day of love,
When youths and virgins try their fate;
When, deep retiring to the grove,
Each feathered songster weds his mate.
With tempered beams the skies are bright,
Earth decks in smiles her pleasing face;
Such is the day that gave thee light,
And speaks as such thy every grace.
Whom Love has joined no man may put asunder,
And he has never joined those who can part:
Marriage is this, no more, howe'er priests moan;
The rest is words, mere words, and custom's vapour
The heart will brush aside as easily
As fancy paints a picture.
Look on this flower, which, from its little tree
Of bodily stem and branches and leaves green,
Leans lovelier, being toucht, and smelt, and seen
A Rose, a Rose, a Rose! and, though thy three
Senses praise it triply unto thee,
And all their parlous difference intervene,
Yet unto thee, who knowest what they mean,
Thee who art one, and hast been, and shalt be,
Is one as thou; one Rose, one beauteous Rose,
One rosy Beauty. Who shall reason why
The slow stem, on a sudden season, shows
It can be worm unto this butterfly?
TO the assembled folk
At great St. Kavin’s spoke
Young Brother Amiel on Christmas Eve;
I give you joy, my friends,
That as the round year ends,
We meet once more for gladness by God’s leave.
On other festal days
For penitence or praise
Or prayer we meet, or fullness of thanksgiving;
To-night we calendar
The rising of that star
Which lit the old world with new joy of living.
Ah, we disparage still
The Tidings of Good Will,
Discrediting Love’s gospel now as then!
I stood and saw my Mistress dance,
Silent, and with so fixed an eye,
Some might suppose me in a trance:
But being asked why,
By one I who knew I was in love,
I could not but impart
My wonder, to behold her move
So nimbly with a marble heart.
On hearing about great love, respond, be moved
like an aesthete. Only, fortunate as you've been,
remember how much your imagination created for you.
This first, and then the rest
that you experienced and enjoyed in your life:
the less great, the more real and tangible.
Of loves like these you were not deprived.
Love happened at last,
And we entered God's paradise,
Sliding
Under the skin of the water
Like fish.
We saw the precious pearls of the sea
And were amazed.
Love happened at last
Without intimidation…with symmetry of wish.
So I gave…and you gave
And we were fair.
It happened with marvelous ease
Like writing with jasmine water,
Like a spring flowing from the ground.
