Thou art mine, thou hast given thy word;
Close, close in my arms thou art clinging;
Alone for my ear thou art singing
A song which no stranger hath heard:
But afar from me yet, like a bird,
Thy soul, in some region unstirred,
On its mystical circuit is winging.

Thou art mine, I have made thee mine own;
Henceforth we are mingled forever:
But in vain, all in vain, I endeavor—
Though round thee my garlands are thrown,
And thou yieldest thy lips and thy zone—
To master the spell that alone
My hold on thy being can sever.

Lie down, you are horizontal.
Stand up, you are not.
I wanted my fate to be human.
Like a perfume
that does not choose the direction it travels,
that cannot be straight or crooked, kept out or kept.
Yes, No, Or
—a day, a life, slips through them,
taking off the third skin,
taking off the fourth.
And the logic of shoes becomes at last simple,
an animal question, scuffing.
Old shoes, old roads—
the questions keep being new ones.
Like two negative numbers multiplied by rain
into oranges and olives.

Heavy the scent of elder in the air
As on the night he went: the starry bloom
He'd brushed in passing dusted face and hair,
And the hot fragrance filled the little room.

Heavy the scent of elder—in the night
Where I lie lone abed with stifling breath
And eyes that dread to see the morning light,
The heavy fume of elder smells of death.

I DO not ask it thee! That is not love
Which waits to be entreated. Love is free
As God's own life, and of itself doth move.
Should I say, Love me? Rather let me prove
Myself to be love-worthy: then let be!

And yet what wretched shams our sad eyes see!—
“I love my Love because my Love loves me;”—
Oh, pitiful! Hast thou no gauge above
Another's thought by which to rate thine own?
No worthier trust, no surer corner-stone
To build thy temple of sweet hopes upon?
God help thee at thy need and give thee strength

O love, thy hair! thy locks of night and musk!
The very wind therein doth lose his way,
While in the perfumed darkness he would stray;
And my heart, too, is lost in scented dusk.

Thy crescent brows irradiate the night;
Love, of thy lips and tresses give thou me—
Thy breast is like a restless, heaving sea;
Thine eyes are stars of sorrow and delight.

Yet grieve not that I grieve, Soul of the Sea—
What is my heart that thou shouldst comfort it
With wine or song, with smile or dance or wit?
Dust of thy threshold is enough for me.

Each warring nation importunes Thy throne
With fervent prayer, storming th' inviolate gates;
Lo! at the shrine the suppliant priest awaits
Thy favor to his country—his alone.
Only to Thee the victor is foreknown:
Yet though the prayer from Emperors, Kings and States
Rises like incense, the unheeding Fates,
Austere, weave on with obdurate hearts of stone.
Still o'er the battle Death's gray wings descend,
Awful with scarlet, and our cherished dreams
Of Peace dissolve … We pause in numbed suspense:
Baffled we gaze; we cannot comprehend

Pardon me, all ye birds that float at ease,
That I begrudged your fleet aërial joys;
And thou, poor Partlet! and ye little bees,
That hum and hover with a pleasant noise
About your homes of honey! 'twas a spirt
Of spleen—a peevish murmur of disease,
And not a measured curse to do you hurt:
And thou! who for a moment did'st displease,
Commission'd to rebuke my pride, and spring
Thy tiny pennons on me unaware;
Thy smart and sudden lesson was the thing
I needed.—Thou art gone I know not where!
But I have seen, beside my gouty chair,

When Nature scattered roses 'round
To please the eye of man,
She rested while she stood aloof
Her handiwork to scan.
She was by no means satisfied—
A flower was lacking yet;
And so she came to earth again
And brought the violet.

That's why, dear one, thy friends rejoice
And render thanks to-day;
Our souls are glad, our hearts are light—
We laugh, we sing, we play.
For Nature, bless her smiling face,
Our need did not forget,
But gave us what has pleased us most—
Our precious violet!

Cloudy mist every valley and hill buries,
Spurred and booted on sofas we sprawl,
Back the galloways, put up the tilburies,
Sad wet weather at Drizzle-down Hall
One cannot read Waverley twice over cleverly,
Talents should never lie idle a day,
Best of Madrigals, Private Theatricals,
All we want is to settle the play.

Hang a curtain across the back drawing-room,
Black that staring mahogany door,
Make the book-room a carpenter's sawing-room,
Never mind! cut a hole in the floor.
We all shall be fair actors—no need of rare actors,

O Lily, dropped upon the gray sea-sand,
What time my fair love through the morning land
Led the rejoicing children, singing all
In happy chorus, to their festival,
Under green trees the flowery fields among;
Now, when the noon sun blazes o'er the sea,
And echo tells not of the song they sung,
And all thy silver splendor silently
Thou yieldest to the salt and bitter tide,
I find thee, and, remembering on whose breast
Thy day began in thy fresh beauty's pride,
Though of thy bloom and fragrance dispossessed,