We two were lovers; and side by side,
One rare and beautiful summer-tide,
Like children roaming in light and dew,
Broad fields and woodlands and meadows through,
Their faces radiant with morning gleams,
We sought the scenes of our early dreams.
We crossed the waste of the broad blue deep,
Saw sunbeams gild it, or fierce winds sweep;
But all its changes were fair to me,
For calm and tempest were sweet with thee.

By English hedges we took our way,
And watched the bloom of the fragrant may;
We paused and listened, with lifted eyes,

One more fond kiss, my Romeo, and away!
The eastern hills are tonehed with rosy light.
Ah love, with thee dun night is brightest day,
And brightest day, when thou art gone, is night.
How blest the hours swift-borne on starry wheels!
How heavy waiting on the laggard sun!
A weary void till day her eyelids seals,
And Heaven's high warders guard love's fortress won.
Dear Romeo, go! Yet I would have thee stay.
O pilfering morn, that robs the jewelled skies!
Purloining gems within thy mantle gray,
Take all, but leave the one dear star I prize.

Here let us stand — windows, and roofs, and leads,
Alive with clinging thousands — what a scene!
And in the midst, above that sea of heads,
Glooms the black Guillotine.

A scene like that in the Eternal City,
When on men's hearts the Arena feasted high —
While myriads of dark faces, void of pity,
Looked on to see them die.

How the keen Gallic eyes dilate and glare!
The flexile brows and lips grimace and frown —
How the walls tremble to their shout, whene'er
That heavy steel comes down!

Oh yes, I've seen your Boston girls,
And anchored close to Cambridge curls;
But from Ches'peake 'way down to Maine
There is no girl like Sarah Jane.

What love-lit eyes! Twin beacons rare!
What landscape cheeks! what wavy hair!
Her mouth — a sort of inland sea,
Her smile — a whole Geography.

She is the bonniest, best-rigged lass
From Sandy Hook to Hatteras;
And when she laughs her open face
Looks like a sea-side watering-place.

What joy to launch a gallant kiss
Upon that tideless sea of bliss!

Never a man in Bates or Cass
Could stand the force of his swinging blow.
Many a trim Missouri lass
Rued his wooing in shame and woe:
He cared for nothing on earth below;
He dreaded nothing in heaven above;
His wrath was deadly to friend or foe,
But deadlier still was his evil love.

Neither a Reb nor a Yank was he,
But a bushwhacker, bred to trick and trade;
For well he loved the lord to be
Of his own true rifle and bowie-blade.
And when he rode with his reckless band,
Whisky-wild and mad for a fray,

Wilt thou, remorseless fair,
Still laugh while I lament,
Or shall thy chief contentment be,
To see me malcontent?

Shall I, Narcissus-like,
A flying shadow chase,
Or like Pygmalion hug a stone,
That hath no sense of grace?

No, no, my blind love now
Must borrow Reason's eyes,
And as thy fairness made me fond,
My wrongs must make me wise.

My loyalty disdains
To love a loveless dame:
The life of Cupid's fire consists
Into a mutual flame.

Had'st thou but given one look,

Tears on a blooming cheek, — dew on a rose!
Who would not kiss them, and charm them away?
Called to soft eyes by the briefest of woes,
Showers from the blue of a morning in May.
Tears on a blooming cheek, — dew on a rose!
Rainbowed with smiles are the tears of the young;
Light is the sorrow that maidenhood knows;
Sweet is the solace by flattery sung.
Beauty need never seek
Vainly for Love to speak;
Tears on a blooming cheek, — dew on a rose!

Tears on a faded cheek, — rain on a tomb!
Yet who deplores them or wipes them away?

1.

Lord, send thine hand
Unto my rescue, or I shall
Into mine own ambushments fall,
Which ready stand
To d' execution, all
Lay'd by self-love, O, what
Love of ourselves is that,
That breeds such uproars in our better state!

2.

I think I pass
A meadow gilt with crimson showers

Thou mighty subject of my humble song,
Whom every thing speaks, though it cannot speak,
Whom all things echo, though without a tongue,
And int' expressions of thy glory break;

Who out of nothing this vast fabric brought,
And still preserv'st it, lest it fall again,
And be reduc'd into its ancient nought,
But may its vigour primitive retain;

Who out of atoms shap'd thine image, man,
And all to crown him with supremacy
Over his fellow-creatures; nay, and then
Didst in him raise a flame that cannot die;

I.

Dost thou remember how we lived at home —
That it was like an oriental place,
Where right and wrong, and praise and blame did come
By ways we wondered at and durst not trace,
And gloom and sadness were but shadows thrown
From griefs that were our sire's, and not our own?

II.

It was a moat about our souls, an arm
Of sea, that made the world a foreign shore,
And we were two enamoured of the charm
To dream that barks might come and waft us o'er.
Cold snow was on the hills; and they did wear
Too wild and wan a look to tempt us there.