Classic Poem

& what is Love the sweetest of all pains
Yet teazing more then madness to the mind
It wants no setoffs garniture or gains
Better acceptance in the heart to find
On lily breasts & rosey mouths love binds
Its image which no power on earth can free
Though called inconstant as the shifting winds
Tis Truth on earth as heaven itself can be
I've felt it ever since I loved Haidee.

Haidee the lovliest of all thats loved
The venus of young life the poets dreams
A vision of the mind by all approved
A beauty of the heart that all esteems
Where all is beautifull—theres no part seems
Diviner—all is best—none better—Haidee's real
—Angels are good mens hopes & poets dreams
Haidee is flesh & blood—with eyes that steal
Man from himself—love's soul beneath Gods seal.

Those turband roses vide Turkish girls
How shaped & young & beautifull they are
All garnitured in rubies gold & pearls
The lilies whiteness even is not fair
Beside their lovliness—but droop despair
& sicken in their sunshine—there love dwells
The houris's of Eden—long dark hair
& wreathing tresses loves bewitching spells
& ‘large black eyes like pearls hid in their shells’

[‘The Lord of the daybreak’ soars on high
& turns the grecian sea to mirrourd gold
Like Edens round the grecian Islands lie
Where seasons green & beautifull unfold
Thy smiles are charms that turned all to gold]

[When once thy smile is seen what else may seem
So beautifull—for nought more loved could be
Then thou in boyhoods fancy or loves dream
& still as then thy prescence I behold
I never think of Greece without Haidee]

‘The Lord of Daybreak’ soareth now on high
& turns to mirrored gold each wood & stream
Like Edens round the greecian Islands lie
As beautifull as a midsummer dream—
Where once thy smile is seen—what else may seem
So beautifull—for nought more loved can be
Then thou in boyhoods fancy or loves dream
& still thou art a sweet young dream to me
I never think of greece without Haidee.

The heaven of earths visions—boyhoods dreams—
But too much love turns dirty—here we halt
& face about from heaven & extremes
Ale cant be good if they forget the malt
& earth has lost its savour without salt
Love—hate are nearer kindred than life seems
To own too—if her fault I cannot tell
That sweet that turns to sour & never creams
Makes strange reallities the heaviest dreams
Love tickled is by any bents or straws
A lady likeing whisper in the dark
A rebel doubtfullness unknown to laws
That looks all eyes & greedy as a shark
Swallows the mall the promenade & park
But such is sham love fond of different faces
Not that which hears the ballads of the lark
True love's the inward self in secret places
Whats felt bye two in love a third but guesses.