The Dark Girl's Rhyme

Who was there had seen us
Wouldn't bid him run?
Heavy lay between us
All our sires had done.

There he was, a-springing
Of a pious race,
Setting hags a-swinging
In a market-place;

Sowing turnips over
Where the poppies lay;
Looking past the clover,
Adding up the hay;

Shouting through the Spring song,
Clumping down the sod;
Toadying, in sing-song,
To a crabbed god.

There I was, that came of
Folk of mud and name-
I that had my name of


The Crystal Cabinet

The Maiden caught me in the wild,
Where I was dancing merrily;
She put me into her Cabinet,
And lock'd me up with a golden key.

This cabinet is form'd of gold
And pearl and crystal shining bright,
And within it opens into a world
And a little lovely moony night.

Another England there I saw
Another London with its Tower,
Another Thames and other hills,
And another pleasant Surrey bower.

Another Maiden like herself,
Translucent, lovely, shining clear,
Threefold each in the other clos'd


The Confessional

I.

It is a lie---their Priests, their Pope,
Their Saints, their ... all they fear or hope
Are lies, and lies---there! through my door
And ceiling, there! and walls and floor,
There, lies, they lie---shall still be hurled
Till spite of them I reach the world!

II.

You think Priests just and holy men!
Before they put me in this den
I was a human creature too,
With flesh and blood like one of you,
A girl that laughed in beauty's pride
Like lilies in your world outside.

III.


The Contretemps

A forward rush by the lamp in the gloom,
And we clasped, and almost kissed;
But she was not the woman whom
I had promised to meet in the thawing brume
On that harbour-bridge; nor was I he of her tryst.

So loosening from me swift she said:
"O why, why feign to be
The one I had meant - to whom I have sped
To fly with, being so sorrily wed,"
'Twas thus and thus that she upbraided me.

My assignation had struck upon
Some others' like it, I found.
And her lover rose on the night anon;


The Danger Of Writing Defiant Verse

And now I have another lad!
No longer need you tell
How all my nights are slow and sad
For loving you too well.

His ways are not your wicked ways,
He's not the like of you.
He treads his path of reckoned days,
A sober man, and true.

They'll never see him in the town,
Another on his knee.
He'd cut his laden orchards down,
If that would pleasure me.

He'd give his blood to paint my lips
If I should wish them red.
He prays to touch my finger-tips
Or stroke my prideful head.


The Daguerreotype

This, then, is she,
My mother as she looked at seventeen,
When she first met my father. Young incredibly,
Younger than spring, without the faintest trace
Of disappointment, weariness, or tean
Upon the childlike earnestness and grace
Of the waiting face.
Those close-wound ropes of pearl
(Or common beads made precious by their use)
Seem heavy for so slight a throat to wear;
But the low bodice leaves the shoulders bare
And half the glad swell of the breast, for news


The cunnin' little thing

When baby wakes of mornings,
Then it's wake, ye people all!
For another day
Of song and play
Has come at our darling's call!
And, till she gets her dinner,
She makes the welkin ring,
And she won't keep still till she's had her fill -
The cunnin' little thing!

When baby goes a-walking,
Oh, how her paddies fly!
For that's the way
The babies say
To other folk "by-by";
The trees bend down to kiss her,
And the birds in rapture sing,
As there she stands and waves her hands -


The Coy One

One Spring-morning bright and fair,

Roam'd a shepherdess and sang;
Young and beauteous, free from care,

Through the fields her clear notes rang:
So, Ia, Ia! le ralla.

Of his lambs some two or three

Thyrsis offer'd for a kiss;
First she eyed him roguishly,

Then for answer sang but this:
So, Ia, Ia! le ralla.

Ribbons did the next one offer,

And the third, his heart so true
But, as with the lambs, the scoffer

Laugh'd at heart and ribbons too,--
Still 'twas Ia! le ralla.


The Court of Love

With timorous heart, and trembling hand of dread,
Of cunning* naked, bare of eloquence, *skill
Unto the *flow'r of port in womanhead* *one who is the perfection
I write, as he that none intelligence of womanly behaviour*
Of metres hath, nor flowers of sentence,
Save that me list my writing to convey,
In that I can, to please her high nobley.* *nobleness

The blossoms fresh of Tullius'* garden swoot** *Cicero **sweet
Present they not, my matter for to born:* *burnish, polish
Poems of Virgil take here no root,


The Course Of Love

Seeing Radha stand alone, Krishna came from behind and blindfolded her with his hands. But his hands could not fully cover her large and elongated vivacious eyes. They shone out from within his fingers as a serpent's gem which it had disgorged and hid between its fangs;" or as Rahu finding the sun and Mars together, had pounced and held them fast. Krishna does not have any self-interest, for there is nothing for him to desire or achieve. But he removes the grief of separation of those whom he loves. His eyes came close to Radha's, and his lips were on hers.


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