THE winter is past,
And the summer's come at last
And the blackbirds sing in every tree;
The hearts of these are glad
But my poor heart is sad,
Since my true love is absent from me.

The rose upon the briar
By the water running clear
Gives joy to the linnet and the bee;
Their little hearts are blest
But mine is not at rest,
While my true love is absent from me.

A livery I'll wear
And I'll comb out my hair,
And in velvet so green I'll appear,
And straight I will repair
To the Curragh of Kildare

Why do we fear words?
They can be rose-petal hands,
Cool, fragrant hands stroking our faces,
And sometimes cups of refreshing drink
Sipped in summer by thirsty lips.

Why do we fear words?
Some words are secret bells, the echoes
of their tone announce the start of a magic
And abundant time
Steeped in feeling and life,
So why should we fear words?

We took to silence
We did not want our secrets to pass our lips
We thought that words amassed an unseen monster
Pent up inside the letters, hiding from the ear of time

" WHOM the gods love die young; " — if gods ye be,
Then generously might ye have spared to us
One from your vast unnumbered overplus,
One youth we loved as tenderly as ye.

—Who loves the rain
—And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes,
—Him will I follow through the storm;
—And at his hearth-fire keep me warm;
Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise,
—Who loves the rain,
—And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes.

White hands of languorous grace,
Fair feet of stately pace
And snowy-shining knees—
My love was made of these.

Stars glimmered in her hair,
Slim was she, satin-fair;
The straight line of her brows
Shadowed her cheek's fresh rose.

What words can match her ways,
That beauty past all praise,
That courteous, stately air,
Winsome and shy and fair.

To have known all this and be
Tortured with memory—
Curse on this waking breath—
Makes me in love with death.

Better to sleep than see
This house now dark to me

Where shall this lust open its mouth?
A big sea turtle is asleep like a mountain
and near the Paleozoic sea
the shell of a giant clam weighing about four tons in thickness is surveying it all.
What slow dark sunrays!
From behind the island at each cape misty with sprays
a mysterious hospital ship form emerges
and it is, you see, dragging the hawser of its sunken anchor.
Listen! my love
how long are we going to sit here, side by side on these sad rocks here
the sun is boundlessly distant

When with May the air is sweet,
When the forest fair is clad,
All that have a love to meet
Pair in pleasure, lass and lad.
Merrily arm in arm they go,
For the time will have it so.
Love and love, when linked together,
Love goes with to keep them gay:
All the three, this sunshine weather,
They are making holiday.
Sorrow cannot come between
Hearts where Love and May are seen.
Where to love sweet love is plighted,
Constant and with all the soul,
And the pair are so united
That their love is sound and whole:

When thou, poor Excommunicate
From all the joys of Love, shalt see
The full reward and glorious fate
Which my strong faith shall purchase me,
Then curse thine own inconstancy!

A fairer hand than thine shall cure
That heart which thy false oaths did wound;
And to my soul a soul more pure
Than thine shall by Love's hand be bound,
And both with equal glory crown'd.

Then shalt thou weep, entreat, complain
To Love, as I did once to thee;
When all thy tears shall be as vain
As mine were then: for thou shalt be

When the time comes for me to die,
—To-morrow, or some other day,
If God should bid me make reply,
—“What would'st thou?” I shall say,

O God, Thy world was great and fair;
—Yet give me to forget it clean!
Vex me no more with things that were,
—And things that might have been.

I loved, I toiled, throve ill or well,
——Lived certain years and murmured not.
Now grant me in that land to dwell
—Where all things are forgot.

For others, Lord, Thy purging fires,
—The loves reknit, the crown, the palm.

When summer took in hand the winter to assail,
With force of might and virtue great his stormy blasts to quail,
And when he clothed fair the earth about with green,
And every tree new garmented, that pleasure was to seen,
Mine heart 'gan new revive, and changed blood did stur
Me to withdraw my winter woe, that kept within the door.
"Abroad!' quod my desire; "assay to set thy foot,
Where thou shalt find the savour sweet; for sprung is every root.
And to thy health, if thou were sick in any case,