I will sing of dainty Eros
Decked with many-coloured garlands:
He is master of the Immortals,
He is victor over men!

The stars around the lovely moon
Their radiant visage hide as soon
As she, full-orbed, appears to sight,
Flooding the earth with her silvery light.

Lady, pray pardon mine excess,
But when your simple suppliant woos,
Despite his Yankee scarletness,
He has Those Sentimental Blues.
Yet, though the yappiest of hicks,
Unsentimental as a derrick,
He learned a lot of mushy tricks
From Robert Herrick.

“Love in my bosom like a bee”
(From Lodge I lift that lovely line)
“Love still hath something of the sea”
(Sedley) “And I'll not ask for wine”
(Jonson). From Byron's Athens Maid,
From girls in Wither, Cowley, Fletcher,
Tennyson, Waller, Dobson, Praed
I've swiped, you betcher.

A gap is in our fireside-ring
The wideness of a tiny tomb;
A prattle sweet as birds can sing
Has left its hush in every room.

Our hearts long for the pretty charms
Of babish questions manifold,
And for the little hugging arms
Now locked across a bosom cold.

The bright hair and the eyes that beamed
So wondrously, O, how we miss!
And, O, the loving lips! that seemed
Fashioned so purposely to kiss.

As they who, yearning over sea,
Grow homesick for their land and kin,
So we grow heaven-sick to be

Had I but clung in love to Rama's feet,
Then of the triple agony by night and day alone I had not had to bear the pain.
Who once finds contentment's sweet immortal wine, even in his dreams:
Why should his mind, beholding vain desires, run like a deer after the phantom lake?
Who sings the greatness of the Lord with understanding heart, with ever growing love.

Why should he roam from door to door like a dog with ever empty belly?
The covetous, who are themselves the bond-slaves of desires, are ministers to all men's whims.

Yon meddler, at me who for love And toping outcry maketh,
The mysteries of the Unseen E'en bold to deny maketh.

Regard thou the myst'ries of Love's Perfection and not sin's blemish:
The meritless man his sole aim Defects to descry maketh.

The cupbearer's glances the path Of Islam waylay on such fashion
That none, save he be a Suhéib, O' the grape-juice red fie maketh.

There breatheth abroad in the land The scent of the Houris of Heaven,
When she of our winehouse's dust The scent of her ply maketh.

When those red berries come in springtime,
Flushing on your southland branches,
Take home an armful, for my sake,
As a symbol of our love.

I can tell you the name right down
Of the prettiest things in all the town;
But there isn't a thing the people sell
So fine as the girl who loves me well.

I sit in my Gipsy tent all day,
And, “How are you all?” to the folk I say;
But I'd sit for a year, and it's truth I tell,
For a glimpse of the girl who loves me well.

Oh, I'd like to be a lord, of course,
And I'd like to have a hunting-horse;
But the one and the other I'd gladly sell,
For a kiss from the girl who loves me well.

Lakka-trees ripen two by two
And mandarin-ducks die side by side.
If a true-hearted girl will love only her husband,
In a life as faithfully lived as theirs,
What troubling wave can arrive to vex
A spirit like water in a timeless well?

His heart, a hidden fountain, whence there ran
Through the hushed tenor of reclusive days,
Deep love of Nature, and the Soul of man,
In stately song and in melodious lays.