Such a waste of time!
Gazing up
at the moon
night after night,
thinking
she too will see it —
and feel the same

Should I die of love,
even then
I would continue
to feel rejected —
knowing how halfheartedly
she would say,
" Ah, what a shame. "

The heart
of someone
who refuses to respond—
what
to compare it to?
The rocks and the trees
after all,
do not bear a man

What a constant jealousy gnaws your heart!
It tires me out; day after day
Some little worry from nothing you start—
Something's hidden in what I say,
Something's hidden in what I do;
That heart of yours is never still,
It cannot be sure that I am true,
But spies and pries about for ill.

Frankly I speak the whole of my mind
Once for all—let it serve or not:
I am not one of that showy kind,
Fair outside with an inward rot.
I love you! will not that suffice?
No! I must say it again and again,

Once did I view a fragrant Flower
Till thro' the optick windows of mine
The sweet discoveries of its beauties
Did much affect & Charm my fant
To see how bright and sweetly it did shine
In Beauties that were purely Genuine.

But Lo, the dire Effects of baneful Pride;
A weed whose favour was Pestiferous
Did vie with this fair flower Qualify'd
With many Vertues Odoriferous.
This fragrant flower which to affect the eyes

That heavenly Sparke , from which th'immortall Soule
Had her first being , striveth to enroule
Her wondrous Guifts in characters of Brasse,
That when (dissolved from this earthie Masse)
Shee mounts aloft, her never-dying Glorie
May fill the Volumes of a learned Storie;
Which after-Ages, reading, may admire,
And (inly burning with the like desire)
To rare Atcheiuements (emulous of Fame
Striving t'immortalize their dying Name)
May bend their Practise, dedicate their Daies;
And, so excited, purchase datelesse Praise.

A fig for her story of shame and of pride!
She strayed in the night and her feet fell astray;
The great Mississippi was glad that day,
And that is the reason the poor girl died;
The great Mississippi was glad, I say,
And splendid with strength in his fierce, full pride—
And that is the reason the poor girl died.

And that was the reason, from first to last;
Down under the dark, still cypresses there.
The Father of Waters he held her fast.
He kissed her face, he fondled her hair,
No more, no more an unloved outcast,

MASTER WILLIAM; OR, LAD'S LOVE .

[ Farewell and Return ]

I.

I HAVE remembrance of a Boy , whose mind
Was weak: he seem'd not for the world design'd,
Seem'd not as one who in that world could strive,
And keep his spirits even and alive—
A feeling Boy , and happy, though the less,
From that fine feeling, form'd for happiness
His mother left him to his favourite ways,
And what he made his pleasure brought him praise.

I.

When the rough North forgets to howl,
And ocean's billows cease to roll;
When Lybian sands are bound in frost,
And cold to Nova-Zembla's lost;
When heav'nly bodies cease to move,
My blue-ey'd Ann I'll cease to love.

II.

No more shall flowers the meads adorn;
Nor sweetness deck the rosy thorn;
Nor swelling buds proclaim the spring;
Nor parching heats the dog-star bring;
Nor laughing lillies paint the grove,
When blue-ey'd Ann I cease to love.

III.

In the days when my mother, the Earth, was young,
And you all were not, nor the likeness of you,
She walk'd in her maidenly prime among
The moonlit stars in the boundless blue.

Then the great sun lifted his shining shield,
And he flash'd his sword as the soldiers do,
And he moved like a king full over the field,
And he looked, and he loved her brave and true.

And looking afar from the ultimate rim,
As he lay at rest in a reach of light,
He beheld her walking alone at night,
When the buttercup stars in their beauty swim.