Men talke of Loue that know not what it is:
For could we know what Loue may be indeede,
We would not haue our mindes so led amisse
With idle toies, that wanton humours feede;
But in the rules of higher reason read
What Loue may be, so from the world conceal'd:
Yet all too plainely to the world reueal'd.

Some one doth faine Loue is a blinded God:
His blindnesse him more halfe a diuell showes:
For Loue with blindnesse neuer made abode,
Which all the power of Wit and Reason knowes:

A WAKE , my soule out of the sleepe of sinne.
And shake off slouth the subiect of thy shame;
Search out the way how best thou mayst beginne
To holy worke thine humble will to frame:
Then proue not weary of a little paine,
When fleshe's griefe will breed the spirit's gaine.

Confesse thyselfe vnworthy of the sence
To learne the least of the supernall Will;
Beseech the heauens in strength of their defence
To saue and keepe thee from infernall ill:
Then fall to worke, that all the world may see
The ioyfull loue betwixt thy God and thee.

F AIRE in a plot of earthly paradise,
Vpon a hill, the Muses made a Maze:
In midst whereof within a Phœnix eies,
There sits a grace that hath the world at gase:
Which Phœnix is but name vnto a nature
That shows the world hath scarcely such a creature:

This true loues saint, by worthy beauty crowned.
Did seeme to wish but not expresse her will:
When straunge desires were in deuises drowned
To finde out wonders farthest from her wil:
The worlde came in, with presents many a one
But yet alas, her loue could like of none.

A BLUSH-ROSE lay in the summer;
There were golden lights in the sky,
And a woman saw the blossom
As she stood with her lover nigh.

A band in the flowering distance
Play'd a dreamy Italian air,
Like a memory changed to music,
And it drifted everywhere.

'Twas an exiled love of its Southland,
That air, and its delicate wails
Were only the wandering echoes
Of the songs of nightingales.

" I love you, " he tenderly whisper'd;
" I love you, " she answer'd as low:
And the music grew sweeter and sweeter,

Oh, tell ye not my lover,
Lest he perchance should sorrow at the tale,
That from the time we parted
My cheek grew pale;
Tell him not, though he left me, — for a bride
Beauteous, I own, as the bright moon above her, —
Tell him not that I died
Love-lorn and broken-hearted.

Say not how I have perished;
Oh! no, no, no, — say you not that I pined,
Because I was forsaken,
Or he unkind:
Say that for his sweet wife I ever prayed,
And that his dear, dear name I ever cherished,
Till I to sleep was laid
Where I shall never waken.

LOVE , that Love cannot share,
Now turn to air!
And fade to ashes, O my daily bread;
Save only if you may
So be the stay
Of the uncomforted.

Look down, you far-off lights,
From smoke-veiled heights, —
If there be dwelling in our wilderness!
For Love, the Refugee,
No stronghold can there be, —
No shelter more, while these go shelterless.

Love hath no home beside
His own two arms spread wide; —
The only home, among all walls that are;
So there may come to cling,
Some yet forlorner thing,

The doves fly out, the doves fly in,
Brighter than cloud above,
From thee to me, and again to thee,
Out of my heart, O Love.

My heart is troubled and hushed with wings
From the deep, beneath, above;
And the hovering flight of more white things
Than Earth hath the gladness of.

After one call they follow, all: —
Thy call to me, O Love:
Lightning out of the blue, but mine
In the likeness of the Dove.

Truly , Love is blind.
All my wish and will,
That he takes for me:
Sure Love cannot see,
That he thinks so, still!

Truly, Love is blind;
But he hears, instead.
He hath such fine ears,
Far away he hears
Little words unsaid.

Truly, Love is blind;
For the merest touch,
Hover of a breath,
Smiling underneath,
He will take for much.

Blind, and without fear!
Even so, I find
He would have me here
Always, very near.
Truly, Love is blind.

My body was part of the sun and the dew,
Not a trace of my death to me clave,
There was scarce a man left on the earth whom I knew,
And another was laid in my grave.
I was changed and in heaven, the great sea of blue
Had long washed my soul pure in its wave.

My sorrow was turned to a beautiful dress,
Very fair for my weeping was I;
And my heart was renewed, but it bore none the less
The great wound that had brought me to die,
The deep wound that She gave who wrought all my distress;
Ah, my heart loved her still in the sky!

Now I am on the earth,
What sweet things love me?
Summer, that gave me birth,
And glows on still above me;
The bird I loved a little while;
The rose I planted;
The woman in whose golden smile
Life seems enchanted.

Now I am in the grave,
What sweet things mourn me?
Summer, that all joys gave,
Whence death, alas! hath torn me;
One bird that sang to me; one rose
Whose beauty moved me;
One changeless woman; yea, all those
That living loved me.