Natcha, offering love,
For ten shillings offering love.
Offering: A night with me, honey.
A long, sweet night with me.
Come, drink palm wine.
Come, drink kisses.
A long, dream night with me.

Father John's bread was made of rye,
Felicite's bread was white;
Father John loved the sun noon-high,
Felicite, the moon at night.

Father John drank wine with his bread;
Felicite drank sweet milk;
Father John loved flowers, pungent and red;
Felicite, lilies soft as silk.

Father John's soul was made of bronze,
That God's salt was corroding;
Felicite's soul was a wind that runs
With a blue flame of foreboding.

Between these two was the shadow of a dome
That cut their lives in twain;
But Dionysus led them home
In a chariot of pain.

Fair face the Greeks had worshipped, have you come
With me to make your home?
You look at me with those deep, haunting eyes,
And all my life replies.

The silence thrills with vague, bewitching tone;
I am no more alone:
I who have sat upon the shore of Time,
Coaxing my lute to rhyme,

Feel in my heart, at impulse of your will,
Youth's eager music thrill;
And since the years have left me not so old,
Now their long tale is told,

But I can love the lovely, and be glad,
I hide the cypress wreath I had
For garland, and adorn me with the rose

Heartsease I found, where Love-lies-bleeding
Empurpled all the ground:
Whatever flowers I missed unheeding,
Heartsease I found.

Yet still my garden mound
Stood sore in need of watering, weeding,
And binding growths unbound.

Ah, when shades fell to light succeeding
I scarcely dared look round:
“Love-lies-bleeding” was all my pleading,
Heartsease I found.

I LAY upon my narrow bed,
And dreamed life's happy moments o'er;
I thought that love my footsteps led
Beside a pleasant shore.

Care for a moment loosed its grasp,
And breathing deep the fragrant brine,—
My hand locked in my lover's clasp,—
I felt his pulses throb with mine;

And dear contentment seemed my right,—
There roaming from the world apart;
I saw his eyes, I felt their light
Beam through the shadows, in my heart;

And waves, and trees—all nature—sang
A paeon by that pleasant shore.
Then I awoke, and with a pang

Going my way of old
Contented more or less
I dreamt not life could hold
Such happiness.

I dreamt not that love's way
Could keep the golden height
Day after happy day,
Night after night.

My soul goes questing like the honey-bee,
In untrod gardens, where Love walked of old,
And, humming on sweet errands, slyly learns
The secrets the Madonna lilies hold;

Where the Sun Dial Miser jealous counts
His glowing tale of golden-slipping hours,
That all escape, despite his watchful care,
To paint the sun-dreams in the hearts of flowers.

And no one thinks the honey-bees have souls,
That drink the love vow from the blushing rose,
But, by the fountain's silver poetry,
The marble Faun stone-smiles; he better knows.

Look upon Sapho's lip, and you will swear,
There is a love-like-leven rising there.

Hark, all you ladies that do sleep!
The fairy queen
Bids you awake, and pity them that weep.
You may do in the dark
What the day doth forbid.
Fear not the dogs that bark;
Night will have all hid.

But if you let your lovers moan,
The fairy queen
Will send abroad her fairies everyone,
That shall pinch black and blue
Your white hands and fair arms,
That did not kindly rue
Your paramours' harms.

In myrtle arbours on the downs,
The fairy queen
This night by moonshine, leading merry rounds,
Holds a watch with sweet Love,

O, Mark yon Rose-tree! when the West
Breathed on her with too warm a zest
She turns her cheek away;
Yet, if one moment he refrain,
She turns her cheek to him again,
And woos him still to stay!

Is she not like a maiden coy,
Prest by some amorous-breathing boy?
Tho' coy, she courts him too:
Winding away her slender form,
She will not have him woo so warm
And yet will have him woo!