God keep you safe, my little love,
—All through the night.
Rest close in His encircling arms
—Until the light.
My heart is with you as I kneel to pray,
“Good night! God keep you in His care alway.”

Thick shadows creep like silent ghosts
—About my bed.
I lose myself in tender dreams
—While overhead
The moon comes stealing through the window bars.
A silver sickle gleaming 'mid the stars.

For I, though I am far away,
—Feel safe and strong,
To trust you thus, dear love, and yet
—The night is long.

Love, thou art absolute sole lord
Of life and death. To prove the word
We'll now appeal to none of all
Those thy old soldiers, great and tall,
Ripe men of martyrdom, that could reach down
With strong arms their triumphant crown;
Such as could with lusty breath
Speak loud into the face of death
Their great Lord's glorious name, to none
Of those whose spacious bosoms spread a throne
For love at large to fill. Spare blood and sweat
And see him take a private seat,
Making his mansion in the mild
And milky soul of a soft child.

There 's nothing in this World can prove
So true and real Pleasure,
As perfect Sympathy in Love,
Which is a real Treasure.

The purest Strain of perfect Love
In Vertue's Dye and Season,
Is that whose Influence doth move,
And doth convince our Reason.

Designs attend, Desires give place,
Hopes had no more availeth;
The Cause remov'd the Effect doth cease,
Flames not maintain'd soon faileth.

The Conquest then of richest Hearts,
Well lodg'd and trim'd by Nature,
Is that which true Content imparts,

Would they were written, (and in heav'n they are,)
The patient deeds of men of low estate!
Esteem'd so little, but how truly great!
When will their modest beams be hail'd afar,
And peacefully smile down the pomps of war?
Oh, when will Labour's weary sons descry,
Illumining with love an equal sky,
The honour'd rays of Toil's eternal star?
I know that our Redeemer lives; I know
That well he marks our strife with want and fear;
Our long-assur'd inheritance of woe!
I know that his good angels love to write
Our humblest deeds in everlasting light;

I hunted her down the morning.
Sharp hoof and shoulders bare,
She fled me in swift scorning,
With her great golden mane of hair
Firing the hot and quivering air.
Down broad bleached plain, up sunburnt hill
She led me and I followed still.
She leapt the rock, I saw the gleam
Of glistening haunches in the stream;
Her little murdering hoof she drove
Through reed and flower, her hair alone
With long gold fingers urged me on
Till I was mad and blind with love,
With sun and sleep and sharp desire
That make the first hours keen as fire;

Love—what is love? A great and aching heart;
Wrung hands; and silence; and a long despair.
Life—what is life? Upon a moorland bare
To see love coming and see love depart.

A star that once
within night's velvet whispered all
the words of love
is now a mortal in the world
below—See this swirling hair!

I FOUND in flowers my love asleep
Where scents and shadows fell most deep:
I wonder if my love would weep
To know I found her laid asleep.

I kissed her eyelids as she lay,
She did not wake or turn away;
To her what bird or bee shall say
I kissed her eyelids as she lay?

And to the Father of Eternal days,
And fairest things, that fairer yet will be,
Shall I no song of adoration raise,
While Passion's world, and Life's great agony,
Are one dread hymn, dread Progresser! to thee?
Thou, Love, are Progress! And be thine the praise
If I have ever lov'd thy voice divine,
And o'er the sadness of my slander'd lays
Flings its redeeming charm a note of thine.
Oh, Gentlest Might Almighty! if of mine
One strain shall live, let it thy impress bear;
And please wherever humble virtues twine
The rose and woodbine with the thorns of care,

What doth it cover? Mystery and Thee.
Life Everlasting, and All-vital Sleep,
That Mystery is, and evermore will be.
Thou art all passions, all in one, dark Fear!
All passions of all men, the bond and free,
Whether they love, or hate, or laugh, or weep;
For all would have, and all who have would keep.
Then, lift the veil, and thy own features see
Beneath it, thou strong servant of Love's might!
Taught by the Progresser to show Man here
God's face in goodness only, and the right:
Reading his Name in darkness which is light;
And ever summoning the infinite