Things that are lovely
Can tear my heart in two—
Moonlight on still pools,
You.

Things that are tender
Can fill me with delight—
Old songs remembered,
Night.

Things that are lonely
Can make me catch my breath—
The hunger for lost arms . . .

A LAS , how bitter are the wrongs of love!
Life has no other sorrow so acute:
For love is made of every fine emotion,
Of generous impulses, and noble thoughts;
It looketh to the stars, and dreams of Heaven;
It nestles 'mid the flowers, and sweetens earth.
Love is aspiring, yet is humble, too:
It doth exalt another o'er itself,
With sweet heart-homage, which delights to raise
That which it worships; yet is fain to win
The idol to its lone and lowly home
Of deep affection. 'Tis an utter wreck
When such hopes perish. From that moment, life

The few sere leaves that to the branches cling,
Fall not to-day, so light the zephyr's breath;
O'er Autumn's sleep now plays the breeze of Spring,
Like love's warm kiss upon the brow of death:
Serene the firmament, save where a haze
Of dreamy softness floats upon the air,
Or a bright cloud of amber seems to gaze
In mild surprise upon the meadows bare:
Summer revives, and, like a tender strain
Borne on the night-breeze to the wondering ear,
With tender sighs melts Winter's frosty chain,
And smiles once more upon the dying year:

I love her with the seasons, with the winds,
As the stars worship, as anemones
Shudder in secret for the sun, as bees
Buzz round an open flower: in all kinds
My love is perfect, and in each she finds
Herself the goal: then why, intent to teaze
And rob her delicate spirit of its ease,
Hastes she to range me with inconstant minds?
If she should die, if I were left at large
On earth without her—I, on earth, the same
Quick mortal with a thousand cries, her spell
She fears would break. And I confront the charge
As sorrowing, and as careless of my fame

My love he built me a bonny bower,
And clad it a wi lilye flower.
A brawer bower ye ne'er did see
Than my true love he built for me.

There came a man by middle day,
He spied his sport and went away,
And brought the king that very night,
Who brake my bower, and slew by knight.

He slew my knight to me sae dear.
He slew my knight and poind his gear.
My servants all for life did flee
And left me in extremitie.

I sew'd his sheet, making my mane,
I watched the corpse myself alane,
I watched his body night and day.

Come home to me, are you come home to me,
O heart of mine—but in what dolorous guise!
And the great hour, O 'twas otherwise
Love had imagined it in days to be!
These pleading hands—these lips—How dreadfully,
At what strange lips and in what alien eyes
Have you sought mine? Beneath what darkening skies
Come home to me at last, come home to me?

I would not know the reason: here upon
This breast of sorrows loose your aching breast;
Tell me again and yet again, and say
Still the eternal word, still babble on

There's a wideness in God's mercy,
Like the wideness of the sea;
There's a kindness in his justice,
Which is more than liberty.

For the love of God is broader
Than the measures of man's mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.

If our love were but more simple,
We should take him at his word,
And our lives would be all sunshine
In the sweetness of our Lord.

God bless the master of this house,
Likewise the mistress too:
And all the little children
That round the table go.

Love and joy come to you,
And to your wassail too,
And God bless you and send you
A happy New Year.

Tho ' 't is all but a dream at the best,
And still, when happiest, soonest o'er,
Yet, even in a dream, to be blest
Is so sweet, that I ask for no more.
The bosom that opes
With earliesThopes,
The soonest finds those hopes untrue;
As flowers that first
In spring-time burst
The earliest wither too!
Ay—'t is all but a dream, etc.

Tho' by friendship we oft are deceived,
And find love's sunshine soon o'ercast,
Yet friendship will still be believed.
And love trusted on to the last.
The web 'mong the leaves
The spider weaves

O Night divine, mother of all things fair,
Thou that dost know Love's revels—hear my prayer!
When Heliodora's arms that cozen sleep
In her warm couch their willing prisoner keep,
Do thou put out the light, while on her breast
Rocked like Endymion by a goddess' side I rest.