A great king made a feast for Love,
And golden was the board and gold
The hundred, wondrous gauds thereof;
Soft lights like roses fell above
Rare dishes exquisite and fine;
In jeweled goblets shone the wine--
A great king made a feast for Love.

Yet Love as gladly and full-fed hath fared
Upon a broken crust that two have shared;
And from scant wine as glorious dreams drawn up
Seeing two lovers kissed above the cup.

A great king made for Love's delight
A temple wonderful wherein
Served jeweled priest and acolyte;

My love it should be silent, being deep--
And being very peaceful should be still--
Still as the utmost depths of ocean keep--
Serenely silent as some mighty hill.

Yet is my love so great it needs must fill
With very joy the inmost heart of me,
The joy of dancing branches on the hill,
The joy of leaping waves upon the sea.

All that I know of love I see
In eyes that never look at me;
All that I know of love I guess
But from another's happiness.

A beggar at the window I,
Who, famished, looks on revelry;
A slave who lifts his torch to guide
The happy bridegroom to his bride.

My granddam told me once of one
Whom all her village spat upon,
Seeing the church from out its breast
Had cast him cursed and unconfessed.

An outcast he who dared not take
The wafer that God's vicars break,
But dull-eyed watched his neighbours pass

This antique song, new sung in fashion new,
From me, half silent fallen, with love to you,
O singer of unvexed scenes and virgin themes
In strait, quaint, ancient metres, thronged with dreams!

Sullenly falls the rain,
Still hangs the dripping leaf,
And ah, the pain!--
The slow, dull ache of my grief,
That throbs--"In vain, in vain,--
You have garnered your sheaf!"

You have garnered your sheaf, with the tares
Therein, and unripe wheat,--
All that Death spares,
Who has come with too swift feet,
Not turning for any prayers
Nor all who entreat.

They entreated with tears. But I--
Ah me, all I can say
Is only a cry!
I had loved you many a day,
Yet never had fate drawn nigh
My way to your way.

Love, if you love me, love with heart and soul!
I am not liberal as some lovers are,
Accepting small return, and scanty dole,
Gratefully glad to worship from afar.

Ah, love me passionately, or not at all!
For love that counts the cost I have small need.
My fingers would with laughing scorn let fall
That poor half-love so many lovers heed.


Then be mine wholly,--body, soul, and brain!
Your memory shall outlive kings. For Time
Forgets his cunning and assails in vain
Her whose name rings along the poet's rhyme.

Afloat!--
Ah Love, on the mirror of waters
All the world seems with us afloat,--
All the wide, bright world of the night;
But the mad world of men is remote,
And the prating of tongues is afar.
We have fled from the crowd in our flight,
And beyond the gray rim of the waters
All the turmoil has sunk from our sight.
Turn your head, Love, a little, and note
Low down in the south a pale star.
The mists of the horizon-line drench it,
The beams of the moon all but quench it,
Yet it shines thro' this flood-tide of light.
Love, under that star is the world

Love, what were fame,
And thou not in it,
That I should hold it worth
Much toil to win it?

What were success
Didst thou not share it?
As Spring can spare the snows
I well could spare it!

Love, what were love
But of thy giving
That it should much prevail
To sweeten living?

Nay, what were life,
Save thou inspire it,
That I should bid my soul
Greatly desire it?

And friends fell from me--all, save God, and one
Beside--and she my mother--gentle, true.
As the bleak wind sweeps o'er the trembling limbs
Of some fair tree denuded of its dress,
How oft is seen, upon the topmost spray,
One lonely leaf, which braves the passing storm
Of Winter, and when gladsome Spring arrives,
And blossoms bloom in beauty all around,
It bends its brow and silent falls away.
So droopt that friend, who, through the livelong day
Of icy cold that chill'd my inmost life,
Sat like a bird upon the outside branch,

My sorrowing heart is like the blasted oak
That claspt the dazzling lightning to its breast,
Yielding its life up to the burning kiss.
Springs came along and fondled all in vain,
And Summers toy'd with warm and am'rous breath;
But nought in life could e'er again restore
The greening foliage of its early days.
Man never loves but once--then 'tis a cast
For life or death. If death--alas the day!
If life--'twere perfect Paradise.