Most sweet it were that thou shouldst care for me
(If only it could be so!)—
And yet my passionate deep love for thee
Has its own crown to show.

The half of love that thou couldst give away
Would make my whole heart beat.
Yet I may love thee more with each new day:
Love's other half is sweet.

That thou wilt faithful be, and full of love and sweetness;
That thou wilt let fair Love to exquisite completeness
Round off our marriage-song,
I pray. I pray that through the years that stretch before us
God's sun may ever shine with tenderer bounty o'er us:
I pray that my love's strength may make thee strong.

I pray that every day, as day past day goes gliding,
I may be at thy side with gentlest love and guiding,
With tenderest voice and heart,—
Bestowing upon thee the love that I have lavished

Affections, passions, many there may be
In the soul's life. But one
Great love brings absolute fierce sovereignty:
Stars tremble at the sun.

The great love gathers in its wide embrace
Affections, passions all.
Where there were many, now shines but one face;
The old love-temples fall.

This is the wonder of surpassing love;
Its marvel and its doom.
A sudden wind sweeps grimly from above
And leaves one flower in bloom:

One, only one. Man rises to his height
Of being when he knows
That love for one alone can flood life's night

We know not yet what heavenly love shall be,
Save that it shall be sweet.
Yet this I know: that utmost heaven one me
Shines, when I hear thy feet.

Heaven will be glad and full of calm to me,
Dead will be all despair,
If but my glance may fall again on thee,—
If only thou art there!

Because thou hast not made me smile, but thou
Hast made me weep,
I know that I shall love thee even as now
When death brings sleep.

Because at last I tremble as I fall
Before Love's feet,
I know I love thee, sweetheart, more than all
Who made life sweet.

Because at last I sorrow and am afraid
And dread Love's hand,—
Because an agony lest loveless shade
Blot out Love's land

Possesses me,—I know that all my heart
Is thine indeed,
And that strong love of thee, not love of Art,
Is now my creed.

When Heine lay upon his bed of pain
Helpless, the end being near,
Love sought his couch, and sought it like a fane,
Brightening the prospect drear.

Young love was near him on that dying bed.
A young girl's gentle heart
Yearned over Heine's world-worn weary head
And worshipped Heine's Art.

He loved her with the love intense and wild
A genius-spirit brings:
She on this earth of ours as yet a child;—
He 'mid the next world's kings.

So when he died, their spirits could not part.
She held him with her bloom;

I used to love fair Art with golden wings;
I loved her like a bride;
I met her by blue streams and forest springs;
I wandered at her side.

The sunsets held her, and the morning's gold
Circled her peerless hair:
Deep fern and heather draped the summer wold,
And buoyant Art was there.

And in sweet music Art's sweet spirit spoke;
And over the wild sea
Her face like sudden lustrous morning broke
Triumphant upon me.

So all my youth was passed. I worshipped her,
Fair Art, with love supreme,
And brought her all my hopes, and I laid bare

If I love thee with love surpassing and excelling
All love that song or strange high history hath for telling,
All love-dreams of the past,
Then wilt not thou love me with love that never dreamer
In noblest moments dreamed,—love softer and supremer?
Will thy love-look not seek mine at the last?

If I can bring thee love outweighing and exceeding
The common love of man, wilt thou not hear its pleading
With tenderer than the heart
Of women who are crowned with love that lasts no longer
Than bloom of summer rose? If thus my soul be stronger

Beauty thou hast to thrill the hearts of men:
But wilt thou seek for nothing more?
Not seek the loveliness that lasteth when
Life's loveliness is o'er?

Win thou a glory of sweet heart and mind
As noble as thy face is sweet:
Let me, love-seeking, ever surely find
Christ's eyes when thine I meet.

There is a love so deep it travels far
Beyond the reach of words. E'en love-songs jar
When the great depths are stirred.
The blue vast heaven responds to God who made
Its depths profound of awful light and shade
Sometimes without one word.

When heaven is full of love, no thunders leap
Along the heights of the abysmal steep:
Nay! all is silent then.
There is a love so full of silent peace
That even solemn stately love-chants cease
Or are not heard of men.

O love, be with me in my silent hours
And gather sweeter than the old song-flowers