Desire and hope have moved my mind
To seek for that I cannot find,
Assured faith in woman-kind;
And love with love rewarded.
Self-love all but himself disdains;
Suspect as chiefest virtue reigns;
Desire of change, unchanged remains:
So light is love regarded.

True friendship is a naked name,
That idle brains in pastime frame;
Extremes are always worthy blame,
Enough is common kindness.
What floods of tears do lovers spend,
What sighs from out their hearts they send,
How many may, and will not mend?

In the distance dark and grey
Fades my former bliss from view,
To one star my glances stray
Basking in its gentle dew —
But a star, alas! whose light
Glitters only in the night.

Didst thou sleep thy final sleep,
Were thine eyes for ever dimmed,
In my heart engraven deep
Still thy memory would be limned.
But, alas! in light enshrined,
To my worship thou art blind.

Can the hope which love instils,
Can it, Emma, transient prove?
What no longer lives and thrills,
Emma, how can that be Love?

A bounding satyr, golden in the beard,
That leaps with goat-feet high into the air,
And crushes from the thyme an odour rare,
Keeps watch around the marble tomb revered
Of Sophocles, the poet loved and feared,
Whose sovereign voice once called out of her lair
The Dorian muse severe, with braided hair.
Who loved the thyrsus and wild dances weird.
Here all day long the pious bees can pour
Libations of their honey; round this tomb
The Dionysiac ivy loves to roam:
The satyr laughs; but He awakes no more,

The fairest pearls that Northern seas do breed,
For precious stones from Eastern coasts are sold;
Nought yields the earth that from exchange is freed,
Gold values all, and all things value gold:
Where goodness wants an equal change to make,
There greatness serves, or number place doth take.

No mortal thing can bear so high a price,
But that with mortal thing it may be bought;
The corn of Sicil buys the Western spice;
French wine of us, of them our cloth is sought:
No pearls, no gold, no stones, no corn, no spice,

I have drunk deep of love: last night she came
And with her kisses set my soul aflame.
Such fragrant nectar even gods above
May scarcely know: I have drunk deep of love.

My heart goes out to France, the Queen in war,
In carnival and love; the gay, the brave.
To that young blue-eyed Breton who would save
A dance for Death or for his Belle Aurore.
Who keeps so purely in his heart the lore
Of love and honor while the tyrant guns
Spume at his wisp of flesh their flaring tons,
White hot from maddened ages gone before.
The world's barometer is in that lad —
That Breton peasant against whom is hurled
The wild, down-leaping chariot of Mars.
When France is laughing all the Earth is glad.

The soldier worn with wars, delights in peace,
The pilgrim in his ease, when toils are past;
The ship to gain the port, when storms do cease;
And I rejoice discharged from Love at last,
Whom while I served, peace, rest, and land I lost,
With wars, with toils, with storms, worn, tired and tost.

Sweet liberty now gives me leave to sing,
What world it was, where Love the rule did bear;
How foolish chance by lots ruled ev'ry thing,
How error was main sail, each wave a tear,
The master Love himself, deep sighs were wind,

If Love had lost his shafts, and Jove down threw
His thunder-bolts, or spent his forked fire,
They only might recovered be anew
From out my heart, cross-wounded with desire.
Or if debate by Mars were lost a space,
It might be found within the self-same place.

If Neptune's waves were all dried up and gone,
My weeping eyes so many tears distill,
That greater seas might grow by them alone:
Or if no flame were yet remaining still
In Vulcan's forge, he might from out my breast
Make choice of such as should befit him best.

Love took his seal and in thy breast
The image of me there impressed,
I in my heart thy picture have
Which that same artist did engrave.
Pluto below, the Sun above,
Shall see the witness of my love,
And never, never did I fear
That thou my likeness forth would tear.
So when we to death's judgment come
Thou must endure the traitor's doom.

Yesterday I sat between
Kate and Flo;
Flo loves me and I love Kate,
I was in a pretty state:
What was I to do?

Florence quick to me did lean,
Kissed me so:
Jealous of my other dear,
She will tell on us, I fear.
What then could I do?

I was feeling rather mean,
Longed to go;
Turned to Kitty like a thief,
Snatched one kiss—'twas all too brief—
That I had to do.

But I'm sure there'll be a scene
'Twixt the two;
Kisses into trouble lead,
Whether given or received.
What am I to do?