The Spring is come and winters gone
And nature all ears tingle
Sweet Nanny's put her bonnet on
For flowers wild i' the pingle
The birds are building every where
Wi hair and bents and mosses
On white thorn, black thorn, dog rose brere
Mid sheep and cows and horses

2

My love is in her gown o' green
Walking and talking still
Among the hills and hollows seen
By the old water Mill
Her face is comely as a queen
Her auburn curls hang down
Oer shoulders white as snow I ween
Set off by her green gown.

3

Dust develops
from inside
as well as
on top when
objects stop
being used.
No unguent
can soothe
the chap of
abandonment.
Who knew
the polish
and balm in
a person's
simple passage
among her things.
We knew she
loved them
but not what
love means.











From Poetry Magazine, September 2006. Used with permission.

One day a fowler-lad was out after birds in a coppice, when he espied perching upon a box-tree bough the shy retiring Love. Rejoicing that he had found what seemed him so fine a bird, he fits all his lime-rods together and lies in wait for that hipping-hopping quarry. But soon finding that there was no end to it, he flew into a rage, cast down his rods, and sought the old ploughman who had taught him his trade; and both told him what had happened and showed him where young Love did sit.

For ever on Mikane's crest,
That soars so far away,
The rain it rains in ceaseless sheets,
The snow it snows all day.

And ceaseless as the rain and snow
That fall from heaven above,
So ceaselessly, since first we met,
I love my darling love.

I

The storm that snapped our fate's one ship in twain
Hath blown my half o' the wreck from thine apart.
O Love! O Love! across the gray-waved main
To thee-ward strain my eyes, my arms, my heart.
I ask my God if e'en in His sweet place,
Where, by one waving of a wistful wing,
My soul could straightway tremble face to face
With thee, with thee, across the stellar ring —

Well, then! my gentle, Night-piece Maid,
Must we still love, in Masquerade?
Is it ordain'd, by Fate, and Thee,
I ne'er that Magic Face shall see?
Unfit shall Noon, as Midnight, prove
To bring to Light the Nymph I love?
Still, of Relief, shall I despair,
And sigh before an absent Fair?

What! shall I kiss, embrace and toy,
Yet never know who gives the Joy?
A Fairy Maid! shall I caress,
Whom, I do not, and do, possess?

I'll not take Oldfield to my Arms,

1.

From place to place, you know not why,
You haste with hurrying feet.
A gentle word the breezes sigh;
You turn in wonder sweet.

The dear one that you left behind
Has called you soft and low:
" In thee alone my joy I find;
Come back, I love thee so! "

But further, further, driven and tost,
You needs must haste and flee;
What you so dearly loved and lost,

FROM THE GREEK OF JULIAN ,

PREFECT OF EGYPT .

As a garland once I made,
In a bed of roses laid
Love I found; with eager joy,
By the wings I seiz'd the boy;
Crowning then an ample cup,
In a bumper drank him up.
Now along my veins he swims,
Fluttering, tickling through my limbs.

When Spring grows old, and sleepy winds
Set from the south with odors sweet,
I see my love, in green, cool groves,
Speed down dusk aisles on shining feet.

She throws a kiss and bids me run,
In whispers sweet as roses' breath;
I know I cannot win the race,
And at the end I know is death.

But joyfully I bare my limbs,
Anoint me with the tropic breeze,
And feel through every sinew thrill
The vigor of Hippomenes.

O race of love! we all have run
Thy happy course through groves of spring,

With jealous tears your eyes are wet,
You kiss and squeeze, you gaze and sigh:
But when I say, " I'm waiting yet,"
Behold Love's flood falls strangely dry.