I asked my heart to say
Some word whose worth my love's devoir might pay
Upon my Lady's natal day.

Then said my heart to me:
Learn from the rhyme that now shall come to thee
What fits thy Love most lovingly.

This gift that learning shows;
For, as a rhyme unto its rhyme-twin goes,
I send a rose unto a Rose.

I.

I have been wont to bear my head on high,
Haughty and stern am I of mood and mien;
Yea, tho' a king should gaze on me, I ween,
I should not at his gaze cast down my eye.

But I will speak, dear Mother, candidly:
When most puffed up my haughty mood hath been,
At thy sweet presence, blissful and serene,
I feel the shudder of humility.

Does thy soul all unknown my soul subdue,
Thy lofty soul that pierces all things thro'

Consumed by love of Beauty, and aflame
At human heart with half-celestial fire,
Kindled by torch of sensuous desire,
At once his torment, happiness, and shame,
A glow more fierce than frosty age could tame,
Buonarroti taught this blaze aspire
Burning to sacred incense on the pyre
Of pure devotion to Colonna's name.
Yet even when kneeling on the brink of death,
Praying for grace, confessing earthly love,
He would condone it with a chastening rod,
And justify, with penitential breath,
Passion akin to nobler hopes above,

More strange than death to all regrets,
Love gives no tear to passion sped:
Its frozen heart at once forgets
The wronged, the absent, and the dead.
We see the wave that Venus rides, —
We do not see the doom it hides.

Fierce, boundless, fetterless, supreme,
Relentless, glorious, mindless, gay,
Love grants us one supernal dream,
One vision, one ecstatic day;
In fate's dull book one fiery page, —
Of bliss an hour, of woe an age.

Be the red roses never more
Companions to a thought of mine!

Snowdrops in my garden grow,
Tulips there and jonquils blow,
Hyacinths and asphodels,
Pinks and Canterbury-bells: —
Lady-in-the-Green grows there,
And Love-in-a-Mist
Springs up wild!
Mother says I'm but a child,
I do not care!
Lady-in-the-Green grows there,
Love-in-a-Mist springs up wild.

Prince's-feather, hollyhock,
Poppy, primrose, four-o'clock,
Marigold and violet,
Lavender and mignonette: —
Lady-in-the-Green grows there,
And Love-in-a-Mist
Springs up wild!
Mother says I'm but a child,

With myrtles and roses, tender and fair,
With funeral cypress, and gilding rare,
As though 'twere a coffin my book I'll adorn
And in it my songs to their rest shall be borne.

Could I coffin my love too, deep in the tomb!
On love's grave the fair flower of peace may bloom;
On such grave it blooms, there 'tis culled — but for me
It never will bloom till in earth I be.

And here are the songs which were reckless erst
As the lava streams that from Etna burst;
They broke from my spirit's depths profound

I have a place where I may go,
And keep myself apart;
Sometime a room within a house;
Sometime within the heart,

Of a long bramble by a wall,
Pink-petaled in the clod;
And there I steep in loveliness,
And hear god call to god.

For loveliness is not in bulk;
A rose may harbor me,—
(A thing in need of lovely things)—
Or a tower by the sea.

Love, when we met, 'twas like two planets meeting.
Strange chaos followed; body, soul, and heart
Seemed shaken, thrilled, and startled by that greeting
Old ties, old dreams, old aims, all torn apart
And wrenched away, left nothing there the while
But the great shining glory of your smile.

I knew no past; 'twas all a blurred, bleak waste;
I asked no future; 'twas a blinding glare.
I only saw the present: as men taste
Some stimulating wine, and lose all care,
I tasted Love's elixir, and I seemed

Afar-off shore
And a beating tide.
With a rustling breeze
Away we ride,—
Sing for the sea,
Sing, sing cheerily.

Swift our painted bow
Cuts the hissing foam,
Swift fly the eddies behind,
Swift we rush towards home,
Sing for the sea,
Sing, sing cheerily.

On the white beach stands,
My love with her flowing hair.
She waves her small hands
For love, not despair;
Sing for the sea,
Sing, sing cheerily.

O! blow heavy breeze,
Bend our mast, load our sail.
Rush and dash onward fast,

Oh, you who love me not, tell me some way
Whereby I may forget you for a space;
Nay, clean forget you and your lovely face —
Yet well I know how vain this prayer I pray.
All weathers hold you. Can I make the May
Forbid her boughs blow white in every place?
Or rob June of her rose that comes apace?
Cheat of their charm the elder months and gray?
Aye, were you dead, you could not be forgot:
So sparse the bloom along the lanes would be;
Such sweetness out the briery hedges fled;
My tears would fall that you had loved me not,