Thou wert the morning star among the living
Ere thy fair light had fled;--
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendour to the dead.
Language has not the power to speak what love indites;
The Soul lies buried in the ink that writes.

Those men who love the crwth and harp,
Cynghanedd, song, the englyn's art,
They love the best things God has given
To please his angel-hosts in heaven.

Those charming eyes within whose starry sphere
Love whilom sat, and smiled the hours away, —
Those braids of light, that shamed the beams of day, —
That hand benignant, and that heart sincere, —
Those virgin cheeks, which did so late appear
Like snow-banks scattered with the blooms of May,
Turned to a little cold and worthless clay,
Are gone, forever gone, and perished here, —

But not unbathed by Memory's warmest tear!
Death thou hast torn, in one unpitying hour,
That fragrant plant, to which, while scarce a flower,

Tho I die on a distant strand,
And they give me a grave in that land,
Yet carry me back to my own city!
Carry me back to her grace and pity!
For I think I could not rest
Afar from her mighty breast.
She is fairer than others are
Whom they sing the beauty of.
Her heart is a song and a star —
My cool, grey city of love.

Tho they tear the rose from her brow,
To her is ever my vow;
Ever to her I give my duty —
First in rapture and first in beauty,
Wayward, passionate, brave,
Glad of the life God gave.

WITH THE POEMS OF CAMOËNS

This votive pledge of fond esteem,
Perhaps, dear girl! for me thou 'lt prize;
It sings of Love's enchanting dream,
A theme we never can despise.

Who blames it but the envious fool,
The old and disappointed maid;
Or pupil of the prudish school,
In single sorrow doom'd to fade?

Then read, dear girl! with feeling read,
For thou wilt ne'er be one of those;

This torment of love
that is in my heart,
I know I feel it
and know not why.

I feel the keen pangs
of a frenzy desired
whose beginning is longing
and end melancholy.

And when I my sorrow
more softly bewail,
I know I am sad
and know not why.

I feel for the juncture
I crave a fierce panting,
and when I come nigh it
withhold mine own hand.

For if haply it offers
after much weary vigil,
mistrust spoils its savour
and terror dispels it.
...
Now patient, now fretful,

Sure of successe, to you I boldly write,
Whilst Love, does every tender line endite.
Love, who is justly President of verse,
Which all his servants write, or else rehearse.
Phaebus, how'ere mistaken Poets dream,
N'er us'd a Verse, 'till Love became his theam,
To his stray'd Son, still as his passion rose
He rais'd his hasty voyce, in clamerous prose,
But when in Daphne , he wou'd Love inspire,
He woo'd in verse, sett to his silver lyre,
In moving Verse, that did her heart assail,
And cou'd on all, but Chastity prevail.

I ask not what the bud may be,
That hangs upon the green-sheathed stem;
But love with every leaf I see,
To lie unfolded there like them.

I ask not what the tree may bear,
When whitened by the hand of spring;
But with its blossoms on the air,
Would far around my perfume fling.

The infant's joy is mine, is mine,
I join its infant sports with glee;
And would not for a world resign,
The look of love it casts on me.

Leave not the bird upon the wing,
But with her seek her shaded nest,

This is the gospel of labour, ring it, ye bells of the kirk!
The Lord of Love came down from above, to live with the men who work.
This is the rose that He planted, here in the thorn-curst soil:
Heaven is blest with perfect rest, but the blessing of Earth is toil.

WITH A COPY OF " MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN. "

This is the golden book spirit and sense,
The holy writ of beauty; he that wrought
Made it with dreams and faultless words and thought
That seeks and finds and loses in the dense
Dim air of life that beauty's excellence
Wherewith love makes one hour of life distraught,
And all hours after follow and find not aught.
Here is that height of all love's eminence
Where man may breathe but for a breathing space,