I do confess, in many a sigh,
My lips have breath'd you many a lie,
And who, with such delights in view,
Would lose them for a lie or two?
Nay — look not thus, with brow reproving:
Lies are, my dear, the soul of loving!
If half we tell the girls were true,
If half we swear to think and do,
Were aught but lying's bright illusion,
The world would be in strange confusion!
If ladies' eyes were, every one,
As lovers swear, a radiant sun,
Astronomy should leave the skies,
To learn her lore in ladies' eyes!
Oh no! — believe me, lovely girl,

I COULD make you songs
Beautiful and frail;
Since you will not listen
What will these avail?

I could paint my mouth—
Brush and curl my hair;
Why should I be lovely
Since you do not care?

Lights have beckoned me
Uselessly. My Dear—
How can I be happy
While you are not here?

1. I bless thee, Lord, for sorrows sent, To break my
2. I take thy hand, and fears grow still; Behold thy
dream of human power; For now, my shallow
face, and doubts remove; Who would not yield his
cisterns spent, I find thy founts, and thirst no more.
wavering will To perfect truth and boundless love?

3. That love this restless soul doth teach
The strength of thine eternal calm;
And tune its sad and broken speech
To join, on earth, the angels' psalm.

4. O be it patient in thy hands,
And drawn, through each mysterious hour,

I BEG the pardon of these flowers
For bringing them to one whose hair
Alone doth shame, beyond compare,
The sweetest blooms of richest bowers.

I beg the pardon of this maid
For offering them with hand less pure,
A heart less perfect, needing cure
By Love's own music, softly played.

I am thy fugitive, thy votary,
Nor even thy mother tempts me from thy shrine:
Mirror, nor gold, nor ornament of mine
Appease her: thou art all my gods to me,
And I so breathless in my loyalty,
Youth hath slipped by and left no footprint sign:
Yet there are footsteps nigh. My years decline.
Decline thy years? Burns thy torch duskily?
Lord Love, to thy great altar I retire;
Time doth pursue me, age is on my brow,
And there are cries and shadows of the night.
Transform me, for I cannot quit thee now:
Love, thou hast weapons visionary, bright —

I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love — put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.

He will not be too deeply in Love

I am enamored, and yet not so much
But that I'd do without it easily;
And my own mind thinks all the more of me
That Love has not quite penned me in his hutch.
Enough if for his sake I dance and touch
The lute, and serve his servants cheerfully:
An overdose is worse than none would be:
Love is no lord of mine, I'm proud to vouch.
So let no woman who is born conceive

I am a roving gambler, I've gambled all around,
Wherever I meet with a deck of cards I lie my money down.

2

I've gambled down in Washington and I've gambled over in Spain;
I am on my way to Georgia to knock down my last game.

3

I had not been in Washington many more weeks than three,
Till I fell in love with a pretty little girl and she fell in love with me.

4

She took me in her parlor, she cooled me with her fan,
She whispered low in her mother's ears, " I love this gambling man! "

5

The hunched camels of the night
Trouble the bright
And silver waters of the moon.
The Maiden of the Morn will soon
Through Heaven stray and sing,
Star gathering.
Now while the dark about our loves is strewn,
Light of my dark, blood of my heart, O come!
And night will catch her breath up, and be dumb.

Leave thy father, leave thy mother
And thy brother;
Leave the black tents of thy tribe apart!
Am I not thy father and thy brother,
And thy mother?
And thou--what needest with thy tribe's black tents

How they came into the world,
the women-loving-women
came in three by three
and four by four
the women-loving-women
came in ten by ten
and ten by ten again
until there were more
than you could count

they took care of each other
the best they knew how
and of each other's children,
if they had any.

How they lived in the world,
the women-loving-women
learned as much as they were allowed
and walked and wore their clothes
the way they liked
whenever they could. They did whatever