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How Sweet Is the Language of Love

1. How sweet is the language of love, Which dwells on the penitents' tongue! The
3. Immanuel's glory the theme, Our hearts are inflamed with desire; Or
theme of their heavenly joys, The notes of Immanuel's song!
while of his suffering we tell, We wonder, repent, and admire.
2. 'Twas thus with the converts of old, Though prisons and chains were their lot; At
4. O loving Redeemer, we come, With panting and longing to be As-
midnight, when Jesus appeared, They sang, and their bands were forgot.
sured of sweet pardon and peace, And wholly conformed to thee.

How strangely this sun reminds me of my love!

How strangely this sun reminds me of my love!
Of my walk alone at evening, when like the cottage smoke
Hope vanished into the red fading of the sky.
I remember my strained listening to his voice
My staring at his face and taking the photograph
With the river behind, and the woods touched by Spring:
Till the identification of a morning —
Expansive sheets of blue rising from fields
Roaring movements of light discerned under shadow —
With his figure leaning over a map, is now complete.
What is left of that smoke which the wind blew away?

Madrigal

How should I love my best?
What though my love unto that height be grown,
That taking joy in you alone
I utterly this world detest,
Should I not love it yet as th'only place
Where Beauty hath his perfect grace,
And is possest?

But I beauties despise,
You, universal beauty seem to me,
Giving and shewing form and degree
To all the rest, in your fair eyes,
Yet should I not love them as parts whereon
Your beauty, their perfection
And top, doth rise?

But ev'n my self I hate,
So far my love is from the least delight

Eternity of Love Protested

How ill doth he deserve a Lovers name,
Whose pale weak flame
Cannot retain
His heat in spight of absence or disdain;
But doth at once, like paper set on fire,
Burn and expire;
True love can never change his seat,
Nor did he ever love, that could retreat.

That noble flame, which my brest keeps alive,
Shall still survive,
When my soule 's fled;
Nor shall my love dye, when my bodye 's dead,
That shall wait on me to the lower shade,
And never fade:
My very ashes in their urn,
Shall, like a hallowed Lamp, for ever burn.

Postscript

Of course nostalgia Of course brooding

Give me the missing scattered through twelve states & three continents
Give me those scattered as ash

Give them their places at the table I have set
For them as much as for those gathered

How little it takes: a year ten years
A shiver fast passing & the eye clears

What was love once casts off disguises

— A cardinal's flare against forsythia simplified by snow —

What once was love spurns shallow guises & returns
startling as love






Song

How do I love you?
— I do not know.
Only because of you
— Gladly I go.

Only because of you
— Labor is sweet,
And all the song of you
— Sings in my feet.

Only the thought of you
— Trembles and lies
Just where the world begins —
— Under my eyes.

Words! Words!

How did it happen that we quarreled?
We two who loved each other so!
Only the moment before we were one,
Using the language that lovers know.
And then of a sudden, a word, a phrase
That struck at the heart like a poignard's blow.
And you went berserk, and I saw red,
And love lay between us, bleeding and dead!
Dead! When we'd loved each other so!

How could it happen that we quarreled!
Think of the things we used to say!
“What does it matter, dear, what you do?
Love such as ours has to last for aye!”

Holy Father, Great Creator

1. Holy Father, great creator, Source of mercy, love, and peace,
2. Holy Jesus, Lord of glory, Whom angelic hosts proclaim,
Look upon the Mediator, Clothe us with his righteousness;
While we hear thy wondrous story, Meet and worship in thy Name,
Heavenly Father, Heavenly Father, Through the Saviour hear and bless;
Dear Redeemer, dear Redeemer, In our hearts thy peace proclaim,
Heavenly Father, Heavenly Father, Through the Saviour hear and bless.
Dear Redeemer, dear Redeemer, In our hearts thy peace proclaim.

3. Holy Spirit, Sanctifier,

Pure Simple Love

Hide not thy love and myne shal bee
Open and free;
No mask dooth well upon thy face.
Lett those that meane more hurt provide
Love of a guide,
Or of some close retyring place.
A harmles kisse would make us thinck
Love hath no Nectar else to drinck.

Our loves are not of age to will
Both good and ill,
For thine, alas, is but new borne,
And myne is yett to yonge to speake.
How can they breake
Or hold Loves civill Lawes in skorne?
Wee might go naked if some spie,
Apt to traduce us, stood not by.