love

Love is indeed a glorious prize!
What fairer guerdon meets our eyes?--
Though neither wealth nor power are thine,
A very hero thou dost shine.
As of the prophet, they will tell,
Wamik and Asia's tale as well.--
They'll tell not of them,--they'll but give
Their names, which now are all that live.
The deeds they did, the toils they proved
No mortal knows! But that they loved
This know we. Here's the story true
Of Wamik and of Asia too.

Love's torments sought a place of rest,
Where all might drear and lonely be;
They found ere long my desert breast,
And nestled in its vacancy.

The mirror tells me, I am fair!

Thou sayest, to grow old my fate will be.
Nought in God's presence changeth e'er,--

Love him, for this one moment, then, in me.

So it is eighteen years,
Helena, since we met!
A season so endears,
Nor you nor I forget
The fresh young faces that once clove
In that most fiery dawn of love.

We wandered to and fro,
Who knew not how to woo,
Those eighteen years ago,
Sweetheart, when I and you
Exchanged high vows in heaven's sight
That scarce survived a summer's night.

What scourge smote from the stars
What madness from the moon?
That night we broke the bars
Was quintessential June,

Spurn not the nobly born
With love affected,
Nor treat with virtuous scorn
The well connected.
High rank involves no shame -
We boast an equal claim
With him of humble name
To be respected!
Blue blood! Blue blood!
When virtuous love is sought,
Thy power is naught,
Though dating from the Flood,
Blue blood!

Spare us the bitter pain
Of stern denials,
Nor with low-born disdain
Augment our trials.
Hearts just as pure and fair
May beat in Belgrave Square

BLUE is Our Lady’s colour,
White is Our Lord’s.
To-morrow I will wear a knot
Of blue and white cords,
That you may see it, where you ride
Among the flashing swords.

O banner, white and sunny blue,
With prayer I wove thee!
For love the white, for faith the heavenly hue,
And both for him, so tender-true,
Him that doth love me!

Blow, northerne wynd,
Send thou me my suetyng!
Blow, northerne wynd,
Blou, blou, blou!

Ichot a burde in bour{.e} bryht,
That fully semly is on syht,
Menskful maiden of myht,
Feir ant fre to fond{.e};
In al this wurhlich{.e} won,
A burde of blod and of bon
Never yete y nust{.e} non
Lussomore in lond{.e}.

With lokk{.e}s lefliche and long{.e},
With frount and fac{.e} feir to fong{.e},
With murth{.e}s moni{.e} mote heo mong{.e},

She who did not come, wasn't she determined
nonetheless to organize and decorate my heart?
If we had to exist to become the one we love,
what would the heart have to create?

Lovely joy left blank, perhaps you are
the center of all my labors and my loves.
If I've wept for you so much, it's because
I preferred you among so many outlined joys.

I love to go out in late September
among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries
to eat blackberries for breakfast,
the stalks very prickly, a penalty
they earn for knowing the black art
of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them
lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries
fall almost unbidden to my tongue,
as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words
like strengths or squinched,
many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,
which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well

Ah, my dear angry Lord,
Since thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise;
I will bewail, approve;
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament and love.