The gifts of Youth are passing fair:
Through many a soft spring day
Their tender fragrance scents the air,
But — then they pass away!
— Hope, dying ere its blossom glows:
Faith in the false world's truth:
Faith in the swiftly fading rose: —
These are the gifts of Youth.

But fairer are the gifts Love brings;
Is there one humble cot,
One palace of a thousand kings
Where star-crowned Love is not?
— A rapture passing earthly speech:
Light stolen from heaven above:
The power, it seems, that heaven to reach: —

I.

Once more, with skies above her
Of endless perfect air,
With sunlit leaves to love her
And whisper, " Thou art fair; "
Once more — and statelier, surer,
When summer's hymn was done —
From woman's mouth came purer
The anthems of the sun:
Once more, in honeyed metre
That charmed grief to repose,
From woman's lips came sweeter
The lyrics of the rose.

II.

How blest are they whom mutual passions move
To seal a contract at the shrine of love;
From whose fond hearts the same affections flow,
To join in pleasure, and partake of woe.
If thro' life's course full prosp'rous blows the gale,
And fortune revels in the swelling sail;
One heart expands to see the other fill,
Whilst each anticipates its partner's will.
One just is pleas'd as th'other teems with joy,
And mutual pleasures flow without alloy.
Their wish, when death the busy scene wou'd close,
One tomb to clasp them in their last repose.

Summers have passed — yea, many a glowing morn,
And many a moonlit wonderful soft night
Since thou wast from my eager longing torn;
Yea, since that day full many a rosebud bright
Hath bloomed amid the fields of our delight,
And the great golden stars have glimmered down
On many passions as they reached their height.
How many loves have granted love's sweet crown,
While love's old petals withered yet and brown
Remain for me — no hand but thine can give
Bloom to the leaves that darken 'neath thy frown,

Back to the smoke-fed city from the sea
Thou, stronger than the sea's hand, drawest me:
Back, past green hill-side, flower and field and tree,
To where the eternal fog-bound turrets rise.

For thy sake dearer than the mountain-air
And than the breezy cliff-tops even more fair
Are the dim robes of mist the houses wear
Beneath their sunless moonless starless skies.

Thou biddest me return, and lo! I leave
The golden-coloured morn, the crimson eve;
Thy queenly laughing mandate I receive,
And bend before the sovereign in thine eyes.

We rule the blue-green waves that round our shores
For ever surge. In vain the tempest roars;
The sea yields, and the land:
But death and love evade our conquering will.
We strive to master them. They cheat us still
With unique sleight of hand.

The humblest cottage-home, whose garden gleams
With scented English blossoms, has its dreams
Of love and death, alas!
Beside our hamlets ever stands the church,
And white tombs near it — under elm or birch,
Nestling in dark-green grass.

The kingliest race is subject unto death.

" How lovely is that curve of dazzling breast!
Now am I blest
Beyond all words, in that thou art so fair! " She . —
" Thou art the stronger. Teach me, love, to be
Ever to thee
True helper. In life's struggle let me share! " He . —

" The starlit heaven is less sweet than thine eyes:
Within them lies
An unknown passionate world beyond my dream. " She . —
" Yet must we, prisoners in this world of woe,
Climb from below

There is a point at which the burning soul
Collects, as into one tremendous flame,
Each perilous desire and every aim,
Determining to sacrifice the whole.
Then all God's voices and his thunders roll
Like gathering tides across the shaken sand
Whereon this spirit's trembling feet do stand,
And the wide earth is as a parchment scroll
Engraved with fiery letters: " Thou shalt die
And be forgotten, even as a star
That flames, and it has vanished from the sky, —
Even as a comet gleaming from afar,

( " Vous êtes singulier. " )

Marion ( smiling ). You're strange, and yet I love you thus.
D IDIER. You love me?
Beware, nor with light lips utter that word.
You love me! — know you what it is to love
With love that is the life-blood in one's veins,
The vital air we breathe, a love long-smothered,
Smouldering in silence, kindling, burning, blazing,
And purifying in its growth the soul.
Allove that from the heart eats every passion
But its sole self; love without hope or limit,
Deep love that will outlast all happiness;

I.

The sweetest love is over
This world has ever seen.
No more am I your lover!
No more are you my queen!
The stars are in the sky, love,
They glitter as of old:
Starless are you and I, love, —
Our heavens are dark and cold.

Oh, if you had been true, love,
We could have conquered pain!
My whole soul trusted you, love
— It will not trust again.
The flowers again will brighten