Reputation, Love, and Death,
(The last all bones, the first all breath,
The midst composed of restless fire)
From each other would retire;
Through the world resolved to stray,
Every one a several way;
Exercising, as they went,
Each such power as Fate had lent;
Which, if it united were,
Wretched mortals could not bear.
But, as parting friends do show
To what place they mean to go,
Correspondence to engage,
Nominate their utmost stage;
Death declare he would be found
Near the fatal trumpet's sound;
Or where pestilences reign,

Haste not to joy: harbor the sweet suspense.
The sun surprises not the world with light
But dawns with ever-lessening reticence,
Nor is the starry curtain of the night
Let fall ungently. Yon full river flood
Paused often at some meditative pool.
The rose holds back its glory in the bud
And Nature's temple has its vestibule.

So let your wooing be: first, with such look
That Fate must wait till your one word be spoken;
Then choice; then tenderness; and then the token
Of clasping hands, caressing and carressed.

“Il n'y a pas d'amitié sans un peu de tendresse”

Friendship there is in Love or Love were not
The bond that holds the rolling world in leash:
But may not Love in Friendship be as true
A consecration and as firm a troth?
Even in Love more blessed 'tis to give
Than to receive. The magnet draws the steel
That leaps to the embrace: does it complain
It cannot draw the magnet? Landor wrote:
“There is delight in singing though none hear
Beside the singer.” Ask the tenderest
If this be not as true of loving, or

Love's meetest emblems are the flowers,
The blushing flowers of Spring —
Then bring me, dear, to charm my hours
Sweet leaves and blossoms bring.

I ask not gems or costly toys —
Their brightest ray is cold;
And ours are simpler, purer joys
Than can be won by gold.

The gems endure, the roses fade,
Yet something in the heart
Still tells that Love is best portrayed
By Nature, not by Art.

The dews, that tremble on the leaf,
But make its tints appear
More beautiful than aught so brief,

O MADE for Love but unto Duty lost,
How fares it on the stony road of years?
Are there no sleepless dawns, no midnight tears
To show the one thou art the one thou wast?
Dost thou ne'er linger where the pathways crossed,
(Each like a blade of Fate's relentless shears),
While the old wistfulness o'er-sweeps thy fears?
In no weak moment countest thou the cost?

The cost! the cost!—but not to thee alone;
For who can reckon loss of thoughts unshared,
Sunsets unseen, and songs but spoken of?
What is the fireside if it warm but one?

Come , boy, and where the grass is thickest pied,
With robber hand cut the green season's bloom,
Then flinging open armfuls strew the room
With flowers that April bears in her young pride.

Then set my lyre, song's handmaid, by my side —
For if I may, I'll charm away the gloom
That like a poison worketh to consume
My life, through power of beauty undefied.

Then bring me ink and countless papers white —
White paper shall bear witness to my woe,
Whereon the record of this love I'll write.

Sunburnt Summer less devours,
Less chill is Winter's bitterness,
The bowers in Spring have fewer flowers,
Autumn's grapes are less,

There are less fish in all the sea,
La Beauce hath fewer harvestings,
You'll see less sands in Brittany,
And in Auvergne less springs,

The night less flaming torches wears,
The woods, less leaves to watch them through,
Than bears my heart of pains and cares,
Love, for love of you.

If this be love, my Lady — day and night
To think, muse, dream, of naught but how to please,
To do naught else but seek to serve your ease,
And worship you, who work me most despite;

If this be love — in long and lonely flight
To follow ever joy that ever flees
And find a desert, watered with pain's lees,
A place of silence and of lost delight;

If this be love — to live far more in you
Than in myself; and when I seek to woo,
Abashed, to find no word to urge my suit,
Torn with unequal strife at every breath,

The moon each month is blenched
Brighter to rise;
But once life's light is quenched,
Then shall our eyes
Long sleep be taking,
With no awaking.

Then kiss me, while we live
Above the ground!
A thousand kisses give —
Love knows no bound.
To His divinity
Belongs infinity.

While this green month is fleeting,
Oh! come, my pretty sweeting,
Waste not in vain thy ring-time!
Sly age, ere we've an inkling
Thereof, our hair is sprinkling —
He passeth even as Spring-time.

Then, while, our life is crying
For love, and Time is flying,
Come, love, come reap desire.
Pass love from vein to vein!
Swift comes old Death — and then
All joys expire.