Musidorus

Will you unto one single sense
Confine a starry Influence?
Or when you do the raies combine,
To themselves only make them shine?
Love that's engross'd by one alone,
Is envy, not affection

Orinda

No, Musidorus, this would be
But Friendship's prodigality;
Union in raies does not confine,
But doubles lustre when they shine,
And souls united live above
Envy, as much as scatter'd Love.
Friendship (like Rivers) as it multiplies

Do not linger, Death, for I am dying;
come, so I may live with you;
love me, because I love you,
for with your coming I hope
not to struggle with myself.

There is not, by any means,
a remedy to make life happy,
because my grave wound
has come from such a place
that only you can be my remedy.

Come, then, because I am dying;
look for me, because I follow you;
love me, because I love you,
and with your coming I hope
not to keep life in myself.


With a painful care,
discontent, sorrow and pain,

A REJOINDER .

Hence! with your jeerings petulant and low;
My love of Home no circumstance can shake;
Too ductile for the change of place to break,
And far too passionate for thee to know;
I and yon sycamore have grown together,
How on yon slope the shifting sunsets lie,
None know like me and mine; and, tending hither,
Flows the strong current of my memory;
From that same flower-bed, ever dear to me,
I learn'd how marigolds do bloom and fade;
And from the grove, which skirts this garden-glade,

Old memories come trooping down
The vistas of the years;
In blue-girt robes of pleasure clad
Or garbed in tears.

Down from the days when hope was young
And sorrow never born,
My thoughts sweep o'er remembered scenes
Unto this morn.

Though motley company they are
Of smile or tear or frown,
They hold aloft the burnished gold
Of my heart's crown.

For through it all and over all
There gleams the light serene,
On purpled walls and crimson heights
In love's demesne.

Out of the silence
I come to you,
Bringing a love
Free as the dew.

I come and sing
A heart's great love,
And passion of soul
Pure as a dove.

But this I crave
As you pass by —
A smile on your lips,
A light in your eye.

In praise of love, upon my mind
Samplers I'll make to be,
As lovers long ago designed
Emblems of courtesy,
Threading in warm and frosty wools
Their wisdom's calendars and rules.

He errs to think those hands were set
All spinster-like and cold,
Who spelt a scarlet alphabet,
And birds of blue and gold,
And made immortal garden-plots
Of daisies and forget-me-nots.

The bodkins wove an even pace,
Yet these are lyrics too,
Breathing of spectral lawn and lace,
Old ardours to renew,
For in the corners love would keep

Drink , in the glory of youth;
love, crowned with roses of summer:
So be it only with me
be mad, be wise as thou listest.

AUTHOR of pardon, J ESU Christ,
Extend Thy love to us, and deign
To show Thy mercy upon us,
And cleanse our hearts from every stain.

Most tender and most gracious Lord,
Thou knowest whereof man is made;
Thou knowest whereunto he falls,
If thou withdraw thy saving aid.

My every thought to Thee is clear,
My inmost soul unveiled to Thee; —
Disperse and drive away the dreams
Of worldliness and vanity.

We wander exiled here below,
Through this sad vale of sin and strife;
O lead us to the Holy Mount,

Dear and incomparable
Is that love to me
Flowing out of the woodlands,
Out of the sea;
Out of the firmament breathing
Between pasture and sky,
For no reward is cherished here
To reckon by.

It is not of my earning,
Nor forfeit I can
This love that flows upon
The poverty of man,
Though faithless and unkind
I sleep and forget,
This love that asks no wage of me
Waits my waking yet.

Of such is the love, dear,
That you fold me in,
It knows no governance
Of virtue or sin;

Blue skies are over Cotswold
And April snows go by,
The lasses turn their ribbons
For April's in the sky,
And April is the season
When Sabbath girls are dressed,
From Rodboro' to Campden,
In all their silken best.

An ankle is a marvel
When first the buds are brown,
And not a lass but knows it
From Stow to Gloucester town.
And not a girl goes walking
Along the Cotswold lanes
But knows men's eyes in April
Are quicker than their brains.

It's little that it matters,
So long as you're alive,