Strengthen, my Love, this castle of my heart,
And with some store of pleasure give me aid,
For jealousy, with all them of his part,
Strong siege about the weary tower has laid.
Nay, if to break his bands thou art afraid,
Too weak to make his cruel force depart,
Strengthen at least this castle of my heart,
And with some store of pleasure give me aid.
Nay, let not jealousy, for all his art
Be master, and the tower in ruin laid,
That still, ah, Love, thy gracious rule obeyed.
Advance, and give me succor of thy part;

Stitches over and over
So the heart won't break,
Thrust the needle under
For sorrow's sake.

Stitches over and over
Till the pattern's set,
Thrust the needle under
So the heart forget.

Stitches over and over,
Needle hurry fast,
Till the love of beauty
Fall from me at last.

The spring of joy is dry
That ran into my heart;
And all my comforts fly:
My Love and I must part.
Farewell, my Love, I go,
If fate will have it so.
Yet to content us both
Return again, as doth
The shadow to the hour,
The bee unto the flower,
The fish unto the hook,
The cattle to the brook,
That we may sport our fill,
And love continue still.

[Among the religious customs of the dervishes is an astronomical dance, in which the dervish imitates the movements of the heavenly bodies, by spinning on his own axis, whilst at the same time he revolves round the Sheikh in the centre, representing the sun; and, as he spins, he sings the Song of Seid Nimetollah of Kuhistan .]
Spin the ball! I reel, I burn,
Nor head from foot can I discern,
Nor my heart from love of mine,
Nor the wine-cup from the wine.
All my doing, all my leaving,
Reaches not to my perceiving;
Lost in whirling spheres I rove,

Yet love's severest lawes
Allowe his subjects this redresse,
By some inversion to expresse
What Saint is of their suffrings cause;
Thy name still binds my soule though I
The mystick letters do unty.
As Jewe's the sacred Name
With a religious feare conceale,
Yet dare the letters steale,
Transposed some new sence to frame;
So though from whence I dare not tell,
Care in my breast must ever dwell.

I heard a gentle maiden, in the spring,
Set her sweet sighs to music, and thus sing:
" Fly through the world, and I will follow thee,
Only for looks that may turn back on me;

Only for roses that your chance may throw —
Though wither'd — I will wear them on my brow,
To be a thoughtful fragrance to my brain;
Warm'd with such love, that they will bloom again.

Thy love before thee, I must tread behind,
Kissing thy foot-prints, though to me unkind;
But trust not all her fondness, though it seem,
Lest thy true love should rest on a false dream.

A SONG between two silences Life sings,
A melody 'twixt night and patient night.
He strums his lute against the fading light
To gild the shadow that the gloaming brings,
And Love is but a plucking of the strings,
A throb of music staying music's flight,
A little note that hardly shall requite
Thine outstretched hand that mars Life's lute-playings.
Yet, when the last faint echo of that note
Has stirred the cypress-leaves at eventide,
When night has stilled forever Life's white throat,
And his gold lute lies shattered by his side,

Some that have deeper digged love's mine than I
Say, where his centric happiness doth lie:
I have loved, and got, and told,
But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,
I should not find that hidden mystery;
Oh, 'tis imposture all:
And as no chemic yet the elixir got
But glorifies his pregnant pot,
If by the way to him befall
Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,
So, lovers dream a rich and long delight,
But get a winter-seeming summer's night.

Our ease, our thrift, our honor, and our day,

Soft child of love, thou balmy bliss,
Inform me, O delicious kiss,
Why thou so suddenly art gone,
Lost in the moment thou art won?

Yet go! For wherefore should I sigh?
On Delia's lips, with raptured eye,
On Delia's blushing lips I see
A thousand full as sweet as thee.

So sweet love seemed that April morn,
When first we kissed beside the thorn,
So strangely sweet, it was not strange
We thought that love could never change.

But I can tell — let truth be told —
That love will change in growing old;
Though day by day is nought to see,
So delicate his motions be.

And in the end 'twill come to pass
Quite to forget what once he was,
Nor even in fancy to recall
The pleasure that was all in all.

His little spring, that sweet we found,
So deep in summer floods is drowned,