It's a grand thing when you're old, love,
To have someone care for you,
Someone to make you happy,
Someone to love you, too.

It makes life bright and gay, love,
When you think of the summer flowers
That you used to nourish in childhood,
In the spring of youth's hours

But oh, it's spring to me, love,
When I look at your earnest gaze
And see the rosy sunbeams
Upon your smiling face.

I would always be gay and happy, love,
If I had you at my side,
It makes me revere the moment, love,

It was the Rainbow gave thee birth,
And left thee all her lovely hues;
And, as her mother's name was Tears,
So runs it in my blood to choose
For haunts the lonely pools, and keep
In company with trees that weep.

Go you and, with such glorious hues,
Live with proud Peacocks in green parks;
On lawns as smooth as shining glass,
Let every feather show its marks;
Get thee on boughs and clap thy wings
Before the windows of proud kings.

Nay, lovely Bird, thou are not vain;
Thou hast no proud, ambitious mind;

It was many and many a year ago,
In a dwelling down in town,
That a fellow there lived whom you may know,
By the name of Samuel Brown;
And this fellow he lived with no other thought
Than to our house to come down.

I was a child, and he was a child,
In that dwelling down in town,
But we loved with a love that was more than love,
I and my Samuel Brown, —
With a love that the ladies coveted,
Me and Samuel Brown.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
To that dwelling down in town,

It was a friar of orders gray
— Walked forth to tell his beads;
And he met with a lady fair
— Clad in a pilgrim's weeds.

" Now Christ thee save, thou reverend friar;
— I pray thee tell to me,
If ever at yon holy shrine
— My true-love thou didst see. "

" And how should I know your true-love
— From many another one? "
" O, by his cockle hat, and staff,
— And by his sandal shoon.

" But chiefly by his face and mien,
— That were so fair to view;
His flaxen locks that sweetly curled,

It is true that I held Thero fair,
Apollodatus a torch of love—
not so no longer:
that light is out.
Mine now woman's love.
The delights of hirsute sex
let us leave to Welsh shepherds.

It is the counterpoise that minds
To fair and virtuous things inclines:
It is the gust we have and sense
Of every noble excellence;
It is the pulse by which we know
Whether our souls have life or no;
And such a soft and gentle fire
As kindles and inflames desire;
Until it all like incense burns
And unto melting sweetness turns.

The island dreams under the dawn
And great boughs drop tranquillity;
The peahens dance on a smooth lawn,
A parrot sways upon a tree,
Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.

Here we will moor our lonely ship
And wander with woven hands,
Murmuring softly lip to lip,
Along the grass, along the sands,
Murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands:

How we alone of mortals are
Hid under quiet boughs apart,
While our love grows and Indian star,
A meteor of the burning heart,

Is it too much to ask that I should be
Allowed to prove
God's gift of infinite variety
In human love?

I do not seek that all should understand,
Much less forgive;
But surely heed man's commonsense command
" Live and let love,"

And, if the Greatest Lover's word divine
Further can move, —
(Who had Himself all natures, even mine,)
Love — and let love.

Into my heart's treasury
—I slipped a coin
That time cannot take
—Nor a thief purloin,—

Oh better than the minting
—Of a gold-crowned king
Is the safe-kept memory
—Of a lovely thing.

Into my heart's treasury
I slipped a coin
That time cannot take
Nor a thief purloin,—

Oh better than the minting
Of a gold-crowned king
Is the safe-kept memory
Of a lovely thing.

Inconstancy's the greatest of sins:
It neither ends well, nor begins.
All other faults we simply do;
This, 'tis the same fault, and next too.

Inconstancy no sin will prove
If we consider that we love
But the same beauty in another face,
Like the same body in another place.