We are all liars, because
the truth of yesterday becomes a lie tomorrow,
whereas letters are fixed,
and we live by the letter of truth.

The love I feel for my friend, this year,
is different from the love I felt last year.
If it were not so, it would be a lie.
Yet we reiterate love! love!

as if it were coin with a fixed value
instead of a flower that dies, and opens a different bud.

O my honey, take me back,
O my dahlin', I'll be true.
I am mo'nin' all day long,
O my honey, I love you.

I have loved you in joy and pain,
In de sunshine and de rain,
O my honey, heah me do,
O my dahlin', I love you.

I have seen men binding their brothers in chains, and crafty traders reaching for the bread that women and children lifted to their mouths;
I have seen suffering go unaided.
I have heard the iron din of war, and have seen the waxen face of early death;
And I have cried in my heart, “The world is hate!”

I have heard birds calling their mates in the still forests, and insects chirping to their loves in the tangled grass of meadows;
I have seen mothers caressing their babes, and aged men supporting with devotion the slow steps of stooping women;

Remember kissing, haste of embrace,
The then too swimming voyage everywhere—
And so bent on return, all's still to see
And learn of: oh, the luxurious futures
We have tasted tastelessly,
Blunting the acute lips with love,
The like desire of another
To be newly baptized in the fresh flood
Of the Unknown.

Round us the flagging flies piqued dully:
Our moments given holiday to fret
On whiling wing, stupid of time
As we of who we were in this soft act
Before the liquid mirror
Of mutuality.

It was a wilful dark,

I love you and you know it—this at least,
This comfort is mine own in all my pain:
You know it and can never doubt again,
And love's mere self is a continual feast.
Not oath of mine nor blessing-word of priest
Could make my love more certain or more plain:—
Life as a rolling moon doth wax and wane
O weary moon, still rounding, still decreased!
Life wanes: and when love folds his wings above
Tired joy, and less we feel his conscious pulse,
Let us go fall asleep, dear Friend, in peace;—
A little while, and age and sorrow cease;

The wilting flower
in the heart
of one whose love
has died and gone
in the end fades
utterly—
down to its very hue.

Well reason they, who from the birds, and flowers
Would prove that God is all a God of Love;
For feelings, that transcend e'en reason's powers,
To all mankind the same great doctrine prove.
'Tis true the fire, and tempest work his will,
Yet not in wrath, but for the good of man;
What seems to us with tear-dimmed eyes but ill,
Is still a part of one all-perfect plan!
The good of man, this is the gracious end,
For which all things were made on earth, in heaven;
To this alone forever do they tend,
For this alone to man were all things given;

Love , the defier, and Time, the defied,
Wrestled for sway, being equals in pride;
Love with his arrows about him as now;
Time with the dust of the stars on his brow.

Fate, intervening, gave rightful award:
“Time shall be vassal and Love shall be lord.”
And thus at her bidding they ended their feud,
Love, the subduer, and Time, the subdued.

Now let us unto some fair Medow goe
That wee to other, our love may show
And there let us in union dwell
That none may us in good excell.

As love
that is
each day upon the twig
which may die
So springs your love
fresh up
lusty for the sun
the bird's companion—