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Lines from Love Letters

(i)

De Amico ad Amicam

A Celuy que pluys eyme en mounde,
Of alle tho that I have founde

Carissima,

Saluz od treye amour,
With grace and joye and alle honoure,

Dulcissima.

Sachez bien, pleysant et beele,
That I am right in goode heele

Laus Christo!

Et moun amour done vous ay,
And also thine owene, night and day

In cisto.

Ma tres duce et tres ame,
Night and day for love of thee

Suspiro.

Soyez permanent et leal;
Love me so that I it fele,

Requiro.

Lines

PLACED OVER A CHIMNEY-PIECE

Surly Winter, come not here;
Bluster in thy proper sphere:
Howl along the naked plain,
There exert thy joyless reign;
Triumph o'er the withered flower,
The leafless shrub, the ruined bower;
But our cottage come not near;—
Other springs inhabit here,
Other sunshine decks our board,
Than the niggard skies afford.
Gloomy Winter, hence! away!
Love and Fancy scorn thy sway;
Love and Joy, and friendly Mirth,
Shall bless this roof, these walls, this hearth;
The rigour of the year controul,

Lilies

O see-saws! O Lilies!
Enemas of silver!
Disdainful of labours,
disdainful of famines!

Dawn fills you with
a [wound-searching,] cleansing love!
A heavenly sweetness
butters your stamens!
Armand Silvestre

LILAH, ALICE, HYPATIA

To Alice and Hypatia Bradlaugh

Who was Lilah? I am sure
She was young and sweet and pure;
With the forehead wise men love,-
Here a lucid dawn above
Broad curved brows, and twilight there,
Under the deep dusk of hair.
And her eyes? I cannot say
Whether brown, or blue, or grey:
I have seen them brown, and blue,
And a soft green grey-the hue
Shakespeare loved (and he was wise):
'Grey as glass' were Silvia's eyes.

So to Lilah's name above
I will add two names I love,
Linking with the bracket curls

Like to a Coin

Like to a coin, passing from hand to hand,
Are common memories, and day by day
The sharpness of their impress wears away.
But love's remembrances unspoiled with-stand
The touch of time, as in an antique land
Where some proud town old centuries did slay,
Intaglios buried lie, still in decay
Perfect and precious spite of grinding sand.
What fame or joy or sorrow has been ours,
What we have hoped or feared, we may forget.
The clearness of all memory time deflours,
Save that of love alone, persistent yet

LIKE OR LOVE

I LIKE YOU BUT
DO I LOVE YOU?
Crazy I’m not sure
Could it be no yes?
I don’t know, how
Could it be if I
Like the one you
Call Sister I never
In wildest dreams
Thought you
Would fall
For me, unthinkable
Unbelievable
Me flirtatious
No Doubt
But SHY
OF COURSE
DO I LIKE HER MORE?
NO! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
So what then lets me
Keep her all over me
Whatever it is it will
STOP
It will not go on
This is true
I am sure
I like you
A whole
Lot more
My promise is

Light Of Love

Joy stayed with me a night --
Young and free and fair --
And in the morning light
He left me there.

Then Sorrow came to stay,
And lay upon my breast
He walked with me in the day.
And knew me best.

I'll never be a bride,
Nor yet celibate,
So I'm living now with Pride --
A cold bedmate.

He must not hear nor see,
Nor could he forgive
That Sorrow still visits me
Each day I live.