When the heavens throb and vibrate
All along their silver veins,
To the mellow storm of music
Sweeping o'er the starry trains,
Heard by few, as erst by shepherds
On the far Chaldean plains:

Not the blazing, torch-like planets,
Not the Pleiads wild and free,
Not Arcturus, Mars, Uranus,
Bring the brightest dreams to me;
But I gaze in rapt devotion
On the central star of three.

Central star of three that tingle
In the balmy southern sky;
One above, and one below it,
Dreamily they pale and die,

That love's dull smart distressed my heart
He shrewdly learnt to see,
But that I was in love with a dead man
Never suspected he.


He searched for the trace of a pictured face,
He watched each missive come,
And a note that seemed like a love-line
Made him look frozen and glum.


He dogged my feet to the city street,
He followed me to the sea,
But not to the neighbouring churchyard
Did he dream of following me.

Con the dead page as 'twere live love: press on!
Cold wisdom's words will ease thy track for thee;
Aye, go; cast off sweet ways, and leave me wan
To biting blasts that are intent on me.

But if thy object Fame's far summits be,
Whose inclines many a skeleton o'erlies
That missed both dream and substance, stop and see
How absence wears these cheeks and dims these eyes!

It surely is far sweeter and more wise
To water love, than toil to leave anon
A name whose glory-gleam will but advise

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy Love.

But Time drives flocks from field to fold;
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward Winter reckoning yields:
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,

She kneels with haggard eyes and hair
Unto the Christ upon the Cross:
Her gown is torn; her feet are bare.

What is this thing she begs of him,
The gentle Christ upon the Cross?
Her hands are clasped; her face is dim.

Is it forgiveness for her sin,
She asks of Christ upon the Cross?
And mercy for the soul within?

With anguished face, so sad and sweet,
She kneels to Christ upon the Cross:
Her arms embrace his nail-pierced feet.

Her tears run slowly down her face,
O piteous Christ upon the Cross!

'My baby girl, that was born and died on the same day'
'WITH wild torn heart I see them still,
Wee unused clothes and empty cot.
Though glad my love has missed the ill
That falls to woman's lot.
'No tangled paths for her to tread
Throughout the coming changeful years;
No desperate weird to dree and dread;
No bitter lonely tears!
'No woman's piercing crown of thorns
Will press my aching baby's brow;
No starless nights, no sunless morns,
Will ever greet her now.
'The clothes that I had wrought with care

She is so winsome and so wise
She sways me at her will,
And oft the question will arise,
What mission does she fill?
O then I say with pride untold,
And love beyond degree,
This woman with the heart of gold,
She just keeps house for me-
For me,
She just keeps house for me!

A full content dwells on her face,
She's quite in love with life,
And for a title wears with grace
The sweet old-fashioned 'wife.'
Our children climb upon her knee,
And nestle on her breast,
And ah! her mission seems to me

Sitting alone by the window,
Watching the moonlit street,
Bending my head to listen
To the well-known sound of your feet,
I have been wondering, darling,
How I can bear the pain,
When I watch, with sighs and tear-wet eyes;
And wait for your coming in vain.


For I know that a day approaches
When your heart will tire of me;
When by door and gate I may watch and wait
For a form I shall not see.
When the love that is now my heaven,
The kisses that make my life,
You will bestow on another,
And that other will be-your wife.

Her eyes twinkle in the veil like the light of dawn!
The girl brimming with youth, with her braid come off
-See how heedless is the god of love!
Her eyes twinkle in the veil like the light of dawn!

Intoxicated and nourished with the wine of love, her eyes dance and sway,
See how they close when the beautiful lord mates with her on the bed!
Her eyes twinkle in the veil like the light of dawn!

She bewitches every god with these eyes
And the pride of every austere sage she shatters!

I dreamed as in my bed I lay,
All night's fathomless wisdom come,
That I had shorn my locks away
And laid them on Love's lettered tomb:
But something bore them out of sight
In a great tumult of the air,
And after nailed upon the night
Berenice's burning hair.