I also loved, and the restless breaths
Of sleeplessness, fluttering through darkness,
Out of the park would downward drift
To the ravine, on to the archipelago
Of meadows, sinking from sight among
Wormwood, mint and quails beneath the wispy mist.
And the broad sweep of adoration's wing grew
Heavy and drunken, as though stung by shot,
Floundered into the air and, shuddering, fell short,
Scattering across the fields as dew.

And then the dawn was breaking. Till two
Rich jewels blinked in the incalculable sky,

FRIENDS, whom she look’d at blandly from her couch
And her white wrist above it, gem-bedew’d,
Were arguing with Pentheusa: she had heard
Report of Creon’s death, whom years before
She listen’d to, well-pleas’d; and sighs arose;
For sighs full often fondle with reproofs
And will be fondled by them. When I came
After the rest to visit her, she said,
“Myrtis! how kind! Who better knows than thou
The pangs of love? and my first love was he!”
Tell me (if ever, Eros! are reveal’d
Thy secrets to the earth) have they been true

I can write the saddest lines tonight.

Write for example: ‘The night is fractured
and they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance’

The night wind turns in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
I loved her, sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like these I held her in my arms.
I kissed her greatly under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could I not have loved her huge, still eyes.

I can write the saddest lines tonight.

Eph. What Friendship is, ARDELIA shew.
Ard. 'Tis to love, as I love You.
Eph. This Account, so short (tho' kind)
Suits not my enquiring Mind.
Therefore farther now repeat;
What is Friendship when complete?
Ard. 'Tis to share all Joy and Grief;
'Tis to lend all due Relief
From the Tongue, the Heart, the Hand;
'Tis to mortgage House and Land;
For a Friend be sold a Slave;
'Tis to die upon a Grave,
If a Friend therein do lie.
Eph. This indeed, tho' carry'd high,
This, tho' more than e'er was done

A DIALOGUE: Addressed to a young Lady.

Friendship:

In vain thy lawless Fires contend with mine,
Tho' Crouds unnumber'd fall before thy Shrine;
Let Youths, who ne'er aspir'd to noble Fame,
And the soft Virgin, kindle at thy Flame,
Thee, Son of Indolence and Vice, I scorn,
By Reason nourish'd, and of Virtue born.

Love:

Vain is that boasted Reason 'gainst my Dart,
I pierce the Sage's, as the vulgar Heart,
All Ages, Sexes, the soft Torment share,
The hoary Patriot, and the blooming Fair.

After the fierce midsummer all ablaze
Has burned itself to ashes, and expires
In the intensity of its own fires,
There come the mellow, mild, St. Martin days
Crowned with the calm of peace, but sad with haze.
So after Love has led us, till he tires
Of his own throes, and torments, and desires,
Comes large-eyed Friendship: with a restful gaze.
He beckons us to follow, and across
Cool verdant vales we wander free from care.
Is it a touch of frost lies in the air?
Why are we haunted with a sense of loss?

Friend, why is my love so cross with me
That he has chosen to live in fairylands?
To whom shall I reveal my agony?

He left to roam in meadows of flowers.
When he rested for a moment under the pomegranate trees,
Bright buds burst into ecstatic bloom.

When lovers' hearts were put up for sale,
The bidding was so brisk in the market of love
That sweet-bosomed belle got eleven for a cowry!

The belle, far gone on jewels and trinkets,
Adorned herself in her splendid room,
Till the storm of love ended this madness of youth.

Friend, has springtime come to the garden of love,
And is my sweetheart out enjoying love's bloom ?

The breeze will wake up, at break of dawn,
The sleeping flowers in all beds.
But I wonder if the bulbul would be awake !

Amazed at his tireless mission to stain her name
From pole to pole, the dew-drenched masval asks the breeze
'Could a soul like his have ever known rest ?'

I am unburdening my heart to the rose,
For I may never get a chance to speak

Dearly I love a friend; yet a foe I may turn to my profit;
Friends show me that which I can; foes teach me that which I should.

The high-handed man, solicitous
Untamed your demons; what passion
Seethed within you to be kissed again,
To be insulted, and restored,
Adored.

But now – your maidenhead intact –
You have only dreams, and no decipherer;
Only dreams to tell what might have been;
What young man, waiting across the seas
Would sail to claim your hand.

How I shall weep for you, gone as you are
Into a lonely death, like millions,
Without love, without love, without love.