I ask not what the bud may be,
That hangs upon the green-sheathed stem;
But love with every leaf I see,
To lie unfolded there like them.

I ask not what the tree may bear,
When whitened by the hand of spring;
But with its blossoms on the air,
Would far around my perfume fling.

The infant's joy is mine, is mine,
I join its infant sports with glee;
And would not for a world resign,
The look of love it casts on me.

Leave not the bird upon the wing,
But with her seek her shaded nest,

This is the gospel of labour, ring it, ye bells of the kirk!
The Lord of Love came down from above, to live with the men who work.
This is the rose that He planted, here in the thorn-curst soil:
Heaven is blest with perfect rest, but the blessing of Earth is toil.

WITH A COPY OF " MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN. "

This is the golden book spirit and sense,
The holy writ of beauty; he that wrought
Made it with dreams and faultless words and thought
That seeks and finds and loses in the dense
Dim air of life that beauty's excellence
Wherewith love makes one hour of life distraught,
And all hours after follow and find not aught.
Here is that height of all love's eminence
Where man may breathe but for a breathing space,

Is it to love to muse the live long day
On one dear object tho he's far away
And when the shadows usher in the night
His form in dreams to swim before the sight
Is it to love — when in the social train
He mixes not the mirth and song are vain
Nor wit nor sentiment nor attic ease
When he is absent have the power to please
Is it to love to feel the vital tide
Mount to the cheek and then in haste subside
The pulse to tremble and the heart to melt
Then sink away as if they never felt
All this and more a thousand times I prove

T HIRSIS a youth of the inspired train,
Faire Sacharissa lov'd, but lov'd in vain;
Like Phaebus sung, the no less amorous boy;
Like Daphne , she as lovely and as coy;
With numbers, he the flying Nymph pursues,
With numbers, such as Phaebus selfe might use;
Such is the chase, when love and fancy leads
O'er craggy mountains, and through flowry meads,
Invok'd to testifie the lovers care,
Or forme some image of his cruell Faire:
Urg'd with his fury like a wounded Deer
O'er these he fled, and now approaching neer,

Think not my Phebe , cause a cloud
Doth now thy heavenly beauty shroud,
My wandring eye
Can stoop to common beauties of the sky,
Be thou but kind, and this Eclipse
Shall neither hinder eyes, nor lips;
For we will meet

Thine elder that I am, thou must not cling
To me, nor mournful for my love entreat:
And yet, Alcaeus, as the sudden spring
Is love, yea, and to veiled Demeter sweet.

Sweeter than tone of harp, more gold than gold
Is thy young voice to me; yet, ah, the pain
To learn I am beloved now I am old,
Who, in my youth, loved, as thou must, in vain.

Thick and stormy was the night,
— Not a single star,
When I climbed to my delight,
— Where the roses are;

Where the roses are and love,
— In a bower warm,
Climbing up to heaven above
— Night and wind and storm.

They tell me that I must not love,
That thou wilt spurn the free
And unbought tenderness that gives
Its hidden wealth to thee.
It may be so: I heed it not,
Nor would I change my blissful lot,
When thus I am allowed to make
My heart a bankrupt for thy sake.

They tell me when the fleeting charm
Of novelty is o'er,
Thou 'lt turn away with careless brow
And think of me no more.
It may be so! enough for me
If sunny skies still smile o'er thee,
Or I can trace, when thou art far,
Thy pathway like a distant star.

They may talk of love in a cottage,
And bowers of trellised vine —
Of nature bewitchingly simple,
And milkmaids half divine;
They may talk of the pleasure of sleeping
In the shade of a spreading tree,
And a walk in the fields at morning,
By the side of a footstep free!

But give me a sly flirtation
By the light of a chandelier —
With music to play in the pauses,
And nobody very near;
Or a seat on a silken sofa,
With a glass of pure old wine,
And mamma too blind to discover
The small white hand in mine.