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Show Me More Love

SHOW me more love, my dearest Lord ;
Oh turn away Thy clouded face,
Give me some secret look or word
That may betoken love and grace;
No day or time is black to me
But that wherein I see not Thee.
Show me more love: a clouded face
Strikes deeper than an angry blow;
Love me and kill me by Thy grace,
I shall not much bewail my woe.
But even to be
In heaven unloved of Thee,
Were hell in heaven for to see.
Then hear my cry and help afford:
Show me more love, my dearest Lord !

Show me more love, my dearest Lord , —

April

She trips across the meadows,
The weird, capricious elf!
The buds unfold their perfumed cups
For love of her sweet self;
And silver-throated birds begin to tune their lyres,
While wind-harps lend their strains to Nature's magic choirs.

Spirit of Sadness

She loved the Autumn, I the Spring,
Sad all the songs she loved to sing;
And in her face was strangely set
Some great inherited regret.

Some look in all things made her sigh,
Yea! sad to her the morning sky:
" So sad! so sad its beauty seems " —
I hear her say it still in dreams.

But when the day grew gray and old,
And rising stars shone strange and cold,
Then only in her face I saw
A mystic glee, a joyous awe.

Spirit of Sadness, in the spheres
Is there an end of mortal tears?
Or is there still in those great eyes

Of Disdainful Daphne

Shall I say that I love you,
Daphne disdainful?
Sore it costs as I prove you,
Loving is painful.

Shall I say what doth grieve me?
Lovers lament it.
Daphne will not relieve me;
Late I repent it.

Shall I die, shall I perish,
Through her unkindness?
Love, untaught love to cherish,
Showeth his blindness.

Shall the hills, shall the valleys,
The fields, the city,
With the sound of my outcries,
Move her to pity?

The deep falls of fair rivers
And the winds turning
Are the true music-givers

The Gates of the Year

The shadow gates are swinging
That hide the dawning year;
The sound of muffled ringing
Is swiftly growing clear;
The far-off music, falling
Like flutes soft and low,
Becomes a trumpet, calling,
And I must rise and go.

Lord, let my feet be surer
To walk the way unknown,
My heart a Kingdom purer,
With love upon its throne;
And let me have a vision
Of truth, and life, and need,
And hands of quick decision
For every noble deed.

And thus with humble gladness
I greet the dawning year,

The Irreconcilable

I

I little thought ( my Damon ) once, that you
Could prove, and what is more, to me, untrue .
Can I forget such Treachery , and Live ?
Mercy it self would not this Crime forgive.
Heaven 's Gates refuse to let Apostates in,
No that's the Great unpardonable Sin .

II

Did you not vow by all the Powers above,
That you could none but dear Orinda love?
Did you not swear by all that is Divine,
That you would only be and ever mine?

The Seeds of Love

I sowed the seeds of love,
It was all in the spring,
In April, May, and June, likewise,
When small birds they do sing.

My garden's well planted
With flowers everywhere,
Yet I had not the liberty to choose for myself
The flower that I loved so dear.

My gardener he stood by,
I asked him to choose for me,
He chose me the violet, the lily and pink,
But those I refused all three.

The violet I forsook,
Because it fades so soon,
The lily and pink I did o'erlook,
And I vowed I'd stay till June.