What love I when I love Thee, O my God?
Not corporal beauty, nor the limb of snow,
Nor of loved light the white and pleasant flow,
Nor manna showers, nor streams that flow abroad,
Nor flowers of Heaven, nor small stars of the sod:
Not these, my God, I love, who love Thee so;
Yet love I something better than I know:—
A certain light on a more golden road;
A sweetness, not of honey or the hive;
A beauty, not of summer or the spring;
A scent, a music, and a blossoming
Eternal, timeless, placeless, without gyve,

In the vale of restless mind
I sought in mountain and in mead,
Trusting a true love for to find.
Upon an hill then took I heed;
A voice I heard--and near I yede--
In great dolour complaining tho:
"See, dear soul, my sides bleed,
Quia amore langueo.

Upon this mount I found a tree;
Under this tree a man sitting;
From head to foot wounded was he,
His hearte-blood I saw bleeding;
A seemly man to be a king
A gracious man to look unto.
I asked him how he had paining.
He said: "Quia amore langueo.

The Queen of Paphos, Erycine,
In heart did rose-cheek'd Adon love,
He mortal was but she divine,
And oft with kisses did him move;
With great gifts still she did him woo,
But he would never yield thereto.

Then since the Queen of Love by Love
To love was once a subject made,
And could thereof no pleasure prove,
By day, by night, by light or shade,
Why being mortal should I grieve,
Since she herself could not relieve?

She was a goddess heavenly,
And lov'd a fair fac'd earthly boy,
Who did contemn her deity,

O love of God, how strong and true;
Eternal and yet ever new,
Uncomprehended and unbought,
Beyond all knowledge and all thought.

O love of God, how deep and great!
Far deeper than man's deepest hate;
Self-fed, self-kindled like the light,
Changeless, eternal, infinite.

O heavenly love, how precious still,
In days of weariness and ill!
In nights of pain and helplessness,
To heal, to comfort, and to bless.

O wide-embracing, wondrous love,
We read thee in the sky above,
We read thee in the earth below,

Lord with glowing heart I'd praise thee
For the bliss thy love bestows,
For the pardoning grace that saves me,
And the peace that from it flows:

Help, O God, my weak endeavor;
This dull soul to rapture raise:
Thou must light the flame, or never
Can my love be warmed to praise.

Praise, my soul the God who sought thee,
Wretched wand'rer far astray;
Found thee lost, and kindly brought thee
From the paths of death away:

Praise, with love's devoutest feeling,
Him who saw thy guilt-born fear,

Her hands were clasp'd, her dark eyes raised,
The breeze threw back her hair;
Up to the fearful wheel she gazed —
All that she loved was there.
The night was round her clear and cold,
The holy heaven above,
Its pale stars watching to behold
The might of earthly love.

" And bid me not depart, " she cried,
" My Rudolph, say not so!
This is no time to quit thy side,
Peace, peace! I cannot go.
Hath the world aught for me to fear,
When death is on thy brow?
The world! what means it? — mine is here —

1. Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today; And
2. Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white, Like
give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest;
nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; And make us happy
keep us here All simply in the springing of the year.
in the happy bees, The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

3. And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

4. For this is love and nothing else is love.

Weary of all this wordy strife,
These notions, forms, and modes, and names,
To Thee, the Way, the Truth, the Life,
Whose love my simple heart inflames,
Divinely taught, at last I fly,
With Thee, and Thine to live, and die.

Forth from the midst of Babel brought,
Parties and sects I cast behind;
Enlarged my heart, and free my thought,
Where'er the latent truth I find,
The latent truth with joy to own,
And bow to Jesu's name alone.

Redeem'd by Thine almighty grace,
I taste my glorious liberty,
With open arms the world embrace,

A poore soule sate sighing by a sicamore tree,
O willow, willow, willow;
His hand on his bosome, his head on his knee,
O willow, willow, willow;
O willow, willow, willow;
Sing, O the greene willow shall be my garland.

He sigh'd in his singing, and, after each groane,
"Adue to all pleasure, my true love is gone.

Oh, false is she turned; untrue she doth prove;
She renders me nothing, but hate for my love.

Oh, pitty me" (cride he), "you lovers each one,
Her heart's hard as marble, she rues not my moane."

Poets love nature, and themselves are love;
The scorn of fools, and mock of idle pride
The vile in nature worthless deeds approve
They court the vile, and spurn all good beside
Poets love nature, like the calm of heaven
Her gifts like heaven's love spread far and wide
In all her works there are no signs of leaven
Sorrow abashes from her simple pride
Her flowers like pleasures have their seasons birth
And bloom through region[s] here below
They are her very scriptures upon earth
And teach us simple mirth where e'er we go