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Song From Heine

I scanned her picture dreaming,
   Till each dear line and hue
Was imaged, to my seeming,
   As if it lived anew.

Her lips began to borrow
   Their former wondrous smile;
Her fair eyes, faint with sorrow,
   Grew sparkling as erstwhile.

Such tears as often ran not
   Ran then, my love, for thee;
And O, believe I cannot
   That thou are lost to me!

Song from Arcadia

My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
By Just Exchange, one for the other given.
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,
There never was a better bargain driven.
His heart in me keeps me and him in one,
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;
He loves my heart, for once it was his own,
I cherish his, because in me it bides.
His heart his wound received from my sight,
My heart was wounded with his wounded heart;
For as from me on him his hurt did light,
So still methought in me his hurt did smart.

Song From An Evening's Love

After the pangs of a desperate lover,
When day and night I have sighed all in vain,
Ah, what a pleasure it is to discover
In her eyes pity, who causes my pain!

When with unkindness our love at a stand is,
And both have punished ourselves with the pain,
Ah, what a pleasure the touch of her hand is!
Ah, what a pleasure to touch it again!

When the denial comes fainter and fainter,
And her eyes give what her tongue does deny,
Ah, what a trembling I feel when I venture!
Ah, what a trembling does usher my joy!

Song From Amphitryon

Air Iris I love, and hourly I die,
But not for a lip, nor a languishing eye:
She's fickle and false, and there we agree,
For I am as false and as fickle as she.
We neither believe what either can say;
And, neither believing, we neither betray.
'Tis civil to swear, and say things of course;
We mean not the taking for better or worse.
When present, we love; when absent, agree:
I think not of Iris, nor Iris of me.
The legend of love no couple can find,
So easy to part, or so equally join'd.

Song from Aella

O SING unto my roundelay,
O drop the briny tear with me;
Dance no more at holyday,
Like a running river be:
   My love is dead,
   Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.

Black his cryne as the winter night,
White his rode as the summer snow,
Red his face as the morning light,
Cold he lies in the grave below:
   My love is dead,
   Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.

Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note,

Song for the Rainy Season

Hidden, oh hidden
in the high fog
the house we live in,
beneath the magnetic rock,
rain-, rainbow-ridden,
where blood-black
bromelias, lichens,
owls, and the lint
of the waterfalls cling,
familiar, unbidden.

In a dim age
of water
the brook sings loud
from a rib cage
of giant fern; vapor
climbs up the thick growth
effortlessly, turns back,
holding them both,
house and rock,
in a private cloud.

At night, on the roof,
blind drops crawl
and the ordinary brown

Song For The Last Act

Now that I have your face by heart, I look
Less at its features than its darkening frame
Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame,
Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd's crook.
Beyond, a garden, There, in insolent ease
The lead and marble figures watch the show
Of yet another summer loath to go
Although the scythes hang in the apple trees.

Now that I have your face by heart, I look.

Now that I have your voice by heart, I read
In the black chords upon a dulling page
Music that is not meant for music's cage,

Song For Saint Cecilia's Day, 1687

From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
This universal frame began:
When nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
Arise, ye more than dead!
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry
In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.
From Harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.

Song for Australia

There is a land where summer skies
Are gleaming with a thousand dyes
Blending in witching harmonies,
in harmonies;
and grassy knoll and forest height,
are flushing in the rosy light,
And all above is azure bright -
Australia, Australia, Australia.


There is a land where honey flows
Where laughing corn luxuriant grows;
Land of the myrtle and the rose,
land of the rose.
On hill and plain the clustering vine
Is gushing out with purple wine,
And cups are quaffed to thee and thine -
Australia, Australia, Australia.

Song for a German Air

Fair stream of the mountain, brightly flowing
Between thy fresh margins, gay with flowers,
Life's uncertain visions showing;
Thus, like thy waters glide past the hours.
Oft on thy sunny banks I lie
And mark the waves that glitter by
With fleeting joy and brightness glowing.

Fair stream! when no more near thee reclining,
I gaze and lament for moments gone—
Cold and silent, past repining—
Still thy clear way thou wilt murmur on:
Still will thy roses bloom anew,