Oh! the sweetness of the tears!
If such joy at hand appears,
Snatch it, give thine all for it;
Joy that is so exquisite,
Lost, comes not new.
One blossom for a hundred years.
Grief that’s fond and dies not soon
Makes delight.
Oh! the pain of the delight!
If thy grief be love’s aright,
Tend it close and let it grow:
Grief so tender not to know
Loses Love’s boon.
Sweet Philomel sings all the night.
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TELL thee truth, sweet; no.
Lies are pitiful and kind,Honey-soft as Love’s own tongue:Let me, love, lie so.Lies are like a summer wind,Wooing flower-buds to unfoldLies will last while men are young.Tell thee truth, love; no.Let me, sweet, lie so.Lies are Hope’s light ministers,Footless birds upon the wing:Truth’s a name for plodding care:Tell thee truth, sweet; no.Truth’s the east wind…
DEAD, my beloved! This small purple weed
To ripen and to wane, to bloom and seed;But thou, strong doer, mightst not wait thy deed,But thou, oh noblest, mightst not wait thy meed:Dead in thy prime!Gone, my beloved! I that held thine handLeft sudden in a joyless waste alone!I tossing on life’s sea, and thou to standHidden in the shadows of the silent…
NAY, tell me not. I will not know.
A waste where blow-seeds spring and growThen die because the soil is spent,And leave no token they were there;A soddened mere where marsh-lights gleam,But no star sees the ray it lentBecause of her despoiled and bare.What then? she did a wrong unmeant.Leave me my dream.Tell me no more. I will not know.My life, if she…
Poor little diary, with its simple thoughts,
‘Read Modern History,’ ‘Trimmed up my grey hat,’‘Darned stockings,’ ‘Tatted,’ ‘Practised my new song,’‘Went to the daily service,’ ‘Took Bess soup,’‘Went out to tea.’ Poor simple diary!and did I write it? Was I this good girl,this budding colourless young rose of home?did I so live content in such a life,seeing no larger scope, nor asking…
BLITHE summer blossom, born too late,
Lo Winter’s hand is on the gate,His breath is in the curdling air.Still yesterweek, but yesterweek,Thou hadst, unfolding in warm light,Spread ripening to the crimson streakAnd seed to make the next year bright.But now there fall the latter rains,The chills that brown the ferns are come;Southward, above the shivering plains,The eddying swallows hasten home.Oh flower…
WAITING, waiting. ‘Tis so far
One by one the days that areAll to tell their countless sum;Each to dawn and each to die—What so far as by and by?Waiting, waiting. ‘Tis not ours,This to-day that flies so fast:Let them go, the shadowy hours,Floating, floated, into Past.Our day wears to-morrow’s sky—What so near as by and by?