Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;
Truth, not cruel to a friend;
Pleasure, not in haste to end;
Beauty, not self-decked and curled
Till its pride is over-plain;
Love, when, so, you’re loved again.
What’s the best thing in the world?
–Something out of it, I think.
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IX
To let thee sit beneath the fall of tearsAs salt as mine, and hear the sighing yearsRe-sighing on my lips renunciativeThrough those infrequent smiles which fail to liveFor all thy adjurations? O my fears,That this can scarce be right! We are not peers,So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve,That givers of such gifts…
THE seraph sings before the manifest
And with the full life of consummateHeaving beneath him like a mother’sWarm with her first-born’s slumber in thatThe poet sings upon the earth grave-riven,Before the naughty world, soon self-forgivenFor wronging him,–and in the darkness prestFrom his own soul by worldly weights.Even so,Sing, seraph with the glory ! heaven is high;Sing, poet with the sorrow !…
And therefore if to love can be desert,
As these you see, and trembling knees that failTo bear the burden of a heavy heart,–This weary minstrel-life that once was girtTo climb Aornus, and can scarce availTo pipe now ‘gainst the valley nightingaleA melancholy music,–why advertTo these things? O Belovèd, it is plainI am not of thy worth nor for thy place!And yet, because…
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of Being and ideal Grace.I love thee to the level of every day’sMost quiet need, by sun and candlelight.I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.I love with a passion put to useIn my old…
I never gave a lock of hair away
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully,I ring out to the full brown length and say‘ Take it.’ My day of youth went yesterday;My hair no longer bounds to my foot’s glee,Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,As girls do, any more: it only mayNow shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,Taught drooping…
XL
I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth.I have heard love talked in my early youth,And since, not so long back but that the flowersThen gathered, smell still. Mussulmans and GiaoursThrow kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruthFor any weeping. Polypheme’s white toothSlips on the nut if, after frequent showers,The shell is over-smooth,—and not…