Love me little, love me long,
Is the burden of my song.
Love that is too hot and strong
Burneth soon to waste.
Still, I would not have thee cold,
Not too backward, nor too bold;
Love that lasteth till 'tis old
Fadeth not in haste.
Love me little, love me long,
Is the burden of my song.
If thou lovest me too...
Ah, God, the way your little finger moved
As you thrust a bare arm backward
And made play with your hair
And a comb a silly gilt comb
Ah, God—that I should suffer
Because of the way a little finger moved.
It's such a little thing to weep,
So short a thing to sigh;
And yet by trades the size of these
We men and women die!
Thou little bird, thou dweller by the sea,
Why takest thou its melancholy voice,
And with that boding cry
Why o’er the waves dost fly?
O, rather, bird, with me
Through the fair land rejoice!
Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale,
As driven by a beating storm at sea;
Thy cry is weak and scared,...
Out of the focal and foremost fire,
Out of the hospital walls as dire;
Smitten of grape-shot and gangrene,
(Eighteenth battle, and he sixteen!)
Spectre! such as you seldom see,
Little Giffen, of Tennessee!
“Take him and welcome!” the surgeons said;
Little the doctor can help the dead!
So we took him; and brought him where...
’t is but a little faded flower,
But oh, how fondly dear!
’T will bring me back one golden hour,
Through many a weary year.
I may not to the world impart
The secret of its power,
But treasured in my inmost heart,
I keep my faded flower.
Where is the heart that doth not keep,
Within its inmost core,
Some...
A little while (my life is almost set!)
I fain would pause along the downward way,
Musing an hour in this sad sunset-ray,
While, Sweet! our eyes with tender tears are wet:
A little hour I fain would linger yet.
A little while I fain would linger yet,
All for love’s sake, for love that cannot tire;
Though fervid youth be dead,...
“when queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench.”
LOVE’S LABOUR ’S LOST
I don’t go much on religion,
I never ain’t had no show;
But I ’ve got a middlin’ tight grip, sir,
On the handful o’ things I know.
I don’t pan out on the prophets
And free-will and that sort of thing,—
But I b’lieve in God and the angels,
Ever sence one night last spring.
I come into town with some turnips,
And...
O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night.
For Christ is born of Mary,
And, gathered all above,
While mortals sleep...
