I said: “My heart, now let us sing a song
For a fair lady on her wedding-day;
Some solemn hymn or pretty roundelay,
That shall be with her as she goes along
To meet her joy, and for her happy feet
Shall make a pleasant music, low and sweet.”
Then said my heart: “It is right bold of thee
To think that any song that we could...
From “The Fall of Jerusalem”
TO the sound of timbrels sweet
Moving slow our solemn feet,
We have borne thee on the road
To the virgin’s blest abode;
With thy yellow torches gleaming,
And thy scarlet mantle streaming,
And the canopy above
Swaying as we slowly move.
Thou hast left the joyous feast,
And the mirth and...
From “Epithalamion”
* * * * *NOW is my love all ready forth to come:
Let all the virgins therefore well awayt:
And ye fresh boyes, that tend upon her groome,
Prepare yourselves; for he is coming strayt.
Set all your things in seemely good array,
Fit for so joyfull day:
The joyfulst day that ever sunne did see,...
Your wedding-ring wears thin, dear wife; ah, summers not a few,
Since I put it on your finger first, have passed o’er me and you;
And, love, what changes we have seen,—what cares and pleasures, too,—
Since you became my own dear wife, when this old ring was new!
O, blessings on that happy day, the happiest of my life,
When, thanks to God, your low,...
O Love, whose patient pilgrim feet
Life’s longest path have trod,
Whose ministry hath symbolled sweet
The dearer love of God,—
The sacred myrtle wreathes again
Thine altar, as of old;
And what was green with summer then,
Is mellowed, now, to gold.
Not now, as then, the Future’s face
Is flushed with fancy’s...
When our first parents were from Eden driven
To wander exiled in this world of care,
Hope changed to fear, and memory to despair;
But once, to their posterity 't is given
The vision of that blissful home to share:
Whene'er two wedded souls as...
