• I grow so weary, someway, of all things
    That love and loving have vouchsafed to me,
    Since now all dreamed-of sweets of ecstasy
    Am I possessed of: The caress that clings—
    The lips that mix with mine with murmurings
    No language may interpret, and the free,
    Unfettered brood of kisses, hungrily
    Feasting in swarms on honeyed blossomings
    Of passion's fullest...

  • I ne'er was struck before that hour
    With love so sudden and so sweet.
    Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
    And stole my heart away complete.

    My face turned pale, a deadly pale.
    My legs refused to walk away,
    And when she looked what could I ail
    My life and all seemed turned to clay.

    And then my blood rushed to my face
    And took my...

  • I sleep with thee, and wake with thee,
    And yet thou art not there;
    I fill my arms with thoughts of thee,
    And press the common air.
    Thy eyes are gazing upon mine
    When thou art out of sight;
    My lips are always touching thine
    At morning, noon, and night.

    I think and speak of other things
    To keep my mind at rest,
    But still to thee my...

  • I hid my love when young while I
    Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly
    I hid my love to my despite
    Till I could not bear to look at light
    I dare not gaze upon her face
    But left her memory in each place
    Where ere I saw a wild flower lie
    I kissed and bade my love goodbye

    I met her in the greenest dells
    Where dew drops pearl the wood bluebells
    The...

  • You say you love; but with a voice
    Chaster than a nun's, who singeth
    The soft vespers to herself
    While the chime-bell ringeth—
    O love me truly!

    You say you love; but with a smile
    Cold as sunrise in September,
    As you were Saint Cupid's nun,
    And kept his weeks of Ember—
    O love me truly!

    You say you love; but then your lips
    ...

  • Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art—
    Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
    And watching, with eternal lids apart,
    Like nature's patient sleepless eremite,
    The moving waters at their priestlike task
    Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
    Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
    Of snow upon the mountains and the moors;
    No—yet...

  • I

    If I were her lover,
    I'd wade through the clover
    Over the fields before
    The gate that leads to her door;
    Over the meadows,
    To wait, 'mid the shadows,
    The shadows that circle her door,
    For the heart of my heart and more.
    And there in the clover
    Close by her,
    Over and over
    I'd sigh her:
    "Your eyes are as brown...

  • Come to me in my dreams, and then
    By day I shall be well again!
    For then the night will more than pay
    The hopeless longing of the day.

    Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times,
    A messenger from radiant climes,
    And smile on thy new world, and be
    As kind to others as to me!

    Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth,
    Come now, and let me dream it truth...

  • Whose is the love that, gleaming through the world,
    Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn?
    Whose is the warm and partial praise,
    Virtue's most sweet reward?

    Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul
    Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow?
    Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on,
    And loved mankind the more?

    Harriet! on thine:—thou wert my purer...

  • Music, when soft voices die,
    Vibrates in the memory.—
    Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
    Live within the sense they quicken.—

    Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
    Are heap'd for the beloved's bed—
    And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
    Love itself shall slumber on.