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Eque brevi verbo ferre perenne malum.
SECUNDUS, eleg. vii.


Still the question I must parry,
Still a wayward truant prove:
Where I love, I must not marry;
Where I marry, can not love.
...

My back is turned on Spring and all her flowers,
The birds no longer charm from tree to tree;
The cuckoo had his home in this green world
Ten days before his voice was heard by me.
...

Light love in a mist, by the midsummer moon misguided,
Scarce seen in the twilight garden if gloom insist,
Seems vainly to seek for a star whose gleam has derided
Light love in a mist.
...

Love is a madness, love is a fevered dream,
A white soul lost in a field of scarlet flowers,
Love is a search for the lost, the ever vanishing gleam
Of wings, desires and sorrows and haunted hours.
...

Letter IX. To-Morrow.


I.

O Love! O Love! O Gateway of Delight!
Thou porch of peace, thou pageant of the prime
Of all God's creatures! I am here to climb...

Oh, lovely Mary Donnelly, my joy, my only best
If fifty girls were round you, I'd hardly see the rest;
Be what it may the time o' day, the place be where it will...

Brown-thrush singing all day long
In the leaves above me,
Take my love this April song,
"Love me, love me, love me!"

When he harkens what you say,
Bid him, lest he miss me,...

You say, to me-wards your affection's strong;
Pray love me little, so you love me long.
Slowly goes far: the mean is best: desire,
Grown violent, does either die or tire.

Se l'immortal desio.


If the undying thirst that purifies
Our mortal thoughts, could draw mine to the day,
Perchance the lord who now holds cruel sway...

A thousand times I would have hoped,
A thousand times protested;
But still, as through the night I groped,
My torch from me was wrested,
and wrested.

How often with a succoring cup...

Midway upon the route, he paused athirst
And suddenly across the wastes of heat,
He saw cool waters gleaming, and a sweet
Green oasis upon his vision burst.
A tender dream, long in his bosom nursed,...

I.


The long-closed door, oh open it again, send me back once more my fawn that had fled....

"See'st thou o'er my shoulders falling,
Snake-like ringlets waving free?
Have no fear, for they are twisted
To allure thee unto me."


Thus she spake, the gentle dove,...

Hark, my soul! it is the Lord:
'Tis thy Saviour, hear his word;
Jesus speaks, and speaks to thee:
'Say, poor sinner, lovest thou me?


'I deliver'd thee when bound,...

The train draws forth from the station-yard,
And with it carries me.
I rise, and stretch out, and regard
The platform left, and see
An airy slim blue form there standing,
And know that it is she.
...

Love, wandering through the golden maze
Of my beloved's hair,
Traced every lock with fond delays,
And, doting, lingered there.
And soon he found 'twere vain to fly;
His heart was close confined,...

There's more in words than I can teach:
Yet listen, Child! I would not preach;
But only give some plain directions
To guide your speech and your affections.
Say not you 'love' a roasted fowl,...

I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis....

Nobody thought of consequences. There was a lighted paraffin lamp on the table and nothing else handy. Mrs Brown's head presented a tempting mark, and of course Mr Brown's lengthy stay at 'The Three Fingers' had something to do...

Lying in me, as though it were a white
Stone in the depths of a well, is one
Memory that I cannot, will not, fight:
It is happiness, and it is pain.
Anyone looking straight into my eyes...