If being near the fire I burned with it, Now that its flame is quenched and doth not show, What wonder if I waste within and glow, Dwindling away to cinders bit by bit? ...
Ofttimes my great desire doth flatter me With hope on earth yet many years to stay: Still Death, the more I love it, day by day Takes from the life I love so tenderly....
He who ordained, when first the world began, Time, that was not before creation's hour, Divided it, and gave the sun's high power To rule the one, the moon the other span:...
I deemed upon that day when first I knew So many peerless beauties blent in one, That, like an eagle gazing on the sun, Mine eyes might fix on the least part of you....
From heaven his spirit came, and robed in clay The realms of justice and of mercy trod, Then rose a living man to gaze on God, That he might make the truth as clear as day....
Not less elate than smitten with wild woe To see not them but Thee by death undone, Were those blest souls, when Thou above the sun Didst raise, by dying, men that lay so low:...
Choice soul, in whom, as in a glass, we see, Mirrored in thy pure form and delicate, What beauties heaven and nature can create, The paragon of all their works to be!...
As to the centre all things that have weight Sink from the surface: as the silly mouse Runs at a venture, rash though timorous, Into the monster's jaws to meet her fate:...
O Death, the wage of our first father's blame, Daughter of envy and nonentity, Serf of the serpent, and his harlotry, Thou beast most arrogant and void of shame!...
Wisdom and love, O Bina, gave thee wings, Before the blossom of thy years had faded, To fly with Adam for thy guide, God-aided, Through many lands in divers journeyings....
Nay, prithee tell me, Love, when I behold My lady, do mine eyes her beauty see In truth, or dwells that loveliness in me Which multiplies her grace a thousandfold?...
Scarce had I seen for the first time his eyes Which to your living eyes were life and light, When closed at last in death's injurious night He opened them on God in Paradise....
It happens that the sweet unfathomed sea Of seeming courtesy sometimes doth hide Offence to life and honour. This descried, I hold less dear the health restored to me....