“ Dear guests, you now have seen Love’s corpse-light shine!
{156}
George Meredith.
LOVE WITHIN THE LOVER’S BREAST.
LOVE within the lover’s breast
Burns like Hesper in the West,
O’er the ashes of the sun,
Till the day and night are done;
Then, when dawn drives up his car—
Lo! it is the morning star.
Love! thy love pours down on mine,
As the sunlight on the vine,
As the snow rill on the vale,
As the salt breeze on the sail;
As the song unto the bird
On my lips thy name is heard.
As a dewdrop on the rose
In thy heart my passion glows ”

“ THE KISS.
THE snow is white on wood and wold,
The wind is in the firs,
So dead my heart is with the cold,
No pulse within it stirs,
Even to see your face, my dear,
Your face that was my sun;
There is no spring this bitter year,
And summer’s dreams are done.
The snakes that lie about my heart
Are in their wintry sleep;
Their fangs no more deal sting and smart,
No more they curl and creep.
Love with the summer ceased to be;
The frost is firm and fast.
God keep the summer far from me,
And let the snakes’ sleep last! ”

“ I charge you, O flowers of the Earth, O frailest of things, and most fair,
That ye droop in his path as the life in me shrivels and droops with despair.
O Moon, when he lifts up his face, when he seeth the waning of thee,{27}
A memory of her who lies wan on the limits of life let it be.
Many tears cannot quench, nor my sighs extinguish the flames of love’s fire,
Which lifteth my heart like a wave, and smites it and breaks its desire.
I rise like one in a dream; unbidden my feet know the way
To that garden where love stood in blossom with the red and white hawthorn of May. ”

“ Flash thro’ the days—too fleet!—
Which long ago went by with sun and rain,
Flowers, or the winter snow;
And still thro’ memory’s palace-halls are fain
In rustling robes to go!
Or wed, or widow’d, or with milkless breasts,
Around those women stand,
Like mists that linger on the mountain crests
Rear’d in a phantom land;
And love is in their mien and in their look,
And from their lips a stream
Of tender words flows, smooth as any brook,
And softer than a dream:
And one by one, holding my hands, they say
Things of the years agone ”

“ The rose true on the tree;
The bird seemed true the summer through,
But all proved false to me.
World, is there one good thing in you,
Life, love, or death—or what?
Since lips that sang, I love thee,
Have said, I love thee not?{187}
I think the sun’s kiss will scarce fall
Into one flower’s gold cup;
I think the bird will miss me,
And give the summer up.
O sweet place! desolate in tall
Wild grass, have you forgot
How her lips loved to kiss me
Now that they kiss me not?
Be false or fair above me,
Come back with any face,
Summer! do I care what you do? ”

“ The world is for us what no fair future comer
Shall find it or dream it could ever have been.
The earth, as we lie on its bosom, seems pressing
A heart up to bear us and mix with our heart;
The blue, as we wonder, drops down a great blessing
That soothes us and fills us and makes the tears start.
The summer is full of strange hundredth-year flowers,
That breathe all their lives the warm air of our love,
And never shall know a love other than ours
Till once more some phœnix-star flowers above.{191}
The silver cloud passing is friend of our loving ”

“ The virgin freshness of the spring,
And April’s music still be heard
In wooing voice and winning word.
If when autumnal shadows streak
The furrowed brow, the wrinkled cheek,
Devotion, deepening to the close,
Like fruit that ripens, tenderer grows;
If, though the leaves of youth and hope
Lie thick on life’s declining slope,
The fond heart, faithful to the last,
Lingers in love-drifts of the past;
If, with the gravely shortening days,
Faith trims the lamp, Faith feeds the blaze,
And Reverence, robed in wintry white,
Sheds fragrance like a summer night,—
Then Love can last! ”

“ The world is summer’s, and we swim.{302}
Your bright face peers and laughs. The sweet
Same joy fulfils us, hands and feet:
The same sea’s salt wet lips kiss ours:
We feel the same enraptured hours.
Out yonder! where our distant home
Beckons us from the crests of foam!
Out yonder through the roller’s mirth!
What part was ever ours with earth?
Your white limbs flash, your red lips gleam:
Love seems life’s best and holiest dream;
Nought comes between us here, and I
Could wish not otherwise to die.
With sea beneath us, heaven above,
Life holds but laughter, joy, and love ”

“ And make a sweet fame of my love and of me.
The blithe world shall ever have fair loving leisure,
And long is the summer for bird and for bee;
But too short the summer and too keen the pleasure
Of me kissing her and of her kissing me.
Songs shall not cease of the hills and the heather;
Songs shall not fail of the land and the sea:
But, O heart, if you sing not while we are together,
What man shall remember my love or me?{189}
Some million of summers hath been and not known her,
Hath known and forgotten loves less fair than she ”

“ A woman’s blossom breasts of snow.
Out of a rose-bud’s veins I drew
The fragrant crimsom beating through
The languid lips of her, whose kiss
Was as a poppy’s drowsiness.{48}
Out of the moonlight and the air
I wrought the glory of her hair,
That o’er her eyes’ blue heaven lay
Like some gold cloud o’er dawn of day.
A shadow’s shadow in the glass
Of sleep, my spirit saw her pass;
And, thinking of it now, meseems
We only live within our dreams.
For in that time she was to me
More real than our reality;
More real than Earth, more real than I—
The unreal things that pass and die. ”

“ Walks with the houseless traveller all the night,
When trees are tongueless and when mute the rill.
Moon of my soul, O phantom of delight,
Thou walkest with me still.
The vestal flame of quenchless memory burns
In my soul’s sanctuary. Yea, still for thee
My bitter heart hath yearned, as moonward yearns
Each separate wave-pulse of the clamorous sea:
My moon of love, to whom for ever turns
That life that aches through me. ”

“ But for the lovers’ lips that kiss, the poets’ lips that sing.”
The darts of Eros’ quiver are just as numerous and deftly feathered as of yore. Only there are more hearts to hit, with proportionally more registrars to chronicle the passage of his shafts. Still, as of old, the exhortation, Carpe Diem! reverberates through the poet’s page; the rose likewise hath not lost her fragrance, or the violet her perfume; and still, despite stings and thorns, kisses and favours remain sweet things.
Writing love-lyrics is less a momentous occupation now than in the times of doublet and hose. ”

“ Sheltering in shade of the myrtles forbidden us,
Spirit and flesh growing one with delight
For a day and a night.{245}
But his wings will not rest, and his feet will not stay for us:
Morning is here in the joy of its might;
With his breath has he sweetened a night and a day for us:
Now let him pass, and the myrtles make way for us;
Love can but last in us here at his height
For a day and a night. ”

“ There are no birds in last year’s nest!
All things rejoice in youth and love,
The fulness of their first delight!
And learn from the soft heavens above
The melting tenderness of night.{121}
Maiden, that read’st this simple rhyme,
Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay;
Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime,
For O, it is not always May!
Enjoy the spring of Love and Youth,
To some good angel leave the rest;
For Time will teach thee soon the truth,
There are no birds in last year’s nest. ”

“ The old songs, like all truly beautiful things of eld, possess the puissant stamp of endurance and the approval of the centuries, added to that indefinable charm which age alone may impart; the new must yet be mellowed and adjudged by Time.
It must be remembered, too, that it is the best of the ancient songs we know and love so well; that if the entire verse of almost any olden bard be closely scanned, it will be found, in very numerous instances, of a widely uneven quality, with many a limping line, strained conceit, or halting measure to offend. ”

“ Scatter them back to the ivory gate and be alone and rule the night.
Surely all worlds are nothing to Love, for Love to flash thro’ the night and come;
Hither and thither he flies at will, with thee he dwelleth—there is his home.
Come, O Love, with a voice, a message; haste, O Love, on thy wings of light.
Love, I am calling thee, Love, I am calling; dost thou not hear my crying, sweet?
Does not the live air throb with the pain of my beating heart, till thy heart beat?—
Surely momently thou wilt be here, surely, O sweet Love, momently.{23} ”

“ O my Love and Life, O my Life and Love,
Thank God for you!
{269}
James Thomson.
DAY AFTER DAY OF THIS AZURE MAY.
DAY after day of this azure May,
The blood of the spring has swelled in my veins;
Night after night of broad moonlight,
A mystical dream has dazzled my brains.
A seething might, a fierce delight,
The blood of the spring is the wine of the world;
My veins run fire and thrill desire,
Every leaf of my heart’s red rose uncurled.
A sad, sweet calm, a tearful balm,
The light of the moon is the trance of the world ”

“ So far as the prevailing spirit of love itself is concerned, this has undergone no change, unless that evolved by the natural refining processes of time. Human nature must be human nature still; and passion in the human heart exists unaltered in its essence. We may not have another Herrick, nor may we summon another Tennyson; the breeze of summer blows not twice alike in its passage through the woodland keys. But there must always remain new chords to be sounded while the most potent of verbs remains to be conjugated. The poets pass away, yet Love is ever new ”

“ No human maid is she, I thought, who there so lightly fares
Upon her sylvan empery, afar from our pale cares.
She passed, and left me to that thought, who felt the sadder then
That only once, and not again, she might be seen of men;
Though constantly, by lawn and wood, and hanging mountain-side,
My restless eye might dare to hunt the huntress in her pride.{222}
Without her all was lonely grown; I had no liking left
For fern or foxglove bloom, of her bright grace bereft.
And in that taking, in a bed of softest fern I lay,
And found no joy of woodcraft left, the livelong summer day ”

“ For Love and Death go hand in hand—
Go hand in hand, my sweet!
{197}
Major. I.
Oh, what shall be the burden of our rhyme,
And what shall be our ditty when the blossom’s on the lime?
Our lips have fed on winter and on weariness too long:
We will hail the royal summer with a golden-footed song.
II.
O lady of my summer and my spring,
We shall hear the blackbird whistle and the brown sweet throstle sing,
And the low clear noise of waters running softly by our feet,
When the sights and sounds of summer in the green clear fields are sweet. ”

“ Myrtles for joy, and euphrasy and rue:
Laurels and roses round thy white brows rolled,
And in thine eyes the royal heaven’s hue:
But in thy lips’ clear colour, ruddy bright,
The heart’s blood shines of many a hapless wight.
Thou art not only fair and sweet as spring;
Terror and beauty, fear and wondering
Meet on thy brow, amazing all that see:
All men do praise thee, ay, and everything;
Thou art my Lord to whom I bend the knee!
V.
I fear thee, though I love. ”

“ WHO is it that weeps for the last year’s flowers
When the wood is aflame with the fires of spring,
And we hear her voice in the lilac bowers
As she croons the runes of the blossoming?
For the same old blooms do the new years bring,
But not to our lives do the years come so,
New lips must kiss and new bosoms cling.—
Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago. ”

“ So you but love me, tho’ your love be cold,
Mine it can chill not. Tho’ your love come late,
Mine for its coming, by sweet dreams foretold,
Will dreaming wait.
Yet ah, if some fair chance, before I die,
One hour of waking life might let me live,
Rich with the dream’d-of dear reality
’Tis yours to give!
Your whole sweet self, with your sweet self’s whole love!
Those eyes of fire and dew, those lips wish-haunted,
Those feet whose steps like elfin music move
Thro’ worlds enchanted! ”

“ The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise,
And the winds are one with the clouds and beams—
Midsummer days! midsummer days!
The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze,
While the west from a rapture of sunset rights,
Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise—
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
The wood’s green heart is a nest of dreams,
The lush grass thickens and springs and sways,
The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams—
Midsummer days! midsummer days! ”