Sweet

“ If these fresh young girls could smile and look back upon him, with that lingering glance which his presence ever invoked, why not she who was not only sweet, tender, and lovely, but gifted with a nature that responded to the deep things of life, and the stern passions of potent humanity. Could a merry laugh lure her while he stood by? Was the sunshine the natural atmosphere of this flower, that had bloomed under his eye so sweetly and shed out its innocent fragrance, at the approach of his solemn-pacing foot? ”

“ Calling thee debonair and sweet;
For sweet thou art—inspiring Manhood’s dreams,
When all aweary of the actual life;
And sweet thy influence seems
To Woman, shrinking from the strife,
The sordid tumult of the wrangling mart.
But doubly sweet thou art,
Leading the tender child by gentle streams,
Among the lilies of our flowery Youth;
Filling his all-believing heart
With thoughts that glorify the common truth ”

“ When your heart is filled with loving thoughts, when some kindly deed has been done, some duty well performed, then from the flower there will arise the sweetest, softest fragrance, to reward and gladden you. But when an unkind word is on your lips, when a selfish, angry feeling rises in your heart, or an unkind, cruel deed is to be done, then will you hear the soft, low chime of the flower-bell; listen to its warning, let the word remain unspoken, the deed undone, and in the quiet joy of your own heart, and the magic perfume of your bosom flower, you will find a sweet reward. ”

“ My soul within me seemed to melt
In sweet delirious pain.
"Sweet is the stolen draught," she said;
"Hath sweetness stint or measure?
Pleasant the secret hoard of bread;
What bars us from our pleasure?" ”

“ Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun, When first on this delightful land he spreads His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, Glistering with dew ”

“ How sweet are the flowers that grow by yon fountain,
And sweet are the cowslips that spangle the grove,
And sweet is the breeze that blows over yon mountain;
Yet none is so sweet as the lad that I love. ”

“ The winds waft sweets, the rivers pour sweets for the man who keeps the Law So may the plants be sweet for us. 7. Sweet be the night and sweet the dawns, sweet the terrestrial atmosphere; Sweet be our Father Heaven to us. 8. May the tall tree be full of sweets for us, and full of sweets the Sun: May our milch-kine be sweet for us. ”

“ This day let pleasure smile on every face,
And beam in every eye with sprightly grace;
Let artless joy the flowing lay inspire,
And sweet affection consecrate the lyre.
And see! all nature smiles around ”

“ Sweet is the rose, but growes upon a brere;
Sweet is the iunipeer; but sharpe his bough;
Sweet is the eglantine, but pricketh nere;
Sweet is the firbloome, but his braunches rough*;
Sweet is the cypresse, but his rynd is rough;
Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill**;
Sweet is the broome-flowre, but yet sowre enough;
And sweet is moly, but his root is ill. ”

“ Your life is bitter as is your food!
“But I, the happy one, taste nought but sweetness!
“I taste the rose’s sweet exhalation,
“The moonlight-nourished bride of the nightingale;
“I taste, too, the sweetness of all things:
“Loving and being loved!
“She loves me! she loves me! the beauteous maiden! ”

“ Sweet are the juicy fruits, delicious the fragrance of flowers and tree blossoms, and waters are there, both cold and hot, to give refreshment and comfort. Nymphs dance and sing to the piping of celestial elves, and merry laughter ever blends with the strains of alluring music. ”

“ The swallow also dwells with thee,
O man of God’s humility,
Within his Saviour’s church.
Sweet is the dew that falls betimes,
And drops upon the leafy limes;
Sweet, Hermon’s fragrant air:
Sweet is the lily’s silver bell,
And sweet the wakeful tapers’ smell
That watch for early prayer.
Sweet the young nurse, with love intense,
Which smiles o’er sleeping innocence;
Sweet, when the lost arrive:
Sweet the musician’s ardour beats,
While his vague mind’s in quest of sweets,
The choicest flowers to hive.{541}
Strong is the horse upon his speed ”

“ Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living—sweet are the musical voices sounding,
But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead with their silent eyes.
Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone,
But love is not over—and what love, O comrades! ”

“ Oh, sweet is the breath of morn! When the sun's first beams appear; Oh! sweet is the shepherd's strain, When it dies on the listening ear; And sweet the soft voice which speaks The Wanderer's welcome home; But sweeter far By yon pale mild star, With our true Love thus to roam, My dear! With our own true Love to roam!
EPIGRAM. EHEU FUGACES. ”

“ My life, indeed, are they, my hearing and my sight, Yea, and my very drink, my pleasance and my meat.
No other love can bring me solace for their charms, And slumber, after them, no more to me is sweet. ”

“ In the smile of the babe thou comest from heaven. In the girl's rosy dimples, in the boy's noisy glee, in the humor of strong men, and the wit of sweet women, thou art seen as a joy and a comfort to us humans. ”

“ Made the beverage sweet for me.
This to her I tried to say
In that golden yesterday—
Life is like a cup of tea
Which Time poureth endlessly,
Brewed by trial's constant heat,
Needing love to make it sweet. ”

“ Sweet is your voice and honeyed your words as you instruct the people in the law. While I, who am pregnant because of you, I, who am soon to become a mother, have not even a place for my confinement! You would deny me the very oil and butter I need. ”

“ Why, what a wretch am I to poison your young rejoicing with my melancholy. Life is sweet, and sure few ever had a sweeter cup poured than this of yours—all beauty and genius and a harvest of enchanted hearts. ”

“ He is not fool enough even to hope for one of those glistering masterpieces of frosted sugar and silk flowers, which rise to pinnacles of snowy sweetness, white mountains of blessedness, rich inside, they say, with untold treasures for the tooth that is sweet. ”

“ When your senses are gratified by some sweet odour, do not rest in the enjoyment itself, but let your thoughts pass on to your Lord, from Whom the delight comes; and, filled with inward joy at this contemplation, say—"Grant, O Lord, that as I rejoice because all sweetness comes from Thee, so may my soul, cleansed and delivered from all earthly gratifications, mount up to Thee, and be acceptable as a sweet savour poured forth in Thy Presence." ”

“ Flower of my heart, my darling, why so slowly
Lift’st thou thine eyes to mine, sweet wells of gladness?
Too deep this new-found joy, and this new pain too holy;
Or is there dread in thine heart of this divinest madness? ”

“ 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. ”

“ What is the use of wasting so much sweetness when there are thousands of good, honest fellows actually pining away from unrequited affection? brave sons of toil, ready at a moment's notice to be caressed by these sweet-pea vines, who are throwing out their fluttering tendrils for something high and strong to cling to. ”

“ How oft the night, with silence and perfume,
Has hushed the world that heart might speak to heart,
And make in each dim haunt of leafy gloom
A trysting-place where love might meet and part,
And kisses fall unseen on lips and brow,
As on thine, sweet! my kisses linger now! ”

“ They are almost reasonable in their overflowing satisfaction; and they stand half perplexed in a seraphic ecstasy, with their whole soul in their eyes, anticipating all that they are going to eat, floating like angels of heaven in the pure ether of sweet and delicious things, in the perfume of flowers and cinnamon, in the increate essence of youthful greediness and play. ”

“ Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything. ”

“ Sweet is the harmony of prophecy with prophecy, of woman with woman, of babe with babe. The women speak words of grace, the babes move hiddenly, and as their mothers approach one another, so do they engage in mysterious converse of love ”

“ The nightingale’s sweet notes, when day is done,
Float gently from the woodland’s cool retreat
In soft and plaintive strains, yet is there one
Who hearing both, would deem the lark’s mark sweet?
“A smile is better than a tear you say,
Believe me, friends, it is not always so,
As I can prove. ”

“ Sweet is the infant’s waking smile,
And sweet the old man’s rest—
But middle age by no fond wile,
No soothing calm is blest. ”

“ Our natural affections, and sympathy with each other, are the sweetest ingredients—-and perhaps the only sweet ones which Providence has thrown into the cup of life, undoubtedly for the holy purpose of rendering it at all palate-able. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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} ”

“ In a little joy, O Earth, in a little joy;
Loving thy beauty in all creatures born of thee,
Children, and the sweet-essenced body of woman;
Feeling not yet upon my neck thy foot,
But breathing warm of thee as infants breathe
New from their mother’s morning bosom. So I,
Risen from thee, restless winnower of the heaven,
p. ”

“ TO EARTHWARD
Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air
That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of—was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Down hill at dusk?
I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they’re gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.
I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.
Now no joy but lacks salt
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain
Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark ”

“ When I bring sweet things to your greedy hands, I know why there is honey in the cup of the flower, and why fruits are secretly filled with sweet juice--when I bring sweet things to your greedy hands. ”

“ Sweet, sweet, sweet! O world so full of bliss,—
For life is love, the world is love, and love is over all! —Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, Mass., and used by kind permission of author and publisher. ”

“ Sweet is the breath of vernal shower,
The bee's collected treasures sweet,
Sweet Music's melting fall, but sweeter yet
The still small voice of Gratitude.'
VI. ”

“ This love, though weak as young corn withered,
Whereof no man may gather and make bread;
Thine, though it never knew the summer heat;—
Forget not quite, my sweet.
{113}
Andrew Lang.
METEMPSYCHOSIS.
I SHALL not see thee, nay, but I shall know
Perchance, thy gray eyes in another’s eyes,
Shall guess thy curls in gracious locks that flow
On purest brows, yea, and the swift surmise
Shall follow, and track, and find thee in disguise
Of all sad things, and fair, where sunsets glow,
When through the scent of heather, faint and low,
The weak wind whispers to the day that dies. ”

“ I have also known some others quite different from these dolourous souls,—lovers who not only give thanks and praise for the kind looks, tender words and gentle bearing of their mistresses, but flavour all evils with sweetness, so that they call their ladies’ warrings, anger and disdain, most sweet.sweet. Wherefore such as these seem to me far more than happy. For if they find such sweetness in lovers’ quarrels, which those others deem far more bitter than death, I think that in loving endearments they must enjoy that supreme beatitude which we vainly seek in this world. ”

“ sweet flows speech from his mouth. ”

“ Enlarge Thou me in love, that, with the inward palate of my heart, I may taste how sweet it is to love, and to be dissolved, and as it were to bathe myself in Thy love. ”

“ O’er lapse of time and change of scene,—
The weary waste which lies between
Thyself and me, my heart I lean.
Thou lack’st not Friendship’s spell-word, nor
The half-unconscious power to draw
All hearts to thine by Love’s sweet law. ”

“ Sweet as the tender fragrance that survives, When martyred flowers breathe out their little lives, Sweet as a song that once consoled our pain, But never will be sung to us again, Is thy remembrance. Now the hour of rest Hath come to thee. Sleep, darling; it is best. ”