them sing like birds.

When the lightning struck my side,
Love shrieked and for ever died,
Leaving nought of him behind
But these playthings of the mind.

Now the real play is over
I can only act a lover,
Now the mimic play begins
With its puppet joys and sins.

When the heart no longer feels,
And the blood with caution steals,
Then, ah! then—my heart, forgive!—
Then we dare begin to live.

Dipped in Stygian waves of pain,
We can never feel again;
Time may hurl his deadliest darts,
Love may practise all his arts;

Like some Balder, lo! we stand
Safe 'mid hurtling spear and brand,
Only Death—ah! sweet Death, throw!—
Holds the fatal mistletoe.

Let the young unconquered soul
Love the unit as the whole,
Let the young uncheated eye
Love the face fore-doomed to die:

But, my Celia, not for us
Pleasures half so hazardous;
Let us set our hearts on play,
'Tis, alas! the only way—

Make of life the jest it is,
Laugh and fool and (maybe!) kiss,
Never for a moment, dear,
Love so well to risk a fear.

Is not this, my Celia, say,
The only wise—and weary—way?

TIME'S MONOTONE

    Autumn and Winter,
    Summer and Spring—
Hath Time no other song to sing?
Weary we grow of the changeless tune—
    June—December,
    December—June!

Time, like a bird, hath but one song,
  One way to build, like a bird hath he;
Thus hath he built so long, so long,
  Thus hath he sung—Ah me!

Time, like a spider, knows, be sure,
  One only wile, though he seems so wise:
Death is his web, and Love his lure,
  And you and I his flies.

      'Love!' he sings
    In the morning clear,
      'Love! Love! Love!'
    And you never hear
    How, under his breath,
    He whispers, 'Death!
    Death! Death!'

Yet Time—'tis the strangest thing of all—
  Knoweth not the sense of the words he saith;
Eternity taught him his parrot-call
  Of 'Love and Death.'

Year after year doth the old man climb
  The mountainous knees of Eternity,
But Eternity telleth nothing to Time—
  It may not be.

COR CORDIUM

O GOLDEN DAY! O SILVER NIGHT!

O golden day! O silver night!
  That brought my own true love at last,
Ah, wilt thou drop from out our sight,
  And drown within the past?

One wave, no more, in life's wide sea,
  One little nameless crest of foam,
The day that gave her all to me
  And brought us to our home.

Nay, rather as the morning grows
  In flush, and gleam, and kingly ray,
While up the heaven the sun-god goes,
  So shall ascend our day.

And when at last the long night nears,
  And love grows angel in the gloam,
Nay, sweetheart, what of fears and tears?—
  The stars shall see us home.

LOVE'S EXCHANGE

Simple am I, I care no whit
  For pelf or place,
It is enough for me to sit
  And watch Dulcinea's face;
To mark the lights and shadows flit
  Across the silver moon of it.

I have no other merchandise,
  No stocks or shares,
No other gold but just what lies
 In those deep eyes of hers;
And, sure, if all the world were wise,
It too would bank within her eyes.

I buy up all her smiles all day
  With all my love,
And sell them back, cost-price, or, say,
  A kiss or two above;
It is a speculation fine,
The profit must be always mine.

The world has many things, 'tis true,
  To fill its time,
Far more important things to do
  Than making love and rhyme;
Yet, if it asked me to advise,
I'd say—buy up Dulcinea's eyes!

TO A SIMPLE HOUSEWIFE

Who dough shall knead as for God's sake
  Shall fill it with celestial leaven,
And every loaf that she shall bake
  Be eaten of the Blest in heaven.

LOVE'S WISDOM

Sometimes my idle heart would roam
  Far from its quiet happy nest,
To seek some other newer home,
  Some unaccustomed Best:
But ere it spreads its foolish wings,
'Heart, stay at home, be wise!' Love's wisdom sings.

Sometimes my idle heart would sail
  From out its quiet sheltered bay,
To tempt a less pacific gale,
  And oceans far away:
But ere it shakes its foolish wings,
'Heart, stay at home, be wise!' Love's wisdom sings.

Sometimes my idle heart would fly,
  Mothlike, to reach some shining sin,
It seems so sweet to burn and die
  That wondrous light within:
But ere it burns its foolish wings,
'Heart, stay at home, be wise!' Love's wisdom sings.

HOME …

'We're going home!' I heard two lovers say,
  They kissed their friends and bade them bright good-byes;
  I hid the deadly hunger in my eyes,
And, lest I might have killed them, turned away.
Ah, love! we too once gambolled home as they,
  Home from the town with such fair merchandise,—
  Wine and great grapes—the happy lover buys:
A little cosy feast to crown the day.

Yes! we had once a heaven we called a home
  Its empty rooms still haunt me like thine eyes,
When the last sunset softly faded there;
Each day I tread each empty haunted room,
    And now and then a little baby cries,
  Or laughs a lovely laughter worse to bear.

LOVE'S LANDMARKS

The woods we used to walk, my love,
  Are woods no more,
But' villas' now with sounding names—
  All name and door.

The pond, where, early on in March,
  The yellow cup
Of water-lilies made us glad,
  Is now filled up.

But ah! what if they fill or fell
  Each pond, each tree,
What matters it to-day, my love,
  To me—to thee?

The jerry-builder may consume,
  A greedy moth,
God's mantle of the living green,
  I feel no wrath;

Eat up the beauty of the world,
  And gorge his fill
On mead and winding country lane,
  And grassy hill.

I only laugh, for now of these
  I have no care,
Now that to me the fair is foul,
  And foul as fair.

IF, AFTER ALL …!

This life I squander, hating the long days
That will not bring me either Rest or Thee,
This health I hack and ravage as with knives,
These nerves I fain would shatter, and this heart
I fain would break—this heart that, traitor-like,
Beats on with foolish and elastic beat:
If, after all, this life I waste and