Are at the stream again—
  The leaves are out,
  And all about
  The building birds begin
  To make a merry din:
  May is back, and You and I
    Are at the dream again.

  May is back, and You and I
    Lie in the grass again,—
  The butterfly
  Flits painted by,
  The bee brings sudden fear,
  Like people talking near;
  May is back, and You and I
    Are lad and lass again.

  May is back, and You and I
    Are heart to heart again,—
  In God's green house
  We make our vows
  Of summer love that stays
  Faithful through winter days;
  May is back, and You and I
    Shall never part again.

MOON-MARKETING

  Let's go to market in the moon,
    And buy some dreams together,
  Slip on your little silver shoon,
    And don your cap and feather;
  No need of petticoat or stocking—
  No one up there will think it shocking.

    Across the dew,
    Just I and you,
  With all the world behind us;
    Away from rules,
    Away from fools,
  Where nobody can find us.

TWO BIRTHDAYS

  Your birthday, sweetheart, is my birthday too,
    For, had you not been born,
  I who began to live beholding you
    Up early as the morn,
  That day in June beside the rose-hung stream,
    Had never lived at all—
  We stood, do you remember? in a dream
    There by the water-fall.

  You were as still as all the other flowers
    Under the morning's spell;
  Sudden two lives were one, and all things "ours"—
    How we can never tell.
  Surely it had been fated long ago—
    What else, dear, could we think?
  It seemed that we had stood for ever so,
    There by the river's brink.

  And all the days that followed seemed as days
    Lived side by side before,
  Strangely familiar all your looks and ways,
    The very frock you wore;
  Nothing seemed strange, yet all divinely new;
    Known to your finger tips,
  Yet filled with wonder every part of you,
    Your hair, your eyes, your lips.

  The wise in love say love was ever thus
    Through endless Time and Space,
  Heart linked to heart, beloved, as with us,
    Only one face—one face—
  Our own to love, however fair the rest;
    'Tis so true lovers are,
  For ever breast to breast,
    On—on—from star to star.

SONG

  My eye upon your eyes—
  So was I born,
  One far-off day in Paradise,
  A summer morn;
  I had not lived till then,
  But, wildered, went,
  Like other wandering men,
  Nor what Life meant
  Knew I till then.

  My hand within your hand—
  So would I live,
  Nor would I ask to understand
  Why God did give
  Your loveliness to me,
  But I would pray
  Worthier of it to be,
  By night and day,
  Unworthy me!

  My heart upon your heart—
  So would I die,
  I cannot think that God will part
  Us, you and I;
  The work he did undo,
  That summer morn;
  I lived, and would die too,
  Where I was born,
  Beloved, in you.

THE FAITHFUL LOVER

  All beauty is but thee in echo-shapes,
    No lovely thing but echoes some of thee,
  Vainly some touch of thy perfection apes,
    Sighing as fair as thou thyself to be;
  Therefore, be not disquieted that I
    On other forms turn oft my wandering gaze,
  Nor deem it anywise disloyalty:
    Nay! 'tis the pious fervour of my eye,
  That seeks thy face in every other face.
    As in the mirrored salon of a queen,
  Flashes from glass to glass, as she walks by,
    In sweet reiteration still—the queen!
  So is the world for thee to walk in, sweet;
    But to see thee is all things to have seen.
  And, as the moon in every crystal lake,
    Walking the heaven with little silver feet,
  Sees each bright copy her reflection take,
    And every dew-drop holds its little glass,
  To catch her loveliness as she doth pass,
  So do all things make haste to copy thee.
    I, then, to see thee thus over and over,
  Am wistful too all lovely shapes to see,
    For each thus makes me more and more thy lover.

LOVE'S TENDERNESS

  Deem not my love is only for the bloom,
    The honey and the marble, that is You;
  Tis so, Belovéd, common loves consume
    Their treasury, and vanish like the dew.
    Nay, but my love's a thing that's far more true;
  For little loves a little hour hath room,
  But not for us their brief and trivial doom,
    In a far richer soil our loving grew,
  From deeper wells of being it upsprings;
    Nor shall the wildest kiss that makes one mouth,
      Draining all nectar from the flowered world,
    Slake its divine unfathomable drouth;
      And, when your wings against my heart lie furled,
  With what a tenderness it dreams and sings!

ANIMA MUNDI

  Let all things vanish, if but you remain;
    For if you stay, beloved, what is gone?
  Yet, should you go, all permanence is vain,
    And all the piled abundance is as none.

  With you beside me in the desert sand,
  Your smile upon me, and on mine your hand,
    Oases green arise, and camel-bells;
  For in the long adventure of your eyes
  Are all the wandering ways to Paradise.

  Existence, in your being, comes and goes;
  What were the garden, love, without the rose?
  In vain were ears to hear,
    And eyes in vain,
  Lacking your ordered music, sphere to sphere,
    Blind, should your beauty blossom not again.

  The pulse that shakes the world with rhythmic beat
  Is but the passing of your little feet;
  And all the singing vast of all the seas,
    Down from the pole
  To the Hesperides,
    Is but the praying echo of your soul.

  Therefore, beloved, know that this is true—
  The world exists and vanishes in you!
  Tis not a lover's fancy; ask the sky
  If all its stars depend not, even as I,
  Upon your eyelids, when they open or close;
  And let the garden answer with the rose.

BALLADE OF THE UNCHANGING BÉLOVED

(TO I——a)

  When rumour fain would fright my ear
    With the destruction and decay
  Of things familiar and dear,
    And vaunt of a swift-running day
    That sweeps the fair old Past away;
  Whatever else be strange and new,
    All other things may go or stay,
  So that there be no