Love Among the Ruins

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And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass

Never was!

Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads
And embeds

Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone-

Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;

Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;

And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.

Now, the single little turret that remains
On the plains,

By the caper overrooted, by the gourd

Overscored,

While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks
Through the chinks-

Marks the basement whence' a tower in ancient time

Sprang sublime,

And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,

And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.

And I know, while thus the quiet-colored eve
Smiles to leave

To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,

And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray
Melt away-

That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair

Waits me there

In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul

For the goal,

When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb,

Till I come.

But he looked upon the city, every side,

Far and wide,

All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'

Colonnades,

All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, and then,

All the men!

When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand

On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,

Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.

In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,

And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As the sky,

Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force-
Gold, of course.

Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth's returns

For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!

Shut them in,

With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!

Love is best!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

EARL MERTOUN'S SONG

From "The Blot in the 'Scutcheon"

THERE'S a woman like a dewdrop, she's so purer than the purest;

And her noble heart's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith's

the surest:

And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth

of luster

Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild

grape cluster,

Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted

Parting at Morning

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And this woman says, "My days were sunless and my nights

were moonless,

Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's outbreak tuneless,

If you loved me not!" And I who (ah, for words of flame!) adore her,

Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her

I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes

me,

And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she

makes me!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

MEETING AT NIGHT

THE gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed in the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spirt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

PARTING AT MORNING

ROUND the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim:
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

THE TURN OF THE ROAD

SOFT, gray buds on the willow,
Warm, moist winds from the bay,
Sea-gulls out on the sandy beach,
And a road my eager feet would reach,
That leads to the Far-away.

Dust on the wayside flower,

The meadow-lark's luring tone

Is silent now, from the grasses tipped

With dew at the dawn, the pearls have slippedFar have I fared alone.

And then, by the alder thicket

The turn of the road-and you!

Though the earth lie white in the noonday heat, Or the swift storm follow our hurrying feet

What do we care-we two!

Love, from whom the world begun,

Hath the secret of the sun.

Love can tell, and love alone,

Whence the million stars were strown,

Why each atom knows its own,

How, in spite of woe and death,

Gay is life, and sweet is breath:

Love at Sea

This he taught us, this we knew,
Happy in his science true,

Hand in hand as we stood

'Neath the shadows of the wood,

Heart to heart as we lay

In the dawning of the day.

Robert Bridges [1844

"O, SAW YE THE LASS"

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O, SAW ye the lass wi' the bonny blue een?
Her smile is the sweetest that ever was seen;
Her cheek like the rose is, but fresher, I ween;
She's the loveliest lassie that trips on the green.
The home of my love is below in the valley,
Where wild-flowers welcome the wandering bee;
But the sweetest of flowers in that spot that is seen
Is the maid that I love wi' the bonny blue een.

When night overshadows her cot in the glen,
She'll steal out to meet her loved Donald again;
And when the moon shines on the valley so green,
I'll welcome the lass wi' the bonny blue een.
As the dove that has wandered away from his nest
Returns to the mate his fond heart loves the best,
I'll fly from the world's false and vanishing scene,
To my dear one, the lass wi' the bonny blue een.
Richard Ryan [1796-1849]

LOVE AT SEA

IMITATED FROM THÉOPHILE GAUTIER

We are in love's land to-day;
Where shall we go?

Love, shall we start or stay,

Or sail or row?

There's many a wind and way,

And never a May but May;
We are in love's hand to-day;
Where shall we go?