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Lost Love

So humbly they woo,

What can poor maidens do

829

But keep them alive when they swear they must die?

Ah! who can forbear,

As they weep in despair,

Their crocodile tears in compassion to dry?

Yet, wedded at last,

When the honeymoon's past,

The lovers forsake us, the husbands remain;
Our vanity's checked,

And we ne'er can expect

They will tell us the old story over again.

James Kenney [1780-1849]

FRIEND AND LOVER

WHEN Psyche's friend becomes her lover,
How sweetly these conditions blend!
But, oh, what anguish to discover

Her lover has become

her friend!

Mary Ainge de Vere [1844

LOST LOVE

WHO wins his Love shall lose her,

Who loses her shall gain,
For still the spirit wooes her,
A soul without a stain;
And Memory still pursues her
With longings not in vain!

He loses her who gains her,
Who watches day by day
The dust of time that stains her,
The griefs that leave her gray,
The flesh that yet enchains her
Whose grace hath passed away!

Oh, happier he who gains not
The Love some seem to gain:
The joy that custom stains not
Shall still with him remain,

The loveliness that wanes not,

The Love that ne'er can wane.

In dreams she grows not older
The lands of Dream among,
Though all the world wax colder,
Though all the songs be sung,

In dreams doth he behold her
Still fair and kind and young.

Andrew Lang [1844

AN INTERLUDE

IN the greenest growth of the Maytime,
I rode where the woods were wet,
Between the dawn and the daytime:

The spring was glad that we met.

There was something the season wanted,

Though the ways and the woods smelt sweet,

The breath at your lips that panted,

The pulse of the grass at your feet.

You came, and the sun came after,

And the green grew golden above;
And the flag-flowers lightened with laughter,
And the meadow-sweet shook with love.

Your feet in the full-grown grasses

Moved soft as a weak wind blows:

You passed me as April passes,

With face made out of a rose.

By the stream where the stems were slender, Your bright foot paused at the sedge:

It might be to watch the tender

Light leaves in the springtime hedge,

On boughs that the sweet month blanches
With flowery frost of May;

It might be a bird in the branches,

It might be a thorn in the way.

An Interlude

I waited to watch you linger

With foot drawn back from the dew, Till a sunbeam straight like a finger Struck sharp through the leaves at you.

And a bird overhead sang "Follow,"
And a bird to the right sang "Here":
And the arch of the leaves was hollow,
And the meaning of May was clear.

I saw where the sun's hand pointed,
I knew what the bird's note said:
By the dawn and the dew-fall anointed,
You were Queen by the gold on your head.

As the glimpse of a burnt-out ember
Recalls a regret of the sun,
I remember, forget, and remember
What Love saw done and undone.

I remember the way we parted,
The day and the way we met:
You hoped we were both broken-hearted,
And knew we should both forget.

And May with her world in flower
Seemed still to murmur and smile
As you murmured and smiled for an hour:
I saw you turn at the stile.

A hand like a white wood-blossom
You lifted, and waved, and passed,
With head hung down to the bosom,
And pale, as it seemed, at last.

And the best and the worst of this is
That neither is most to blame,

If you've forgotten my kisses,

And I've forgotten your name.

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Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]

HEBE

I SAW the twinkle of white feet,

I saw the flash of robes descending;

Before her ran an influence fleet,

That bowed my heart like barley bending.

As, in bare fields, the searching bees
Pilot to blooms beyond our finding,
It led me on, by sweet degrees

Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding.

Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates;
With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me;
The long-sought Secret's golden gates
On musical hinges swung before me.

I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp
Thrilling with godhood; like a lover
I sprang the proffered life to clasp;-

The beaker fell; the luck was over.

The Earth has drunk the vintage up;
What boots it patch the goblet's splinters?
Can Summer fill the icy cup

Whose treacherous crystal is but Winter's?

O spendthrift haste! await the Gods;

Their nectar crowns the lips of Patience;

Haste scatters on unthankful sods

The immortal gift in vain libations.

Coy Hebe flies from those that woo,

And shuns the hands would seize upon her;

Follow thy life, and she will sue

To pour for thee the cup of honor.

James Russell Lowell [1819-1891]

Justine, You Love Me Not!" 833

"JUSTINE, YOU LOVE ME NOT!"

"Helas! vous ne m'aimez pas.”-PIRON

I KNOW, Justine, you speak me fair

As often as we meet;

And 'tis a luxury, I swear,

To hear a voice so sweet;

And yet it does not please me quite,
The civil way you've got;
For me you're something too polite-
Justine, you love me not!

I know Justine, you never scold
At aught that I may do:
If I am passionate or cold,

"Tis all the same to you.

"A charming temper," say the men,
"To smooth a husband's lot":

I wish 'twere ruffled now and then-
Justine you love me not!

I know, Justine, you wear a smile
As beaming as the sun;
But who supposes all the while
It shines for only one?

Though azure skies are fair to see,
A transient cloudy spot

In yours would promise more to me—
Justine, you love me not!

I know, Justine, you make my name
Your eulogistic theme,

And say-if any chance to blame

You hold me in esteem.

Such words, for all their kindly scope,

Delight me not a jot;

Just as you would have praised the Pope

Justine, you love me not!

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