e wet
Our fallow hearts and forced their germs to move.
Now the green corn has sprouted. Each new day
Brings better pleasures, a more dear surprise,
The blade, the ear, the harvest--and our way
Leads through a region wealthy grown and wise.
We now compare our fortunes. Each his store
Displays to kindred eyes of garnered grain,
Two happy farmers, learned in love's lore,
Who weigh and touch and argue and complain--
Dear endless argument! Yet sometimes we
Even as we argue kiss. There! Let it be.

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt [1840-1922]

"WERE BUT MY SPIRIT LOOSED UPON THE AIR"

Were but my spirit loosed upon the air,--
By some High Power who could Life's chains unbind,
Set free to seek what most it longs to find,--
To no proud Court of Kings would I repair:
I would but climb, once more, a narrow stair,
When day was wearing late, and dusk was kind;
And one should greet me to my failings blind,
Content so I but shared his twilight there.
Nay! well I know he waits not as of old,--
I could not find him in the old-time place,--
I must pursue him, made by sorrow bold,
Through worlds unknown, in strange celestial race,
Whose mystic round no traveller has told,
From star to star, until I see his face.

Louise Chandler Moulton [1835-1908]

RENOUNCEMENT

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight--
The thought of thee--and in the blue heaven's height,
And in the dearest passage of a song.
Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
This breast the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright
But it must never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.
But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away,--
With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.

Alice Meynell [1850-1922]

"MY LOVE FOR THEE"

My love for thee doth march like armed men,
Against a queenly city they would take.
Along the army's front its banners shake;
Across the mountain and the sun-smit plain
It steadfast sweeps as sweeps the steadfast rain;
And now the trumpet makes the still air quake,
And now the thundering cannon doth awake
Echo on echo, echoing loud again.
But, lo! the conquest higher than bard e'er sung:
Instead of answering cannon, proud surrender!
Joyful the iro