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LOVE-LILY.

ETWEEN the hands, between the brows,
Between the lips of Love-Lily,

A spirit is born whose birth endows

My blood with fire to burn through me ;

Who breathes upon my gazing eyes,
Who laughs and murmurs in mine ear,
At whose least touch my colour flies,
And whom my life grows faint to hear.

Within the voice, within the heart,
Within the mind of Love-Lily,

A spirit is born who lifts apart

His tremulous wings and looks at me ; Who on my mouth his finger lays,

And shows, while whispering lutes confer, That Eden of Love's watered ways

Whose winds and spirits worship her.

Brows, hands, and lips, heart, mind, and voice,

Kisses and words of Love-Lily,

Oh! bid me with your joy rejoice,
Till riotous longing rest in me!
Ah! let not hope be still distraught,
But find in her its gracious goal,

Whose speech Truth knows not from her thought

Nor Love her body from her soul.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

I.

IVE her but a least excuse to love me!

When-where

How can this arm establish her above me,
If fortune fixed her as my lady there,

There already, to eternally reprove me?
("Hist!" said Kate the queen ;

But "Oh," cried the maiden, binding her tresses, "'Tis only a page that carols unseen, Crumbling your hounds their messes!")

II.

Is she wronged?—To the rescue of her honour,
My heart!

Is she poor? What costs it to become a donor?
Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.

But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!
("Nay, list!"-bade Kate the queen;
And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,
"Tis only a page that carols unseen,
Fitting your hawks their jesses!")

ROBERT BROWNING.

THE OBLATION.

3SK nothing more of me, sweet t;
All I can give you I give.

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Heart of my heart, were it more, More would be laid at your feet: Love that should help you to live, Song that should spur you to soar.

All things were nothing to give
Once to have sense of you more,

Touch you and taste of you sweet,
Think you and breathe you and live,
Swept of your wings as they soar,
Trodden by chance of your feet.

I that have love and no more,
Give you but love of you, sweet:
He that hath more, let him give;
He that hath wings, let him soar;
Mine is the heart at your feet
Here, that must love you to live.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

CHE bee to the heather,
The lark to the sky,

The roe to the greenwood,

And whither shall I?

Oh, Alice! ah, Alice!

So sweet to the bee

Are the moorland and heather

By Cannock and Leigh!

Oh, Alice! ah, Alice!

O'er Teddesley Park

The sunny sky scatters

The notes of the lark!

Oh, Alice! ah, Alice!
In Beaudesert glade
The roes toss their antlers
For joy of the shade !—

But Alice, dear Alice!

Glade, moorland, nor sky Without you can content me,

And whither shall I ?

SIR HENRY TAYLOR.

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