B LOVE-LILY. ETWEEN the hands, between the brows, A spirit is born whose birth endows My blood with fire to burn through me ; Who breathes upon my gazing eyes, Within the voice, within the heart, 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, 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, There already, to eternally reprove me? 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, Is she poor? What costs it to become a donor? But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her! ROBERT BROWNING. THE OBLATION. 3SK nothing more of me, sweet t; 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 Touch you and taste of you sweet, I that have love and no more, ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. CHE bee to the heather, 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! But Alice, dear Alice! Glade, moorland, nor sky Without you can content me, And whither shall I ? SIR HENRY TAYLOR. |