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The Betrothed

Maggie, my wife at fifty-gray and dour and old-
With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold.

861

And the light of Days that have Been, the dark of the Days that Are,

And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar

The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket

With never a new one to light, though it's charred and black to the socket.

Open the old cigar-box-let me consider awhile;
Here is a mild Manilla-there is a wifely smile.

Which is the better portion-bondage bought with a ring, Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?

Counselors cunning and silent-comforters true and tried, And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride.

Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes,
Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close.

This will the fifty give me, asking naught in return,
With only a Suttee's passion-to do their duty and burn.

This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead, Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.

The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main, When they hear that my harem is empty, will send me my brides again.

I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal,

So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.

I will scent 'em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their

hides,

And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.

For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o' Teen.

And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth

clear,

But I have been Priest of Partagas a matter of seven year;

And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light

Of stumps that I burned to Friendship, and Pleasure, and Work, and Fight.

And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must

prove,

But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o'-the-Wisp of Love.

Will it see me safe through my journey, or leave me bogged in the mire?

Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?

Open the old cigar-box-let me consider anew

Old friends, and who is Maggie, that I should abandon you?

A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke.

Light me another Cuba-I hold to my first-sworn vows,
If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for spouse!
Rudyard Kipling [1865-

LOVE'S SADNESS

"THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES"

THE night has a thousand eyes,

And the day but one;

Yet the light of the bright world dies

With the dying sun.

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I SAW my Lady weep,

And Sorrow proud to be advanced so

In those fair eyes where all perfections keep.

Her face was full of Woe,

But such a Woe (believe me) as wins more hearts
Than Mirth can do with her enticing parts.

Sorrow was there made fair,

And Passion, wise; Tears, a delightful thing;
Silence, beyond all speech, a wisdom rare:
She made her sighs to sing,

And all things with so sweet a sadness move
As made my heart at once both grieve and love.

O fairer than aught else

The world can show, leave off in time to grieve!
Enough, enough: your joyful look excels:

Tears kill the heart, believe.

O strive not to be excellent in Woe,

Which only breeds your beauty's overthrow.

Unknown

LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM

OH! the days are gone, when Beauty bright
My heart's chain wove;

When my dream of life, from morn till night,
Was love, still love.

New hope may bloom,

And days may come,

Of milder, calmer beam,

But there's nothing half so sweet in life

As love's young dream;

No, there's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream.

Though the bard to purer fame may soar,
When wild youth's past;

Though he win the wise, who frowned before,
To smile at last;

He'll never meet

A joy so sweet,

In all his noon of fame,

As when first he sung to woman's ear

His soul-felt flame,

And, at every close, she blushed to hear
The one loved name.

No, that hallowed form is ne'er forgot
Which first love traced;

Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot
On memory's waste.

'Twas odor fled

As soon as shed;

'Twas morning's wingèd dream; 'Twas a light that ne'er can shine again On life's dull stream;

Oh! 'twas light that ne'er can shine again

On life's dull stream.

Thomas Moore [1779–1852]

The Grave of Love

865

"NOT OURS THE VOWS"

NOT ours the vows of such as plight
Their troth in sunny weather,

While leaves are green, and skies are bright,
To walk on flowers together.

But we have loved as those who tread
The thorny path of sorrow,

With clouds above, and cause to dread
Yet deeper gloom to-morrow.

That thorny path, those stormy skies,
Have drawn our spirits nearer;
And rendered us, by sorrow's ties,
Each to the other dearer.

Love, born in hours of joy and mirth,
With mirth and joy may perish;
That to which darker hours gave birth
Still more and more we cherish.

It looks beyond the clouds of time,
And through death's shadowy portal;
Made by adversity sublime,

By faith and hope immortal.

Bernard Barton [1784-1849]

THE GRAVE OF LOVE

I DUG, beneath the cypress shade,
What well might seem an elfin's grave;
And every pledge in earth I laid,
That erst thy false affection gave.

I pressed them down the sod beneath;
I placed one mossy stone above;
And twined the rose's fading wreath
Around the sepulcher of love.

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