PART II

POEMS OF LOVE

Continued

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.

The mind has a thousand eyes,

And the heart but one;

Yet the light of a whole life dies

When love is done.

Francis William Bourdillon [1852

"I SAW MY LADY WEEP"

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 winged 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

"NOT OURS THE VOWS"

Nor 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.

845

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.