CLXXI.

LOVE'S SILVER ITERANCE.

SAY over again, and yet once over again,

That thou dost love me-though the word repeated Should seem a cuckoo-song, as thou dost treat it. Remember, never to the hill or plain,

Valley, or wood, without her cuckoo-strain

Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.
Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted

By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt's pain

Cry, "Speak once more-thou lovest!" Who can fear

Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,

Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?

Say thou dost love me, love me, love me-toll

The silver iterance !-Only minding, Dear,

To love me also in silence in thy soul.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

CLXXII.

LOVE'S STAR.

STAR that bringest home the bee,
And sett'st the weary labourer free!
If any star shed peace, 't is thou
That send'st it from above,
Appearing when Heaven's breath and brow
Are sweet as hers we love.

Come to the luxuriant skies,

Whilst the landscape's odours rise,
Whilst far-off lowing herds are heard
And songs when toil is done,

From cottages whose smoke unstirred
Curls vellow in the sun.

Star of love's soft interviews,
Parted lovers on thee muse;
Their remembrancer in Heaven
Of thrilling vows thou art,
Too delicious to be riven

By absence from the heart.

CLXXIII.

Thomas Campbell.

LOVE IN ABSENCE.

SUMMER MADE WINTER.

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year
What freezes have I felt, what dark days seen,
What old December's bareness everywhere!
And yet this time removed was summer's time:
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,

Like widowed wombs after their lord's decease Yet this abundant issue seemed to me

But hope of orphans and unfathered fruit ; For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, And thou away, the very birds are mute; Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer, That leaves look pale, dreàding the winter's near. William Shakespeare.

CLXXIV.

LOVE IN ABSENCE.

SPRING MADE WINTER.

FROM you have I been absent in the Spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,

That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.

Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue
Could make me any summer story tell,

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they

grew;

Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away, As with your shadow, I with these did play. William Shakespeare.

CLXXV.

LOVE IN ABSENCE.

PRESENCE IN ABSENCE.

ABSENCE, hear thou my protestation
Against thy strength,

Distance, and length;

Do what thou canst for alteration:

For hearts of truest mettle

Absence doth join, and Time doth settle.

Who loves a mistress of such quality,
He soon hath found

Affection's ground

Beyond time, place, and all mortality.
To hearts that cannot vary

Absence is Presence, Time doth tarry.
By absence this good means I gain,
That I can catch her,

Where none can watch her,

In some close corner of my brain:
There I embrace and kiss her;
And so I both enjoy and miss her.

Anonymous.

CLXXVI.

LOVE IN ABSENCE.

TO LUCASTA.

IF to be absent were to be

Away from thee;

Or that when I am gone

You or I were alone;

Then, my Lucasta, might I crave

Pity from blustering wind, or swallowing wave.

Though seas and land betwixt us both,
Our faith and troth,

Like separated souls,

All time and space controls:
Above the highest sphere we meet
Unseen, unknown, and greet as angels greet.

So then we do anticipate
Our after-fate,

And are alive i' the skies,

If thus our lips and eyes

Can speak like spirits unconfined
In heaven, their earthly bodies left behind.

Richard Lovelace.

CLXXVII.

LOVE IN ABSENCE.

THE LONGING HEART.

My heart is sick with longing, though I feed
On hope; Time goes with such a heavy pace
That neither brings nor takes from thy embrace

As if he slept-forgetting his old speed:
For as in sunshine only we can read

The march of minutes on the dial's face,
So, in the shadows of this lonely place,
There is no love, and Time is dead indeed.

But when, dear lady, I am near thy heart,

Thy smile is Time, and then so swift it flies,
It seems we only meet to tear apart
With aching hands and lingering of eyes.

Alas, alas! that we must learn hours' flight
By the same light of hours that makes them
bright!

Thomas Hood.

CLXXVIII.

LOVE IN ABSENCE.

PAIN WITHOUT PEACE.

'T IS not the loss of love's assurance,
It is not doubting what thou art,
But 't is the too, too long endurance
Of absence, that afflicts my heart.

The fondest thoughts two hearts can cherish,
When each is lonely doomed to weep,
Are fruits on desert isles that perish,
Or riches buried in the deep.

What though, untouched by jealous madness,
Our bosom's peace may fall to wreck?
The undoubting heart, that breaks in sadness,
Is but more slowly doomed to break.

Absence is not the soul torn by it

From more than light or life or breath?

"T is Lethe's gloom, but not its quiet, The pain without the peace of death!

Thomas Campbell.

CLXXIX.

LOVE IN ABSENCE.

ABSENT AND SILENT.

WHY art thou silent? Is thy love a plant
Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air
Of absence withers what was once so fair?
Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant ?