Shall I love you like the fire, love, With furious heat and noise, Whate'er it finds, destroys. I will love you like the stars, love, They love the ages through! And when this life is o'er, love, With all its joys and jars, We'll leave behind the wind and fire To wage their boisterous wars, Then we shall only be, love, The nearer to the stars! R. W. RAYMOND. A "MERCENARY" MARRIAGE. SHE moves as light across the grass As moves my shadow large and tall; And like my shadow, close yet free, The thought of her aye follows me, My little maid of Moreton Hall. No matter how or where we loved, Or when we 'll wed, or what befall; Her pedigree-good sooth, 't is long! As meek she glides through Moreton Hall. Whilst I have-nothing; save, perhaps, I laugh; she laughs; the hills and vales We let the neighbors talk their fill, For life is sweet, and love is strong, And two, close knit in marriage ties, The whole world's shams may well despise, Its folly, madness, shame, and wrong. We are not proud, with a fool's pride, Are worth far more than Moreton Hall. Therefore we laugh to scorn - we two- I take her hand, and hold it fast, DINAH MARIA MULOCK. AMY'S CRUELTY. I. FAIR Amy of the terraced house, Assist me to discover Why you who would not hurt a mouse Can torture so your lover. II. You give your coffee to the cat, You stroke the dog for coming, And all your face grows kinder at The little brown bee's humming. III. But when he haunts your door... the town IV. You never give a look, not you, Nor drop him a "Good morning," To keep his long day warm and blue, So fretted by your scorning. V. She shook her head: "The mouse and bee The dog is happy at my knee, VI. "But he... to him, the least thing given VII. "They say love gives as well as takes ; VIII. "I only know my mother's love Which gives all and asks nothing, Not thou, - had been to blame? Some soothe their conscience thus; but thou Wilt surely warn and save me now. Nay, answer not, - I dare not hear, The words would come too late; Yet I would spare thee all remorse, So comfort thee, my fate : Whatever on my heart may fall, Remember, I would risk it all! ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER. A WOMAN'S QUESTION. I break all slighter bonds, nor feel Is there one link within the past Or is thy faith as clear and free Does there within thy dimmest dreams Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe, Untouched, unshared by mine? If so, at any pain or cost, O, tell me before all is lost! Look deeper still: if thou canst feel, Within thy inmost soul, THE LADY'S "YES." "YES," I answered you last night; "No," this morning, sir, I say. Colors seen by candle-light Will not look the same by day. When the viols played their best, Lamps above, and laughs below, Love me sounded like a jest, Fit for yes or fit for no. Call me false or call me free, Vow, whatever light may shine, No man on your face shall see Any grief for change on mine. Yet the sin is on us both; Time to dance is not to woo; Wooing light makes fickle troth Scorn of me recoils on you. Learn to win a lady's faith Nobly, as the thing is high, Bravely, as for life and death, With a loyal gravity. GIVE ME MORE LOVE OR MORE GIVE me more love or more disdain ; The temperate affords me none; Give me a storm; if it be love, Disdain, that torrent will devour THOMAS CAREW. LOVE DISSEMBLED. FROM "AS YOU LIKE IT." THINK not I love him, though I ask for him; "T is but a peevish boy :- yet he talks well ;But what care I for words? - yet words do well, When he that speaks them pleases those that hear. But, sure, he's proud; and yet his pride becomes him : He'll make a proper man: The best thing in him Than that mixed in his cheek; 't was just the difference Betwixt the constant red, andʼmingled damask. There be some women, Silvius, had they marked him In parcels, as I did, would have gone near I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet I have more cause to hate him than to love him: For what had he to do to chide at me? He said mine eyes were black, and my hair black; SHAKESPEARE. THE SHEPHERD'S RESOLUTION. SHALL I, wasting in despair, Die because a woman's fair? Or make pale my cheeks with care 'Cause another's rosy are? Be she fairer than the day, What care I how fair she be? Shall my foolish heart be pined If she be not so to me, What care I how kind she be? Shall a woman's virtues move If she be not such to me, 'Cause her fortune seems too high, And unless that mind I see, Great, or good, or kind, or fair, GEORGE WITHER. LET NOT WOMAN E'ER COMPLAIN. LET not woman e'er complain Of inconstancy in love; Let not woman e'er complain Fickle man is apt to rove; Look abroad through Nature's range, Nature's mighty law is change; Ladies, would it not be strange Man should then a monster prove? Mark the winds, and mark the skies; LOVE in my bosom like a bee, Now with his wings he plays with me, Within mine eyes he makes his nest, And if I sleep, then pierceth he And makes his pillow of my knee, The livelong night; Strike I the lute, he tunes the string, Else I with roses every day Will whip you hence, I'll shut my eyes to keep you in, If he gainsay me! Two pilgrims from the distant plain Thick curling round his face so fair; But speaks no word by night or day. Fast fadeth with a certain doom; But where the beauteous boy doth pass Unnumbered flowers are seen to bloom. And thus before the sage, the boy Trips lightly o'er the blooming lands, And proudly bears a pretty toy, A crystal glass with diamond sands. And now they leap the streamlet o'er, "And thus together on we go, Where'er I chance or wish to lead; We must to other regions pass; "How quick or slow the bright sands fall Is hid from lovers' eyes alone, If you can see them move at all, Be sure your heart has colder grown. And then they'll pass you know not how." |