LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. _ . _ ^ ... ©ijap. ©opi|rt#:fxu-------. Shelf .„-.«£,.£ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. tto Ubee ! Ubou most improbable sbe. IN GUPID'JS N^ME (JUPID'S J^Tme J COMPILED BY FRANK v CHAFFEE " this thin £ is even ^ love, Whereof I told thee ; that all wise men fear, But yet escape not ; nay, to gods above, Unless the old tales lie, it draweth near." Morris. L OVE 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. Barton. 39 T EARN to win a lady's faith J— ' Nobly, as the thing is high, Bravely, as for life or death, With a loyal gravity. By your truth she shall be true, Ever true as wives of yore ; And her yes, once said to you Shall be Yes for evermore. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. o M UT upon it. I have loved Three whole days together ; And am like to love three more, If it prove fair weather. Sucklh Y true-love hath my heart, and I have his, By just exchange one to the other given : I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss, There never was a better bargain driven : My true-love hath my heart and I have his. Sidney. 40 T^HERE is no worldly pleasure here below, * Which by experience doth not folly prove ; But among all the follies that I know, The sweetest folly in the world is love. Aytoun. w E love but once. The great gold orb of light From dawn to eventide doth cast his ray ; But the full splendor of his perfect might Is reached but once throughout the livelong day. Ella Wheeler Wilcox. HIS words are bonds, his oaths are oracles, His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate ; His tears, pure messengers sent from his heart; His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth. Shakspeare. 4i INDEED, this very love which is my boast, And which, when rising up from breast to brow, Doth crown me with a ruby large enow To draw men's eyes and prove the inner cost, — This love even, all my worth to the uttermost, I should not love withal, unless that thou Hadst set me an example, shown me how, When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed, And love called love. And thus I cannot speak Of love even as a good thing of my own. Thy soul has snatched up mine, all faint and weak, And placed it by thee on a golden throne ; And that I love (O, Soul, we must be meek !) Is by thee only, whom I love alone. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 42 WHEN do I see thee most, beloved one ? When in the light the spirits of mine eyes Before thy face, their altar, solemnize The worship of that Love through thee made known ? Or when in the dusk hours (we two alone), Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies Thy twilight-hidden, glimmering visage lies, And my soul only sees thy soul its own ? O, love, my love ! if I no more should see Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee, Nor image of thine eyes in any spring, — - How, then, should sound upon life's darken- ing slope The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope, The wind of Death's imperishable wing? Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 43 T SPRING sits on her nest,— -^ Daisies and white clover ; And my heart at rest Lies in the Spring's young nest. My Love, she loves me best, And the frost is over. Spring sits on her nest, — Daisies and white clover. George Mac Donald. HEN love me, my Desire, my Wonder, Through change of world and weather ! Our hearts may louder beat asunder Than when they throb together. Gosse. 44 T OVE is not a feeling to pass away, *— ' Like the balmy breath of a summer day ; It is not — it cannot be — laid aside ; It is not a thing to forget or hide. It clings to the heart — ah, woe is me ! — As the ivy clings to the old oak tree. Charles Dickens. SWIFT speedy Time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow ; Then do not thou such treasures waste in vain, But love now, whilst thou mayst be loved again. Daniel. 45 OVE, flooding all the creeks of my dry soul, -* From which the warm tide ebbed when I was born, Following the moon of destiny, doth roll His slow, rich wave along the shore forlorn, To make the ocean-God and me one whole. So, shuddering in its ecstacy, it lies, And, freed from the tangle of the ebb, Reflects the waxing and the waning skies, And bears upon its panting breast the web Of night and her innumerable eyes. Nor can conceive at all that it was blind, But trembling with the sharp approach of love, That, strenuous, moves without one breath of wind, Gasps, as the wakening maid, on whom the dove With folded wings of deity declined. 46 She in the virgin sweetness of her dream Thought nothing strange to find her vision true ; And I thus bathed in living rapture deem No moveless drought my channel ever knew, But rustled always with the murmuring stream. Gosse. A HEART — to lay at the feet of My Love ! To leave it there in its simple truth, Not for a day, not for a day, Strong to endure when the heat of youth And cold mid-age shall have passed away, — Such heart I lay at the feet of My Love ! Ha?nilton Aide, 47 MINE to the core of the heart, My Beauty ! Mine, all mine ; and for Love, not duty — Love given willingly, full and free, Love for Love's sake, as mine to thee. Duty's a slave that keeps the keys ; But Love, the master, goes in and out Of his goodly chambers with song and shout Just as he please, — just as he please. Dinah Maria Mulock-Craik. w HO have loved and ceased to love, forget That ever they loved in their lives they say; Only remember the fever and fret, And the pain of Love, that was all his pay ; All the delight of him passes away From hearts that hoped, and from lips that met — Too late did I love you, my love, and yet I shall never forget till my dying day. Lang. 4 8 BECAUSE I breathe not love to every one, Nor do not use set colours for to wear ; Xor nourish special locks of vowed hair, Nor give each speech a full point of a groan, The courtly nymphs, acquainted with the moan Of them who in their lips Love's standard bear : What, he ! say they of me : now, I dare swear He cannot love. No, no, let him alone — And think so still, so Stella know my mind ! Profess indeed I do not Cupid's art ; But you, fair maids, at length this true shall find — That his right badge is but worn in the heart. Dumb swans, not chattering pies, do lovers prove — They love indeed who quake to say they love. Sidney. 49 OVE is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; " Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears. What is it else ? A madness most discreet, A choking gall and a preserving sweet. Shakspeare. COME hither, boy. If ever thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it remember me ; For such as I am, all true lovers are — Unstaid and skittish in all motions else, Save in the constant image of the creature That is beloved. Shakspeare. OH, how this Spring of Love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away ! Shakspeare. HOPE is a lover's staff ; walk hence with that, And manage it against despairing thoughts. Shakspeare. 5o '"TO keep one sacred flame * Through life unchilled, unmoved ; To love in wintry age, the same As first in youth we loved ; To feel that we adore Ev'n to such fond excess That, though the heart would break with more, It could not live with less, — This is love, faithful love, Such as saints might feel above. Tho7nas Moore, o FAIRER than the field, than the whole earth, Would that thy lover's coming in thy sight Were as the rain-cloud to a land of dearth, Were as the morning to a world of night ! Bourdillon. 5i LET me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. Oh, no ; it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken. It is the star to every wandering bark Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come ; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out, ev'n to the edge of doom. If this be error, and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. Shakspeare. 52 LOVE'S feeling is more soft and sensible Than are the tender horns of cockled snails ;* Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste. For valor, is not Love a Hercules, Still climbing trees in the Hesperides ? Subtile as sphinx ; as sweet and musical As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair ; And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony. Never durst poet touch a pen to write Until his ink were tempered with Love's sighs ; Oh, then his lines would ravish savage ears And plant in tyrants mild humility. Shakspeare. T^ACH on his strict line we move, J— ' And some find death ere they find love, So far apart their lives are thrown From the twin soul that halves their own. Matthew Arnold. S3 T^HIS I say of me, but think of you, Love ! * This to you, — yourself, my moon of poets ! Ah, but that's the world's side — there's the wonder — Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you. There in turn I stand with them and praise you, Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it ; But the best is when I glide from out of them, Cross a step or two of dubious twilight, Come out on the other side, the novel Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, Where I hush and bless myself with silence. Browning. 54 AS separate streams may, blending, ever roll In course united, so of soul to soul Love is the union into one sweet whole. As molten metals mingle ; as a chord Swells sweet in harmony, — when Love is Lord Two hearts are one, as letters form a word. One heart, one mind, one soul and one desire, A kindred fancy and a sister lire Of thought and passion — these can Love inspire. Chambers } s Journal. T HEY draw to each other ; they flow to- gether in one, Together thro' all lands beneath the sun, In one attempted stream, or side by side, So near that scarce a footpace may divide Their separate depths, and this maybe is best ; Or maybe in each other lost, In calm or tempest-tost, One broad, full river, they roll on to the sea. Lewis Morris. 55 SITTING in my window, Pointing my thoughts in lawn, I saw a god (I thought, but it was you) enter our gates. My blood flew out and back again as fast As I had prest it forth, and sucked it in Like breath ; then I was called away in haste To entertain you. Never was a man Heaved from a sheepcote to a sceptre raised So high in thoughts as I ; you left a kiss Upon these lips then, which I mean to keep From you forever. I did hear you talk Far above singing ; after you were gone I grew acquainted with my heart and searched What stirred it so. Alas ! I found it Love. Francis Beaumont. TNTO my heart a silent look * Flashed from thy careless eyes ; And what before was shadow, took The light of summer skies. The first-born Love was in that look ; The Venus rose from out the deep Of those inspiring eyes. Edward Bulwcr Lytton. 56 MY LOVE AND I. i. T DREAMED, last night, that we were afloat, * My love and I, in a fairy boat ; The troubles of life we had risen above, And had naught to do save to dream of love. ii. The crescent moon was our fairy boat ; On the soft, white clouds we seemed to float, While far in our wake the Milky Way A gleaming flood of glory lay. in. My oar-blades rose and fell in the tide, Scattering moonbeams on every side ; Happier far than the gods were we To float on that boundless, starry sea. IV. Music divine fell from above, Whose every note was a breath of love ; A discord rough on the music broke, The glory vanished, and — I awoke. 57 V. Yes, woke to the old, hard-working life, With its endless worry and toil and strife ; But through the darkness shines one gleam,- The memory of that golden dream. VI. And oftentimes as I close my eyes, Once more I am back in Paradise ; Once more my love and I are afloat On the fleecy clouds, in our fairy boat. Albert Payson Terhune. 58