Four Love Songs , opus 66

My heart is like a singing bird
  Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple tree
  Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
  That paddles in a [purple]1 sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
  Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of [silk and down]2;
  Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
  And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
  In leaves and [silver]3 fleur-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
  Is come, my love, is come to me.

When I am dead, my dearest,
  Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
  Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
  With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
  And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
  I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
  Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
  That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
  And haply may forget.

Sleep, little Baby, sleep, 
  The holy Angels love thee, 
And guard thy bed, and keep 
  A blessed watch above thee. 
No spirit can come near 
  Nor evil beast to harm thee;
Sleep, Sweet, devoid of fear 
  Where nothing need alarm thee. 

The Love which doth not sleep, 
  The eternal Arms around thee;
The Shepherd of the sheep 
  In perfect love has found thee. 
Sleep thro' the holy night, 
  Christ-kept from snare and sorrow, 
Until thou wake to light 
  And love and warmth to-morrow.

Through the vales to my love!
  To the happy small nest of home
Green from basement to roof;
  Where the honey-bees come
To the window-sill flowers,
  And dive from above,
Safe from the spider that weaves
  Her warp and her woof
In some outermost leaves.

Through the vales to my love!
  In sweet April hours
  All rainbows and showers,
While dove answers dove,--
  In beautiful May,
When the orchards are tender
  And frothing with flowers,--
  In opulent June,
When the wheat stands up slender
  By sweet-smelling hay,
And half the sun's splendour
  Descends to the moon.

Through the vales to my love!
  Where the turf is so soft to the feet,
  And the thyme makes it sweet,
And the stately foxglove
[248]  Hangs silent its exquisite bells;
  And where water wells
The greenness grows greener,
  And bulrushes stand
Round a lily to screen her.

Nevertheless, if this land,
  Like a garden to smell and to sight,
Were turned to a desert of sand,
  Stripped bare of delight,
  All its best gone to worst,
For my feet no repose,
  No water to comfort my thirst,
And heaven like a furnace above,--
  The desert would be
  As gushing of waters to me,
The wilderness be as a rose,
  If it led me to thee,
  O my love!