Two Songs [1902]

Ask me why I send you here
This sweet Infanta of the year?
Ask me why I send to you
This Primrose, thus be-pearled with dew?
I will whisper to your ears:
The sweets of love are mix'd with tears.

Ask me why the flow'r does show
So yellow-green, and sickly too?
Ask me why the stalk is weak
And bending, yet it doth not break?
I will answer: -- these discover
What fainting hopes are in a lover.

If I could choose my paradise,
And please myself with choice of bliss,
The I would have your soft blue eyes
And rosy little mouth to kiss!
Your lips, as smooth and tender, child,
As rose leaves in a coppice wild.

If fate bade choose some sweet unrest,
To weave my troubled life a snare,
Then I would say "Her maiden breast,
And golden ripple of her hair;"
And weep amid those tresses, child,
Contented to be thus beguiled.