Five Poems of Love

 Have you got a brook in your little heart,
 Where bashful flowers blow,
 And blushing birds go down to drink,
 And shadows tremble so?

 And nobody knows, so still it flows,
 That any brook is there;
 And yet your little draught of life
 Is daily drunken there.

 Then look out for the little brook in March,
 When the rivers overflow,
 And the snows come hurrying from the hills,
 And the bridges often go.

 And later, in August it may be,
 When the meadows parching lie,
 Beware, lest this little brook of life
 Some burning noon go dry!

A solemn thing it was, I said,
A woman white to be,
And wear, if God should count me fit,
Her hallowed mystery.

A timid thing to drop a life
Into the purple well,
Too plummetless that it comes back
Eternity until.

 Did the harebell loose her girdle
 To the lover bee,
 Would the bee the harebell hallow
 Much as formerly?

 Did the paradise, persuaded,
 Yield her moat of pearl,
 Would the Eden be an Eden,
 Or the earl an earl?

I envy seas whereon he rides, 
I envy spokes of wheels 
Of chariots that him convey, 
I envy speechless hills 

That gaze upon his journey; 
How easy all can see 
What is forbidden utterly 
As heaven, unto me! 

I envy nests of sparrows 
That dot his distant eaves, 
The wealthy fly upon his pane, 
The happy, happy leaves 

That just abroad his window 
Have summer's leave to be, 
The earrings of Pizarro 
Could not obtain for me. 

I envy light that wakes him, 
And bells that boldly ring 
To tell him it is noon abroad, - 
Myself his noon could bring, 

Yet interdict my blossom 
And abrogate my bee, 
Lest noon in everlasting night 
Drop Gabriel and me.

I held a jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep.
The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
I said: "'T will keep."

I woke and chid my honest fingers, -
The gem was gone;
And now an amethyst remembrance
Is all I own.