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Shall I love you like the fire, love,

With furious heat and noise,
To waken in you all love's fears
And little of love's joys?
The passion of the fire, love,

Whate'er it finds, destroys.

I will love you like the stars, love,
Set in the heavenly blue,
That only shine the brighter
After weeping tears of dew;
Above the wind and fire, 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;
I only feel she 's mine at last,
I only know I'll hold her fast,
Though to dust crumbles Moreton Hall.

Her pedigree-good sooth, 't is long!
Her grim sires stare from every wall;
And centuries of ancestral grace
Revive in her sweet girlish face,

As meek she glides through Moreton Hall.

Whilst I have-nothing; save, perhaps,
Some worthless heaps of idle gold
And a true heart, — the which her eye
Through glittering dross spied, womanly;
Therefore they say her heart was sold !

I laugh; she laughs; the hills and vales
Laugh as we ride 'neath chestnuts tall,
Or start the deer that silent graze,
And look up, large-eyed, with soft gaze,
At the fair maid of Moreton Hall;

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,
Nor cowards, - to be held in thrall
By pelf or lineage, rank or lands:
One honest heart, two honest hands,

Are worth far more than Moreton Hall.

Therefore we laugh to scorn - we two-
The bars that weaker souls appall:

I take her hand, and hold it fast,
Knowing she 'll love me to the last,
My dearest maid of Moreton Hall.

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
Marks coming and marks going...
You seem to have stitched your eyelids down
To that long piece of sewing!

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
For crumb or flower will linger;

The dog is happy at my knee,
The cat purrs at my finger.

VI.

"But he... to him, the least thing given
Means great things at a distance ;
He wants my world, my sun, my heaven,
Soul, body, whole existence.

VII.

"They say love gives as well as takes ;
But I'm a simple maiden,
My mother's first smile when she wakes
I still have smiled and prayed in.

VIII.

"I only know my mother's love Which gives all and asks nothing,

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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.
BEFORE I trust my fate to thee,
Or place my hand in thine,
Before I let thy future give
Color and form to mine,
Before I peril all for thee,
Question thy soul to-night for me.

I break all slighter bonds, nor feel
A shadow of regret :

Is there one link within the past
That holds thy spirit yet?

Or is thy faith as clear and free
As that which I can pledge to thee?

Does there within thy dimmest dreams
A possible future shine,

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.

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GIVE ME MORE LOVE OR MORE
DISDAIN.

GIVE me more love or more disdain ;
The torrid or the frozen zone
Brings equal ease unto my pain ;

The temperate affords me none;
Either extreme, of love or hate,
Is sweeter than a calm estate.

Give me a storm; if it be love,
Like Danaë in a golden shower,
I swim in pleasure; if it prove

Disdain, that torrent will devour
My vulture hopes; and he's possessed
Of heaven that's but from hell released;
Then crown my joys, or cure my pain;
Give me more love or more disdain.

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
Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.
He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall ;
His leg is but so so; and yet 't is well :
There was a pretty redness in his lip,
A little riper and more lusty red

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
To fall in love with him: but, for my part,

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;
And, now I am remembered, scorned at me :
I marvel, why I answered not again:
But that's all one; omittance is no quittance.

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,
Or the flowery meads in May,
If she be not so to me,

What care I how fair she be?

Shall my foolish heart be pined
'Cause I see a woman kind?
Or a well-disposéd nature
Joined with a lovely feature?
Be she meeker, kinder than
The turtle-dove or pelican,

If she be not so to me,

What care I how kind she be?

Shall a woman's virtues move
Me to perish for her love?
Or, her well deservings known,
Make me quite forget mine own?
Be she with that goodness blest
Which may merit name of best,

If she be not such to me,
What care I how good she be?

'Cause her fortune seems too high,
Shall I play the fool and die?
Those that bear a noble mind
Where they want of riches find,
Think what with them they would do
That without them dare to woo;

And unless that mind I see,
What care I how great she be ?

Great, or good, or kind, or fair,
I will ne'er the more despair :
If she love me, this believe,
I will die ere she shall grieve.
If she slight me when I woo,
I can scorn and let her go;
For if she be not for me,
What care I for whom she be?

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;
Ocean's ebb and ocean's flow;
Sun and moon but set to rise,
Round and round the seasons go.

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LOVE in my bosom like a bee,
Doth suck his sweet;

Now with his wings he plays with me,
Now with his feet;

Within mine eyes he makes his nest,
His bed amidst my tender breast,
My kisses are his daily feast,
And yet he robs me of my rest:
Ah! wanton, will you?

And if I sleep, then pierceth he
With pretty slight,

And makes his pillow of my knee,

The livelong night;

Strike I the lute, he tunes the string,
He music plays, if I but sing:
He lends me every lovely thing,
Yet cruel, he my heart doth sting:
Ah! wanton, will you?

Else I with roses every day

Will whip you hence,
And bind you when you long to play,
For your offence;

I'll shut my eyes to keep you in,
I'll make you fast it for your sin,
I'll count your power not worth a pin,
Alas! what hereby shall I win

If he gainsay me!

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Two pilgrims from the distant plain
Come quickly o'er the mossy ground.
One is a boy, with locks of gold

Thick curling round his face so fair;
The other pilgrim, stern and old,
Has snowy beard and silver hair.
The youth with many a merry trick
Goes singing on his careless way;
His old companion walks as quick,

But speaks no word by night or day.
Where'er the old man treads, the grass

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.
A smile o'er any brow would pass
To see him frolic in the sun,
To see him shake the crystal glass,
And make the sands more quickly run.

And now they leap the streamlet o'er,
A silver thread so white and thin,
And now they reach the open door,
And now they lightly enter in :

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"And thus together on we go,

Where'er I chance or wish to lead;
And Time, whose lonely steps are slow,
Now sweeps along with lightning speed.
Now on our bright predestined way

We must to other regions pass;
But take this gift, and night and day
Look well upon its truthful glass.

"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.
"T is coldness makes the glass grow dry,
The icy hand, the freezing brow;
But warm the heart and breathe the sigh,

And then they'll pass you know not how."

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