THIS is the way we dress the Doll:
You may make her a shepherdess, the Doll,
If you give her a crook with a pastoral hook,
But this is the way we dress the Doll.

Chorus

Sonnet. "Is it a sin, to wish that I may meet thee"

© Frances Anne Kemble

Is it a sin, to wish that I may meet thee

In that dim world whither our spirits stray,

No News From The War

© Augusta Davies Webster

"IS she sitting in the meadow
Where the brook leaps to the mill,
Leaning low against the poplar,
Dreamily and still?

She knelt and kneeling drank the scent of limes,
Blown round the slow blind by a vesperal gust,
Till the room swam. So the lime-incense blew
Into her life as once it had in his,
Though how and when and with what ageless charge
Of sorrow and deep joy how could she know?

Dawn

© Federico Garcia Lorca

Dawn in New York has
four columns of mire
and a hurricane of black pigeons
splashing in the putrid waters.

This World

© George MacDonald

Thy world is made to fit thine own,
A nursery for thy children small,
The playground-footstool of thy throne,
Thy solemn school-room, Father of all!
When day is done, in twilight's gloom,
We pass into thy presence-room.

Love's Saint

© William Baylebridge

Some lip will use her name-a rapt surprise,

Passing the heart's set ward, upon me steals.

Sonnet. "I would I knew the lady of thy heart!"

© Frances Anne Kemble

I would I knew the lady of thy heart!

She whom thou lov'st, perchance, as I love thee.

The Knightly Guerdon

Untrue to my Ulric I never could be,
I vow by the saints and the blessed Marie,
Since the desolate hour when we stood by the shore,
And your dark galley waited to carry you o'er:
My faith then I plighted, my love I confess'd,
As I gave you the BATTLE-AXE marked with your crest!

A Pastoral Courtship

Let's enter, and discourse our Loves;
These are, my dear, no tell-tale groves!
There dwell no Pyes, nor Parrots there,
To prate again the words they heare.
Nor babling Echo, that will tell
The neighbouring hills one syllable.

The Sense Of Your Bidding

The sense of your bidding is unclear:
to pray, to curse, is it, to fight
you bid me, inscrutable genius?
The spring slackens, niggard, meager,
and Benozzo Gozzoli's courier
dozes in the drowsy thickets.

Twenty-One Love Poems V

With A Copy of: "In Memoriam"

Dear friend, you love the poet's song,
And here is one for your regard.
You know the "melancholy bard,"
Whose grief is wise as well as strong;

Love Infinite

Where the honeysuckle blows
In the summer night, entwined
With fresh leaves of the rose,
Greenness in gloom divined;
Sweet breaths in a mystery conspire
My soul to ravish in swift desire