HOW shall I all thy virtues here recount,
Dear one, within the limit of this line;
Or round thy brow a wreath of roses twine,
To mark the passage of the years we mount;
Or how, in this short verse, describe the fount
Of love, within my heart, that is all thine?
Within thy soul’s retreat a light doth shine,
That maketh my return of poor account.
Then of my homage take what is thy due,
That which is mine to give, and free the giving.
For all I have is now derived from you,
The best of all that maketh life worth living:
A gift of nature, given unto few,
Though, when received, a cause for their thanksgiving.
CXX
’TIS strange, how little doth the world perceive
The interchange of thought ’twixt thee and me;
And how far distant from the truth it be
When, guessing of my love, it doth deceive
Itself and others, and some tale conceive
That hath no setting for my heart or thee.
Then happy are we that it doth not see
Beyond the false report it would receive.
So thou, sweet one, unmarried to my love
That all these years hath sought thee near at hand,
And seen thee bud and flower, as I strove
To wait till Cupid touch thee with his wand;
So thou, upon some pedestal above,
Locked in the secret of my heart shall stand.
CXXI
THAT which we have we value not to-day,
Yet when ’tis gone its absence we deplore.
If fortune flieth and be ours no more,
Its trail of sorrow passeth on our way,
If by infirmity we cease to play
Those truant games that childhood doth adore,
Then are we all anxiety therefore;
Since many long for youth when they grow gray.
So thou, who hast not felt love’s fiercest pain,
And all unconscious cast my love aside,
Mayst wake to knowledge, and would love regain
When I no longer on this earth reside,
Remembered by my love, that shall remain;
But thou, for killing me with thy false pride.
CXXII
OH, chide me not, if in this life I make
Poor tillage of the soil that men do plough;
And hold me not transgressor, if I now
Of this world’s order would not so partake.
Love’s harvester am I, my love at stake,
And by lost love my thought, it seems, must grow.
While others happy issue from it know,
My soul may not produce till my heart break.
Then plough, sad spirit, o’er the cheerless morrow,
And though thy husbandry be but a line,
Know that its fruit, born like a child of sorrow,
May bear thy likeness, and be thy life’s sign
In after years, so that the world shall borrow
Some portion of the love that once was thine.
CXXIII
IF thou wert chainèd by the bans of life,
And wedded to another, as thy lord,
I well might pierce this heart as with a sword,
And leave to love the virtue of a wife.
But since thou holdest, by love’s hand, a knife,
Made sharp by wit, thy maidenhood’s reward;
Thou mayst so wound me by one fickle word,
That I am all at enmity and strife.
Unwedded then, save to youth’s foolish pride,
Thou art still free, and chaste as virgin snow,
That, taken in captivity, doth fade,
And melt to water, clear as for a bride.
Then surely I through frosty drifts may plough,
To capture, in love’s chase, th’ unwedded maid.