LOVE had forgotten and gone to sleep;
Love had forgotten the present and past.
I was so glad when he ceased to weep;
“Now he is quiet,” I whispered, “at last.”
What sent you here on that night of all nights,
Breaking his slumber, dreamless and deep,
Just as I whispered below my breath,
“Love has forgotten and gone to sleep”?
Anne Reeve Aldrich.
LOVE, THE DESTROYER.
LOVE is a Fire;
Nor Shame nor Pride can well withstand Desire.
“For what are they,” we cry, “that they should dare
To keep, O Love, the haughty look they wear?
Nay, burn the victims, O thou sacred Fire,
That with their death thou mayst but flame the higher.
Let them feel once the fierceness of thy breath,
And make thee still more beauteous with their death.”
Love is a Fire;
But ah, how short-lived is the flame Desire!
Love, having burnt whatever once we cherished,
And blackened all things else, itself hath perished.
And now alone in gathering night we stand,
Ashes and ruin stretch on either hand;
Yet while we mourn, our sad hearts whisper low:
“We served the mightiest God that man can know.”
SWEETHEART, SIGH NO MORE.
IT was with doubt and trembling
I whispered in her ear.
Go, take her answer, bird-on-bough,
That all the world may hear—
Sweetheart, sigh no more!
Sing it, sing it, tawny throat,
Upon the wayside tree,
How fair she is, how true she is,
How dear she is to me—
Sweetheart, sigh no more!
Sing it, sing it, tawny throat,
And through the summer long
The winds among the clover-tops,
And brooks, for all their silvery stops,
Shall envy you the song—
Sweetheart, sigh no more!
Thomas Bailey Aldrich.