All 's our own, to make the most of, Sweet

Sing and say for,

Watch and pray for,
Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet !

VI.

But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet,

Though we prayed you,

Paid you, brayed you
In a mortar—for you could not, Sweet !

VII.

So, we leave the sweet face fondly there :

Be its beauty

Its sole duty!
Let all hope of grace beyond, lie there!

VIII.

And while the face lies quiet there,

Who shall wonder

That I ponder
A conclusion ? I will try it there.

IX.

As-why must one, for the love foregone,

Scout mere liking ?

Thunder-striking
Earth,--the heaven, we looked above for, gone!

X.

Why, with beauty, needs there money be,

Love with liking ?

Crush the fly-king
In his gauze, because no honey-bee?

XI.

May not liking be so simple-sweet,

If love grew there

'T would undo there All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet?

XII.

Is the creature too imperfect, say?
Would

you

mend it And so end it ? Since not all addition perfects aye!

XIII.

Or is it of its kind, perhaps,

Just perfection

Whence, rejection
Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps ?

XIV.

Shall we burn up, tread that face at once

Into tinder,

And so hinder Sparks from kindling all the place at once?

XV.

Or else kiss away one's soul on her?

Your love-fancies !

-A sick man sees
Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her!

XVI.

Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose, –

Plucks a mould-flower

For his gold flower,
Uses fine things that efface the rose :

XVII.

Rosy rubies make its cup more rose,

Precious metals

Ape the petals Last, some old king locks it up, morose !

XVIII.

Then how grace a rose? I know a way!

Leave it, rather.

Must you gather? Smell, kiss, wear it-at last, throw away!

A LIGHT WOMAN,

I.

So far as our story approaches the end,

Which do you pity the most of us three My friend, or the mistress of my friend

With her wanton eyes, or me?

II.

My friend was already too good to lose,

And seemed in the way of improvement yet, When she crossed his path with her hunting.noose

And over him drew her net.

III.

When I saw him tangled in her toils,

A shame, said I, if she adds just him To her nine-and-ninety other spoils,

The hundredth for a whim !

IV.

And before my friend be wholly hers,

How easy to prove to him, I said, An eagle 's the game her pride prefers,

Though she snaps at a wren instead !

V.
So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take,

My hand sought hers as in earnest need,
And round she turned for my noble sake,

And gave me herself indeed.

VI.

The eagle am I, with my fame in the world,

The wren is he, with his maiden face.
-You look away and your lip is curled ?

Patience, a moment's space!

VII.

For see, iny friend goes shaking and white ;

He eyes me as the basilisk:
I have turned, it appears, his day to night,

Eclipsing his sun's disk.

2

VIII.

And I did it, he thinks, as a very thief:

“Though I love her--that, he comprehends“One should master one's passions, (love, in chief)

“ And be loyal to one's friends!”

IX.

And she, she lies in my hand as tame

As a pear late basking over a wall ;
Just a touch to try, and off it came;

'T is mine, --can I let it fall ?

X.

With no mind to eat it, that 's the worst !

Were it thrown in the road, would the case assist? 'T was quenching a dozen blue-flies' thirst

When I gave its stalk a twist.