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!

RESPECTABILITY.

I.

DEAR, had the world in its caprice

Deigned to proclaim "I know you both,
"Have recognized your plighted troth,
"Am sponsor for you: live in peace!"-
How many precious months and years

Of youth had passed, that speed so fast,
Before we found it out at last,
The world, and what it fears?

II.

How much of priceless life were spent
With men that every virtue decks,
And women models of their sex,

Society's true ornament,—

Ere we dared wander, nights like this,

Thro' wind and rain, and watch the Seine,

And feel the Boulevard break again

To warmth and light and bliss?

III.

I know! the world proscribes not love;
Allows my finger to caress

Your lips' contour and downiness,
Provided it supply a glove.

The world's good word!-the Institute!
Guizot receives Montalembert!

Eh? Down the court three lampions flare:
Put forward your best foot!

LOVE IN A LIFE.

I.

ROOM after room,

I hunt the house through

We inhabit together.

Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her—
Next time, herself!-not the trouble behind her
Left in the curtain, the couch's perfume!

Yet the day wears,
And door succeeds door;

As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew:
Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather.

II.

I try the fresh fortune

Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.
Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter.
Spend my whole day in the quest,-who cares?
But 't is twilight, you see, with such suites to explore,
Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!

ESCAPE me?

Never

LIFE IN A LOVE.

Beloved!

While I am I, and you are you,

So long as the world contains us both,

Me the loving and you the loth,
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear:

It seems too much like a fate, indeed!

Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,

To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,
And baffled, get up and begin again,—

So the chase takes up one's life, that's all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope goes to ground

Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark, I shape me

Ever

Removed!

IN THREE DAYS.

I.

So, I shall see her in three days

And just one night, but nights are short,
Then two long hours, and that is morn.
See how I come, unchanged, unworn!

Feel, where my life broke off from thine,
How fresh the splinters keep and fine,-
Only a touch and we combine!

II.

Too long, this time of year, the days!
But nights, at least the nights are short.
As night shows where her one moon is,
A hand's-breadth of pure light and bliss,
So life's night gives my lady birth
And my eyes hold her! What is worth
The rest of heaven, the rest of earth?

III.

O loaded curls, release your store
Of warmth and scent, as once before
The tingling hair did, lights and darks
Outbreaking into fairy sparks,

When under curl and curl I pried
After the warmth and scent inside,
Thro' lights and darks how manifold—
The dark inspired, the light controlled!
As early Art embrowns the gold.

IV.

What great fear, should one say, "Three days "That change the world might change as well "Your fortune; and if joy delays,

"Be happy that no worse befell!”
What small fear, if another says,
"Three days and one short night beside
"May throw no shadow on your ways;

"But years must teem with change untried,
"With chance not easily defied,

"With an end somewhere undescried."