TO OLD NOBODADDY.
WHY art thou silent and invisible,
Father of Jealousy?

Why dost thou hide thyself in clouds
From every searching eye?
Why darkness and obscurity

In all thy words and laws,—

That none dare eat the fruit but from

The wily serpent's jaws?

Or is it because secrecy

Gains feminine applause?

BARREN BLOSSOM.

I FEARED the fury of my wind

Would blight all blossoms fair and true, And my sun it shined and shined,

And my wind it never blew.

But a blossom fair or true

Was not found on any tree;
For all blossoms grew and grew
Fruitless, false, though fair to see.

OPPORTUNITY.

HE who bends to himself a joy

Does the winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in eternity's sunrise.

If you trap the moment before it's ripe,

The tears of repentance you'll certainly wipe ;

But, if once you let the ripe moment go,

You can never wipe off the tears of woe.

LOVE'S SECRET.

NEVER seek to tell thy love,

Love that never told shall be; For the gentle wind does move Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart,
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.
Ah! she did depart !

Soon after she was gone from me,

A traveller came by,

Silently, invisibly:

He took her with a sigh.

THE WILL AND THE WAY.

I ASKED a thief to steal me a peach: He turned up his eyes.

I asked a lithe lady to lie her down: Holy and meck, she cries.

As soon as I went,

An Angel came.

He winked at the thief,

And smiled at the dame;

And, without one word spoke,
Had a peach from the tree,
And 'twixt earnest and joke
Enjoyed the lady.

CUPID.

WHY was Cupid a boy,
And why a boy was he?
He should have been a girl,
For aught that I can see.

For he shoots with his bow,

And a girl shoots with her eye;
And they both are merry and glad
And laugh when we do cry.

And to make Cupid a boy

Was surely a woman's plan,
For a boy never learns to mock
Till he has become a man:

And then he is so pierced through
And wounded with arrowy smarts,
That the whole business of his life
Is to pick out the heads of the darts.

THE THISTLES AND THORNS.

I LAID me down upon a bank,
Where love lay sleeping;

I heard among the rushes dank,
Weeping, weeping.

Then I went to the heath and the wild,

To the thistles and thorns of the waste; And they told me how they were beguiled, Driven out, and compelled to be chaste.

THE GOLDEN NET.

BENEATH the white-thorn's lovely may,
Three virgins at the break of day.—
'Whither, young man, whither away?
Alas for woe! alas for woe!'

They cry, and tears for ever flow.
The one was clothed in flames of fire,
The other clothed in iron wire;
The other clothed in tears and sighs,
Dazzling bright before my eyes.
They bore a net of golden twine
To hang upon the branches fine.
Pitying, I wept to see the woe
That love and beauty undergo-
To be consumed in flames of fire
And in unsatisfied desire,
And in tears clothed night and day
It melted all my soul away.

When they saw my tears, a smile
That did heaven itself beguile
Bore the golden net aloft,
As by downy pinions soft,
Over the morning of my day.
Underneath the net I stray,
Now entreating Flaming-fire,
Now entreating Iron-wire,
Now entreating Tears and Sighs.-
O, when will the morning rise?

THE CRYSTAL CABINET.

THE maiden caught me in the wild,
Where I was dancing merrily;
She put me into her cabinet,

And locked me up with a golden key.

This cabinet is formed of gold,

And pearl and crystal shining bright,
And within it opens into a world
And a little lovely moony night.

Another England there I saw,

Another London with its Tower,
Another Thames and other hills,
And another pleasant Surrey bower.
Another maiden like herself,

Translucent, lovely, shining clear,
Threefold, each in the other closed--
O, what a pleasant trembling fear!
O, what a smile! A threefold smile
Filled me that like a flame I burned;
I bent to kiss the lovely maid,

And found a threefold kiss returned.

I strove to seize the inmost form

With ardour fierce and hands of flame, But burst the crystal cabinet,

And like a weeping babe became :

A weeping babe upon the wild,
And weeping woman pale reclined,
And in the outward air again

I filled with woes the passing wind.