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A love that shall be new and fresh each hour,
As is the golden mystery of sunset,
Or the sweet coming of the evening star,
Alike, and yet most unlike, every day,
And seeming ever best and fairest now;
A love that doth not kneel for what it seeks,
But faces Truth and Beauty as their peer,
Showing its worthiness of noble thoughts
By a clear sense of inward nobleness;
A love that in its object findeth not
All grace and beauty, and enough to sate
Its thirst of blessing, but, in all of good
Found there, it sees but Heaven-granted types
Of good and beauty in the soul of man,
And traces in the simplest heart that beats
A family likeness to its chosen one,
That claims of it the rights of brotherhood.
For love is blind but with the fleshly eye,
That so its inner sight may be more clear;
And outward shows of beauty only so
Are needful at the first as is a hand
To guide and to uphold an infant's steps:
Great spirits need them not their earnest
look

Pierces the body's mask of thin disguise,
And beauty ever is to them reveal'd
Behind the unshapeliest, meanest lump of
clay,

With arms outstretch'd and eager face ablaze,
Yearning to be but understood and loved.
James Russell Lowell.

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O Love long looked for, wherefore wilt thou wait,

And show not yet the dawn on thy bright hair,

Not yet thine hand released
Refreshing the faint east,

Thine hand reconquering heaven, to seat man there?

Come forth, be born and live,
Thou that hast help to give

And light to make man's day of manhood fair:

With flight outflying the spherèd sun, Hasten thine hour and halt not, till thy work be done.

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

ITS CONSCIOUS UNISON.

When panting sighs the bosom fill,
And hands by chance united thrill
At once, with one delicious pain,
The pulses and the nerves of twain;
When eyes that erst could meet with ease,
Do seek, yet, seeking, shyly shun
Ecstatic conscious unison,-

The sure beginnings, say, be these
Prelusive to the strain of love
Which angels sing in heaven above?

Or is it but the vulgar tune

Which all that breathe beneath the moon
So accurately learn-so soon!
With variations duly blent,
Set the same song to all intent,
Set for the finer instrument?

It is; and it would sound the same
In beasts, were not the bestial frame
Less subtly organized, to blame;
And but that soul and spirit add
To pleasures, even base and bad,
A zest the soulless never had.

Arthur Hugh Clough.

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Honour is the chief content
That to men in life is lent;
And some others do contend
Quiet none like to a friend.
Others hold there is no wealth
Compared to a perfect health;
Some man's mind in quiet stands
When he's lord of many lands.
But I did sigh, and said all this
Was but a shade of perfect bliss ;
And in my thought I did approve
Nought so sweet as is true love.
Love 'twixt lovers passeth these,
When mouth kisseth, and heart 'grees,—
With folded arms and lips meeting,
Each soul with soul in kissing greeting.
If love be so sweet a thing
That such happy bliss doth bring,
Happy is love's sugar'd thrall,
But unhappy maidens all

Who esteem your virgin blisses

Sweeter than a wife's sweet kisses:

No such quiet to the mind

As true love with kisses kind.

But if a love prove unchaste,
Then is true love quite disgraced.
Though love be sweet, learn this of me,
No sweet love but honesty.

Robert Greene.

LOVE THE MELODY OF HUMANITY.

It is by means of this divine passion that the world is kept ever fresh and young. It is the perpetual melody of humanity. It sheds an effulgence upon youth, and throws a halo round age. It glorifies the present by the light it casts backward, and it lightens the future by the beams it casts forward. The love which is the outcome of esteem and admiration has an elevating and purifying effect on the character. It tends to emancipate one from the slavery of self. It is altogether unsordid; itself is its only price. It inspires gentleness, sympathy, mutual faith, and confidence. True love also in a measure elevates the intellect. "All love renders wise in a degree," says the poet Browning, and the most gifted minds have been the sincerest lovers. Great souls make all affections great; they elevate and consecrate all true delights. The sentiment even brings to light qualities before lying dormant and unsuspected. It elevates the aspirations, expands the soul, and stimulates the mental powers. One of the finest com

pliments ever paid to a woman was that of Steele, when he said of Lady Eliz. Hastings, "that to have loved her was a liberal education." Viewed in this light, woman is an educator in the highest sense, because, above all other educators, she educates humanly and lovingly. It has been said that no man and no woman can be regarded as complete in their experience of life until they have been subdued into union with the world through their affections. As woman is not woman until she has known love, neither is man, man. Both are requisite to each other's completeness. . . . . The true union must needs be one of mind as well as of heart, and based on mutual esteem as well as mutual affection.

ITS FERVENT DELIGHT.

Smiles.

Last night, when some one spoke his name,
From my swift blood that went and came
A thousand little shifts of flame

Were shiver'd in my narrow frame.

O love! O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul thro'
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.

Before he mounts the hill, I know
He cometh quickly : from below
Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow
Before him, striking on my brow.

In my dry brain, my spirit soon,
Down-deepening from swoon to swoon,
Faints like a dazzled morning moon.

My heart, pierced thro' with fierce delight, Bursts into blossom in his sight.

My whole soul waiting silently,
All naked in a sultry sky,

Droops blinded with his shining eye :
I will possess him or will die!
Grow, live, die, looking on his face.
Tennyson.

REASONABLE LOVE.

That which is to be loved long is to be loved with reason, rather than with passion. Dr. Johnson.

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LOVE AND CROQUET.

They play'd at croquet on the lawn-
I stopp'd awhile to watch the game,
I thought it very poor and tame,
And turn'd to leave them with a yawn!-
But Rosa Bell then stood by me,

And chatter'd gaily as she stood;
Before she went I got to see

A game at croquet might be good! She ask'd me if I did not play,

And volunteer'd the rules to teach; But I replied I could not stayWhich surely was a stupid speech ;— Especially as I remain'd

Upon the ground at least an hour! I felt my footsteps were restrain'd

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LOVE'S CONTRARIETIES.

Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment; Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie.

Twice have I danced with her, and once gone down

With her to supper; once she spoke to me Out of the common, trifling, prattling tone.

I think that I have pass'd but two or three Short minutes with her when I could have spoken

Too short to screw my courage up to speak

And now those sweet and slender threads are broken,

Save that which Memory holds and cannot break.

Now am I left to count my little gain
Of pleasure, with my so much greater pain.

Chagrin d'amour ne dure qu'un moment;
Plaisir d'amour dure toute la vie.
Maybe that she will give a passing thought,
Some day, of sorrow to that foolish one
Who flutter'd round the flame until it caught
The wings that he was left to heal alone;
But that will pass-there are so many more,
Alas! so many who will court her smiles;
So many who into her ears will pour

That incense which all sorrow's thought beguiles.

And she the better thus will count her gain Of pleasure for that little thought of pain. Anon.

QUICKENS THE SENSES. Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures

seem;

There's not a leaf that falls upon the ground But holds some joy, of silence or of sound, Some sprite begotten of a summer dream. The very meanest things are made supreme

With innate ecstasy. No grain of sand But moves a bright and million-peopled land,

And hath its Eden, and its Eves, I deem.
For Love, though blind himself, a curious eye
Hath lent me, to behold the hearts of
things,

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OH, I WILL LOVE THEE! Oh, I will love thee! when the glorious sun Doth gently sink behind yon western hill, When all the various works of man are done, And every living thing is hush'd and still. Oh, I will love thee! when the queen of nigl.t Riseth serenely from behind the trees,

And poureth on the earth her silver light,

And gently sporteth on the midnight breeze. Oh, I will love thee! when the vesper star Shineth so brightly through the woody dell, When nought doth see it here or from afar,

Save that sad lonely bird, sweet Philomel! Oh, I will love thee! when grey morning dawns

In rich refulgence thro' the bosom'd grove, And the bright dewdrops glisten on the lawn, And tempt the humble labourer's feet to rove.

Oh, I will love thee! when the howling blast Of sorrow's gale around thy head shall swell;

When from thy heart thy peaceful thoughts

are cast,

To thee I'll fondly whisper "All is well." Anon.

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