Love is Strong

And sadly moving heavenward
By Venus and by Mars,
He heard the joyful planets

Hail Earth, the Rose of Stars.
George Edward Woodberry [1855-

507

SONG OF EROS

From "Agathon"

WHEN love in the faint heart trembles,

And the eyes with tears are wet,

O, tell me what resembles

Thee, young Regret?

Violets with dewdrops drooping,

Lilies o'erfull of gold,

Roses in June rains stooping,

That weep for the cold,
Are like thee, young Regret.

Bloom, violets, lilies, and roses!

But what, young Desire,

THE HIGHWAY

ALL day long on the highway

The King's fleet couriers ride;

You may hear the tread of their horses sped

Over the country side.

They ride for life and they ride for death

And they override who tarrieth.

With show of color and flush of pride
They stir the dust on the highway.

Let them ride on the highway wide.
Love walks in little paths aside.

All day long on the highway

Is a tramp of an army's feet;

You may see them go in a marshaled row

With the tale of their arms complete:

They march for war and they march for peace,

For the lust of gold and fame's increase,

For victories sadder than defeat

They raise the dust on the highway.

All the armies of earth defied,

Love dwells in little paths aside.

All day long on the highway

Rushes an eager band,

With straining eyes for a worthless prize

That slips from the grasp like sand.

And men leave blood where their feet have stood

And bow them down unto brass and wood

Idols fashioned by their own hand

Blind in the dust of the highway.

Power and gold and fame denied,

Love laughs glad in the paths aside.

SONG

Louise Driscoll (1875

TAKE it, love!

"Twill soon be over,

With the thickening of the clover,

With the calling of the plover,

Take it, take it, lover.

Take it, boy!

The blossom's falling,

And the farewell cuckoo's calling,

While the sun and showers are one,

Take your love out in the sun.

Take it, girl!

And fear no after,

Take your fill of all this laughter,

Laugh or not, the tears will fall,

Take the laughter first of all.

Richard Le Gallienne [1866

Song

"NEVER GIVE ALL THE HEART"

NEVER give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women, if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright

For they, for all smooth lips can say,

Have given their hearts up to the play, 1
And who can play it well enough

If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.

William Butler Yeats [1865

SONG

I CAME to the door of the House of Love

And knocked as the starry night went by; And my true love cried "Who knocks?" and I said "It is I."

And Love looked down from a lattice above

Where the roses were dry as the lips of the dead: "There is not room in the House of Love

For you both," he said.

I plucked a leaf from the porch and crept
Away through a desert of scoffs and scorns
To a lonely place where I prayed and wept
And wove me a crown of thorns.

I came once more to the House of Love
And knocked, ah, softly and wistfully,

And my true love cried "Who knocks?" and I said
"None now but thee."

And the great doors opened wide apart
And a voice rang out from a glory of light;
"Make room, make room for a faithful heart
In the House of Love, to-night."

Alfred Noyes [1880

"CHILD, CHILD"

CHILD, child, love while you can

The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man,

Never fear though it break your heart

Out of the wound new joy will start;
Only love proudly and gladly and well
Though love be heaven or love be hell.

Child, child, love while you may,
For life is short as a happy day;
Never fear the thing you feel-

Only by love is life made real;
Love, for the deadly sins are seven,

Only through love will you enter heaven.

THE young girl questions: "Whether were it better To lie for ever, a warm slug-a-bed,

Or to rise up and bide by Fate and Chance,

The rawness of the morning,

The gibing and the scorning

Of the stern Teacher of my ignorance?"

"I know not," Wisdom said.

"

T

The young girl questions: "Friend, shall I die calmer,
If I've lain for ever, sheets above the head,

Warm in a dream, or rise to take the worst
Of peril in the highways

Of straying in the by-ways,

Of hunger for the truth, of drought and thirst?" "We do not know," he said,

"Nor may till we be dead."

Ford Madox Hucffer [1873

I

WHAT shall we do for Love these days?
How shall we make an altar-blaze
To smite the horny eyes of men

With the renown of our Heaven,

And to the unbelievers prove

Our service to our dear god, Love?
What torches shall we lift above

The crowd that pushes through the mire,

To amaze the dark heads with strange fire??
I should think I were much to blame,...

If never I held some fragrant flame
Above the noises of the world,

And openly 'mid men's hurrying stares,
Worshipped before the sacred fears
That are like flashing curtains furled..
Across the presence of our lord Love.
Nay, would that I could fill the gaze
Of the whole earth with some great praise
Made in a marvel for men's eyes,

Some tower of glittering masonries,
Therein such a spirit flourishing

Men should see what my heart can sing:
All that Love hath done to me

Built into stone, a visible glee;
Marble carried to gleaming height
As moved aloft by inward delight;
Not as with toil of chisels hewn,
But seeming poised in a mighty tune.
For of all those who have been known
To lodge with our kind host, the sun,

I envy one for just one thing:

In Cordova of the Moors

'I

There dwelt a passion-minded King, PA
Who set great bands of marble-hewers
To fashion his heart's thanksgiving

In a tall palace, shapen so

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