182

THE THEFT OF THE FLOWERS.

Farewell, then, thou loved one-O, loved but

too well,

Too deeply, too blindly, for language to tellFarewell! thou hast trampled love's faith in the

dust,

Thou hast torn from my bosom its hope and its

trust;

Yet, if thy life's current with bliss it would

swell,

I would pour out my own in its last fond fare

well!

C. F. H.

THE THEFT OF THE FLOWERS.

THE forward violet thus did I chide :-
Sweet thief, whence did thou steal thy sweetest
smells

If not from my love's breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells,
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair;
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;

A third, not red nor white, had stol'n from both,
And to his robbery had annexed thy breath!
But for his theft, in pride of all his growth,
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet or colour it had stolen from thee.
SHAKESPEAR.

I WILL LOVE HER NO MORE.

I WILL love her no more-'tis a waste of the

heart,

This lavish of feeling-a prodigal's part:

Who, heedless the treasure, a life could not earn. Squanders forth where he vainly may look fo

return.

I will love her no more; it is folly to give
Our best years to one, when for many we live ;
And he who the world will thus barter for one,
I ween by such traffic must soon be undone.

I will love her no more; it is heathenish thus To bow to an idol which bends not to us; Which heeds not, which hears not, which recks not for aught

That the worship of years to its altar hath brought.

184

DESCRIPTION OF A LOVER.

I will love her no more: for no love is without Its limit in measure, and mine hath run out; She engrosseth it all, and, till some she restore, Than this moment I love her, how can I love MORE?

HOFFMAN.

DESCRIPTION OF A LOVER.

He that truly loves,

Burns out the day in idle fantasies;

And when the lamb, bleating, doth bid good night
Unto the closing day, then tears begin

To keep quick time unto the owl, whose voice
Shrieks like the bell-man in the lover's ear.
Love's eye the jewel of sleep, oh, seldom wears ;
The early lark is waken'd from her bed,
Being only by love's pains disquieted;
But, singing in the morning's ear, she weeps,
Being deep in love, at lover's broken sleeps:
But say, a golden slumber chance to tie,
With silken strings, the cover of love's eye,
Then dreams magician-like, mocking present
Pleasures, whose fading leaves more discontent.
T. MIDDLETON, 1586.

LOVE'S DISSENSIONS.

ALAS-how light a cause may move

Dissension between hearts that love!
Hearts that the world in vain had tried,
And sorrow but more closely tied;

That stood the storm when waves were rough,

Yet in a sunny hour fall off,

Like ships that have gone down at sea
When heaven was all tranquility!
A something, light as air-a look,
A word unkind, or wrongly taken-
Oh! love, that tempests never shook,

A breath, a touch like this, hath shaken; And ruder words will soon rush in

To spread the breach that words begin;
And eyes forget the gentle ray

They wore in courtship's smiling day;
And voices lose the tone that shed
A tenderness round all they said;
Till fast declining, one by one,
The sweetnesses of love are gone,
And hearts, so lately mingled, seem

Like broken clouds, or like the stream

186

LOVE'S DISSENSIONS.

That smiling left the mountain's brow,
As though its waters ne'er could sever,
Yet ere it reach the plain below,

Breaks into floods that part for ever.

MOORE.