If you could sit with me beside the sea to-day,
And whisper with me sweetest dreamings o’er and o’er;
I think I should not find the clouds so dim and gray,
And not so loud the waves complaining at the shore.

If you could sit with me upon the shore to-day,
And hold my hand in yours as in the days of old,
I think I should not mind the chill baptismal spray,
Nor find my hand and heart and all the world so cold.

If you could walk with me upon the strand to-day,
And tell me that my longing love had won your own,
I think all my sad thoughts would then be put away,
And I could give back laughter for the Ocean’s moan!

Ah, Nora, my Nora, the light fades away,
    While Night like a spirit steals up o'er the hills;
The thrush from his tree where he chanted all day,
    No longer his music in ecstasy trills.
Then, Nora, be near me; thy presence doth cheer me,
    Thine eye hath a gleam that is truer than gold.

I cannot but love thee; so do not reprove me,
    If the strength of my passion should make me too bold.
Nora, pride of my heart,—
    Rosy cheeks, cherry lips, sparkling with glee,—
Wake from thy slumbers, wherever thou art;
    Wake from thy slumbers to me.

Ah, Nora, my Nora, there's love in the air,—
    It stirs in the numbers that thrill in my brain;
Oh, sweet, sweet is love with its mingling of care,
    Though joy travels only a step before pain.
Be roused from thy slumbers and list to my numbers;
    My heart is poured out in this song unto thee.
Oh, be thou not cruel, thou treasure, thou jewel;
    Turn thine ear to my pleading and hearken to me.

I.

Ah, yes, 't is sweet still to remember,
    Though 't were less painful to forget;
For while my heart glows like an ember,
    Mine eyes with sorrow's drops are wet,
    And, oh, my heart is aching yet.
It is a law of mortal pain
    That old wounds, long accounted well,
    Beneath the memory's potent spell,
Will wake to life and bleed again.

So 't is with me; it might be better
    If I should turn no look behind,—
If I could curb my heart, and fetter
    From reminiscent gaze my mind,
    Or let my soul go blind—go blind!
But would I do it if I could?
    Nay! ease at such a price were spurned;
    For, since my love was once returned,
All that I suffer seemeth good.

I know, I know it is the fashion,
    When love has left some heart distressed,
To weight the air with wordful passion;
    But I am glad that in my breast
    I ever held so dear a guest.
Love does not come at every nod,
    Or every voice that calleth "hasten;"
    He seeketh out some heart to chasten,
And whips it, wailing, up to God!

Love is no random road wayfarer
    Who Where he may must sip his glass.
Love is the King, the Purple-Wearer,
    Whose guard recks not of tree or grass
    To blaze the way that he may pass.
What if my heart be in the blast
    That heralds his triumphant way;
    Shall I repine, shall I not say:
"Rejoice, my heart, the King has passed!"

In life, each heart holds some sad story—
    The saddest ones are never told.
I, too, have dreamed of fame and glory,
    And viewed the future bright with gold;
    But that is as a tale long told.
Mine eyes have lost their youthful flash,
    My cunning hand has lost its art;
    I am not old, but in my heart
The ember lies beneath the ash.

I loved! Why not? My heart was youthful,
    My mind was filled with healthy thought.
He doubts not whose own self is truthful,
    Doubt by dishonesty is taught;
    So loved I boldly, fearing naught.
I did not walk this lowly earth;
    Mine was a newer, higher sphere,
    Where youth was long and life was dear,
And all save love was little worth.

Her likeness! Would that I might limn it,
    As Love did, with enduring art;
Nor dust of days nor death may dim it,
    Where it lies graven on my heart,
    Of this sad fabric of my life a part.
I would that I might paint her now
    As I beheld her in that day,
    Ere her first bloom had passed away,
And left the lines upon her brow.

A face serene that, beaming brightly,
    Disarmed the hot sun's glances bold.
A foot that kissed the ground so lightly,
    He frowned in wrath and deemed her cold,
    But loved her still though he was old.
A form where every maiden grace
    Bloomed to perfection's richest flower,—
    The statued pose of conscious power,
Like lithe-limbed Dian's of the chase.

Beneath a brow too fair for frowning,
    Like moon-lit deeps that glass the skies
Till all the hosts above seem drowning,
    Looked forth her steadfast hazel eyes,
    With gaze serene and purely wise.
And over all, her tresses rare,
    Which, when, with his desire grown weak,
    The Night bent down to kiss her cheek,
Entrapped and held him captive there.

This was Ione; a spirit finer
    Ne'er burned to ash its house of clay;
A soul instinct with fire diviner
    Ne'er fled athwart the face of day,
    And tempted Time with earthly stay.
Her loveliness was not alone
    Of face and form and tresses' hue;
    For aye a pure, high soul shone through
Her every act: this was Ione.

II.

'T was in the radiant summer weather,
    When God looked, smiling, from the sky;
And we went wand'ring much together
    By wood and lane, Ione and I,
    Attracted by the subtle tie
Of common thoughts and common tastes,
    Of eyes whose vision saw the same,
    And freely granted beauty's claim
Where others found but worthless wastes.

We paused to hear the far bells ringing
    Across the distance, sweet and clear.
We listened to the wild bird's singing
    The song he meant for his mate's ear,
    And deemed our chance to do so dear.
We loved to watch the warrior Sun,
    With flaming shield and flaunting crest,
    Go striding down the gory West,
When Day's long fight was fought and won.

And life became a different story;
    Where'er I looked, I saw new light.
Earth's self assumed a greater glory,
    Mine eyes were cleared to fuller sight.
    Then first I saw the need and might
Of that fair band, the singing throng,
    Who, gifted with the skill divine,
    Take up the threads of life, spun fine,
And weave them into soulful song.

They sung for me, whose passion pressing
    My soul, found vent in song nor line.
They bore the burden of expressing
    All that I felt, with art's design,
    And every word of theirs was mine.
I read them to Ione, ofttimes,
    By hill and shore, beneath fair skies,
    And she looked deeply in mine eyes,
And knew my love spoke through their rhymes.

Her life was like the stream that floweth,
    And mine was like the waiting sea;
Her love was like the flower that bloweth,
    And mine was like the searching bee—
    I found her sweetness all for me.
God plied him in the mint of time,
    And coined for us a golden day,
    And rolled it ringing down life's way
With love's sweet music in its chime.

And God unclasped the Book of Ages,
    And laid it open to our sight;
Upon the dimness of its pages,
    So long consigned to rayless night,
    He shed the glory of his light.
We read them well, we read them long,
    And ever thrilling did we see
    That love ruled all humanity,—
The master passion, pure and strong.

III.

To-day my skies are bare and ashen,
    And bend on me without a beam.
Since love is held the master-passion,
    Its loss must be the pain supreme—
    And grinning Fate has wrecked my dream.
But pardon, dear departed Guest,
    I will not rant, I will not rail;
    For good the grain must feel the flail;
There are whom love has never blessed.

I had and have a younger brother,
    One whom I loved and love to-day
As never fond and doting mother
    Adored the babe who found its way
    From heavenly scenes into her day.
Oh, he was full of youth's new wine,—
    A man on life's ascending slope,
    Flushed with ambition, full of hope;
And every wish of his was mine.

A kingly youth; the way before him
    Was thronged with victories to be won;
So joyous, too, the heavens o'er him
    Were bright with an unchanging sun,—
    His days with rhyme were overrun.
Toil had not taught him Nature's prose,
    Tears had not dimmed his brilliant eyes,
    And sorrow had not made him wise;
His life was in the budding rose.

I know not how I came to waken,
    Some instinct pricked my soul to sight;
My heart by some vague thrill was shaken,—
    A thrill so true and yet so slight,
    I hardly deemed I read aright.
As when a sleeper, ign'rant why,
    Not knowing what mysterious hand
    Has called him out of slumberland,
Starts up to find some danger nigh.

Love is a guest that comes, unbidden,
    But, having come, asserts his right;
He will not be repressed nor hidden.
    And so my brother's dawning plight
    Became uncovered to my sight.
Some sound-mote in his passing tone
    Caught in the meshes of my ear;
    Some little glance, a shade too dear,
Betrayed the love he bore Ione.

What could I do? He was my brother,
    And young, and full of hope and trust;
I could not, dared not try to smother
    His flame, and turn his heart to dust.
    I knew how oft life gives a crust
To starving men who cry for bread;
    But he was young, so few his days,
    He had not learned the great world's ways,
Nor Disappointment's volumes read.

However fair and rich the booty,
    I could not make his loss my gain.
For love is dear, but dearer, duty,
    And here my way was clear and plain.
    I saw how I could save him pain.
And so, with all my day grown dim,
    That this loved brother's sun might shine,
    I joined his suit, gave over mine,
And sought Ione, to plead for him.

I found her in an eastern bower,
    Where all day long the am'rous sun
Lay by to woo a timid flower.
    This day his course was well-nigh run,
    But still with lingering art he spun
Gold fancies on the shadowed wall.
    The vines waved soft and green above,
    And there where one might tell his love,
I told my griefs—I told her all!

I told her all, and as she hearkened,
    A tear-drop fell upon her dress.
With grief her flushing brow was darkened;
    One sob that she could not repress
    Betrayed the depths of her distress.
Upon her grief my sorrow fed,
    And I was bowed with unlived years,
    My heart swelled with a sea of tears,
The tears my manhood could not shed.

The world is Rome, and Fate is Nero,
    Disporting in the hour of doom.
God made us men; times make the hero—
    But in that awful space of gloom
    I gave no thought but sorrow's room.
All—all was dim within that bower,
    What time the sun divorced the day;
    And all the shadows, glooming gray,
Proclaimed the sadness of the hour.

She could not speak—no word was needed;
    Her look, half strength and half despair,
Told me I had not vainly pleaded,
    That she would not ignore my prayer.
    And so she turned and left me there,
And as she went, so passed my bliss;
    She loved me, I could not mistake—
    But for her own and my love's sake,
Her womanhood could rise to this!

My wounded heart fled swift to cover,
    And life at times seemed very drear.
My brother proved an ardent lover—
    What had so young a man to fear?
    He wed Ione within the year.
No shadow clouds her tranquil brow,
    Men speak her husband's name with pride,
    While she sits honored at his side—
She is—she must be happy now!

I doubt the course I took no longer,
    Since those I love seem satisfied.
The bond between them will grow stronger
    As they go forward side by side;
    Then will my pains be justified.
Their joy is mine, and that is best—
    I am not totally bereft,
    For I have still the mem'ry left—
Love stopped with me—a Royal Guest!

Then said Almitra, Speak to us of Love.
     And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:
     When love beckons to you, follow him,
     Though his ways are hard and steep.
     And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
     Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
     And when he speaks to you believe in him,
     Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

     For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
     Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
     So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
     Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself
     He threshes you to make your naked.
     He sifts you to free you from your husks.
     He grinds you to whiteness.
     He kneads you until you are pliant;
     And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

     All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

     But if in your heart you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
     Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
     Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
     Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
     Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
     For love is sufficient unto love.

     When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”
     And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

     Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
     But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
     To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
     To know the pain of too much tenderness.
     To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
     And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
     To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
     To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
     To return home at eventide with gratitude;
     And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

I love you
            because the Earth turns round the sun
            because the North wind blows north
                 sometimes
            because the Pope is Catholic
                 and most Rabbis Jewish
            because the winters flow into springs
                 and the air clears after a storm
            because only my love for you
                 despite the charms of gravity
                 keeps me from falling off this Earth
                 into another dimension
I love you
            because it is the natural order of things

I love you
            like the habit I picked up in college
                 of sleeping through lectures
                 or saying I’m sorry
                 when I get stopped for speeding
            because I drink a glass of water
                 in the morning
                 and chain-smoke cigarettes
                 all through the day
            because I take my coffee Black
                 and my milk with chocolate
            because you keep my feet warm
                 though my life a mess
I love you
            because I don’t want it
                 any other way

I am helpless
            in my love for you
It makes me so happy
            to hear you call my name
I am amazed you can resist
            locking me in an echo chamber
            where your voice reverberates
            through the four walls
            sending me into spasmatic ecstasy
I love you
            because it’s been so good
            for so long
            that if I didn’t love you
            I’d have to be born again
            and that is not a theological statement
I am pitiful in my love for you

The Dells tell me Love
            is so simple
            the thought though of you
            sends indescribably delicious multitudinous
            thrills throughout and through-in my body
I love you
            because no two snowflakes are alike
            and it is possible
            if you stand tippy-toe
            to walk between the raindrops
I love you
            because I am afraid of the dark
                 and can’t sleep in the light
            because I rub my eyes
                 when I wake up in the morning
                 and find you there
            because you with all your magic powers were
                 determined that
I should love you
            because there was nothing for you but that
I would love you

I love you
            because you made me
                 want to love you
            more than I love my privacy
                 my freedom          my commitments
                      and responsibilities
I love you ’cause I changed my life
            to love you
            because you saw me one Friday
                 afternoon and decided that I would
love you
I love you I love you I love you

We do not suffer much now; it is over.
We wanted to forget; we have forgotten.
We tore our hearts with healing; they are healed.

You have gained peace, you who were once a lover,
The garlands of your sacrifice are rotten;
Your garden has become a clover field.

Only at times, in intervals of quiet,
When music gravely claims the twilight air,
And melts the sinews of some bitter thong,

Your heart feels something of the stress and riot
That flung it between rapture and despair;
Something awakes that has been sleeping long.

You say: I am so strong now, I could chance
To play with these old things a while, and taste
The occult savour that I knew so well,

Yet, what was this great love,—a strange romance,
A fierce three autumns, passionately chaste,—
Youth’s customary path, no miracle.

Even that frosty thought, so fugitive,
Shows what is lost beyond all hope to gain,
And just how far from love we two have gone.

We did forget, we healed ourselves, we live,
But we have lost essential joy and pain:
We lived; we died; and having died, live on.

^{Translated from the Arabic by Joseph Dacre Carlyle} 

When you told us our glances, soft, timid, and mild,
      Could occasion such wounds in the heart,
Can ye wonder that yours, so ungovern’d and wild,
      Some wounds to our cheeks should impart?

The wounds on our cheeks, are but transient, I own,
      With a blush they appear and decay;
But those on the heart, fickle youths, ye have shewn
      To be even more transient than they.

Upon a path we lingered
When skies were overcast,
She knew not I was doubting
If love had come at last.

In her I felt arising
The pity Christ thought of––
To me naught else did matter
If only she could love.

To me unkind was pity,
And hurting, gratitude,
My love was more than kindness,
For thanks from her too good.

She said in lasting friendship
How happy we could be––
She did not know her hatred
Less painful were to me.

I said if love she could not,
’T were better to forget,
That in the flush of summer,
Upon that lane we met.

^{translated from the Farsi by Haleh Liza Gafori}

Let’s love each other,
let’s cherish each other, my friend,
before we lose each other.

You’ll long for me when I’m gone.
You’ll make a truce with me.
So why put me on trial while I’m alive?

Why adore the dead but battle the living?

You’ll kiss the headstone of my grave.
Look, I’m lying here still as a corpse,
dead as a stone. Kiss my face instead!

Love, leave me like the light,
    The gently passing day;
We would not know, but for the night,
    When it has slipped away.

Go quietly; a dream,
    When done, should leave no trace
That it has lived, except a gleam
    Across the dreamer's face.

The wild bee reels from bough to bough
    With his furry coat and his gauzy wing.
Now in a lily-cup, and now
    Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,
            In his wandering;
Sit closer love: it was here I trow
            I made that vow,

Swore that two lives should be like one
    As long as the sea-gull loved the sea,
As long as the sunflower sought the sun,—
    It shall be, I said, for eternity
            ‘Twixt you and me!
Dear friend, those times are over and done.
            Love’s web is spun.

Look upward where the poplar trees
    Sway in the summer air,
Here n the valley never a breeze
    Scatters the thistledown, but there
            Great winds blow fair
From the mighty murmuring mystical seas,
            And the wave-lashed leas.

Look upward where the white gull screams,
    What does it see that we do not see?
Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams
    On some outward voyaging argosy,—
            Ah! can it be
We have lived our lives in a land of dreams!
            How sad it seems.

Sweet, there is nothing left to say
    But this, that love is never lost,
Keen winter stabs the breasts of May
    Whose crimson roses burst his frost,
            Ships tempest-tossed
Will find a harbor in some bay,
            And so we may.

And there is nothing left to do
    But to kiss once again, and part,
Nay, there is nothing we should rue,
    I have my beauty,—you your Art,
            Nay, do not start,
One world was not enough for two
            Like me and you.

I came as a stranger; as a stranger now I leave. The flowers of May once
welcomed me warmly; a young girl spoke of love, her mother even of marriage.
Now all is bleak--the pathway covered with snow.
The time of departure is not mine to choose; I must find my way alone in
this darkness. With the shadow of the moon at my side, I search for traces of
wildlife in the white snow.
Why should I linger and give them reason to send me away? Let stray hounds
howl outside their master's house. Love likes to wander from one to another,
as if God willed it so. My darling, farewell.
A quiet step, a careful shutting of the door so your sleep is not disturbed,
and two words written on the gate as I leave, "Good night," to let you know I
thought of you.

When buffeted and beaten by life’s storms,
When by the bitter cares of life oppressed,
I want no surer haven than your arms,
I want no sweeter heaven than your breast.

When over my life’s way there falls the blight
Of sunless days, and nights of starless skies;
Enough for me, the calm and steadfast light
That softly shines within your loving eyes.

The world, for me, and all the world can hold
Is circled by your arms; for me there lies,
Within the lights and shadows of your eyes,
The only beauty that is never old.

Out of the depths of a heart of love,
     Out of the birth-place of sighs,
Freighted with hope and freighted with fear,
     My all in a valentine, hies.
     Oh, frail little missive
            Of delicate texture,
     Speed thee, on thy journey,
            And give her a lecture! 

Fathom her heart, that seems to me, cold,
     Trouble her bosom, as mine,
Let it be mutual, this that I crave,
     Her ‘yes’ for a valentine.
     Oh, frail little missive,
            In coy Cupid’s keeping,
     Oh! speed back a message,
            To set my pulse leaping.

When in the morning’s misty hour,
When the sun beams gently o’er each flower;
When thou dost cease to smile benign,
And think each heart responds with thine,
When seeking rest among divine,
                                    Forget me not.

When the last rays of twilight fall,
And thou art pacing yonder hall;
When mists are gathering on the hill,
Nor sound is heard save mountain rill,
When all around bids peace be still,
                                    Forget me not.

When the first star with brilliance bright,
Gleams lonely o’er the arch of night;
When the bright moon dispels the gloom,
And various are the stars that bloom,
And brighten as the sun at noon,
                                    Forget me not.

When solemn sighs the hollow wind,
And deepen’d thought enraps the mind;
If e’er thou doest in mournful tone,
E’er sigh because thou feel alone,
Or wrapt in melancholy prone,
                                    Forget me not. 

When bird does wait thy absence long,
Nor tend unto its morning song;
While thou art searching stoic page,
Or listening to an ancient sage,
Whose spirit curbs a mournful rage,
                                    Forget me not.

Then when in silence thou doest walk,
Nor being round with whom to talk;
When thou art on the mighty deep,
And do in quiet action sleep;
If we no more on earth do meet,
                                    Forget me not.

When brightness round thee long shall bloom,
And knelt remembering those in gloom;
And when in deep oblivion's shade,
This breathless, mouldering form is laid,
And thy terrestrial body staid,
                                     Forget me not.

“Should sorrow cloud thy coming years,
And bathe thy happiness in tears,
Remember, though we’re doom’d to part,
There lives one fond and faithful heart,
                        That will forget thee not.”

Yesterday I held your hand,
Reverently I pressed it,
And its gentle yieldingness
From my soul I blessed it.

But to-day I sit alone,
Sad and sore repining;
Must our gold forever know
Flames for the refining?

Yesterday I walked with you,
Could a day be sweeter?
Life was all a lyric song
Set to tricksy meter.

Ah, to-day is like a dirge,—
Place my arms around you,
Let me feel the same dear joy
As when first I found you.

Let me once retrace my steps,
From these roads unpleasant,
Let my heart and mind and soul
All ignore the present.

Yesterday the iron seared
And to-day means sorrow.
Pause, my soul, arise, arise,
Look where gleams the morrow.

It’s neither red
nor sweet.
It doesn’t melt
or turn over,
break or harden,
so it can’t feel
pain,
yearning,
regret.

It doesn’t have 
a tip to spin on,
it isn’t even
shapely—
just a thick clutch
of muscle,
lopsided,
mute. Still,
I feel it inside
its cage sounding
a dull tattoo:
I want, I want—

but I can’t open it:
there’s no key.
I can’t wear it
on my sleeve,
or tell you from
the bottom of it
how I feel. Here,
it’s all yours, now—
but you’ll have
to take me,
too.

Your words dropped into my heart like pebbles into a pool,
Rippling around my breast and leaving it melting cool.

Your kisses fell sharp on my flesh like dawn-dews from the limb
Of a fruit-filled lemon tree when the day is young and dim.

Like soft rain-christened sunshine, as fragile as rare gold lace,
Your breath, sweet-scented and warm, has kindled my tranquil face.

But a silence vasty-deep, oh deeper than all these ties
Now, through the menacing miles, brooding between us lies.

And more than the songs I sing, I await your written word,
To stir my fluent blood as never your presence stirred.

Ask me why I love you, dear, 

    And I will ask the rose 

Why it loves the dews of Spring 

     At the Winter’s close; 

Why the blossoms’ nectared sweets 

     Loved by questing bee,—

I will gladly answer you, 

     If they answer me. 

Ask me why I love you, dear, 

    And I will ask the flower

Why it loves the Summer sun, 

    Or the Summer shower; 

I will ask the lover’s heart

     Why it loves the moon, 

Or the star-besprinkled skies

     In a night in June. 

Ask me why I love you, dear, 

    I will ask the vine 

Why its tendrils trustingly 

    Round the oak entwine; 

Why you love the mignonette

    Better than the rue,—

If you will but answer me, 

    I will answer you. 

Ask me why I love you, dear, 

    Let the lark reply, 

Why his heart is full of song

   When the twilight’s nigh; 

Why the lover heaves a sigh

    When her heart is true; 

If you will but answer me,

    I will answer you.