Love is its own great loveliness alway, And takes new lustre from the touch of time; Its bough owns no December and no May, But bears its blossom into Winter's clime.

Thomas Hood.

XV.

LOVE'S THOUGHTS.

MUSIC, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory-

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,

Are heaped for the beloved's bed;

And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

XVI.

LOVE'S EMBLEMS.

Now the lusty Spring is seen;
Golden yellow, gaudy blue,
Daintily invite the view;
Everywhere, on every green,
Roses blushing as they blow,
And enticing men to pull;
Lilies whiter than the snow,
Woodbines of sweet honey full;
All Love's emblems, and all cry,
"Ladies, if not plucked, we die. '

Yet, the lusty Spring hath staid;
Blushing red and purest white,
Daintily to love invite
Every woman, every maid.
Cherries kissing as they grow,
And inviting men to taste;
Apples even ripe below,

Winding gently to the waist;
All Love's emblems, and all cry,
"Ladies, if not plucked, we die."

Beaumont and Fletcher.

XVII.

LOVE-LIGHT.

SHE is not fair to outward view

As many maidens be;
Her loveliness I never knew

Until she smiled on me.

O then I saw her eye was bright,
A well of love, a spring of light.

But now her looks are coy and cold,
To mine they ne'er reply,
And yet I cease not to behold

The love-light in her eye;

Her very frowns are fairer far

Than smiles of other maidens are.

Hartley Coleridge.

XVIII.

LOVE'S LOVERS.

SOME ladies love the jewels in Love's zone,
And gold-tipped darts he hath for painless play
In idle, scornful hours he flings away;

And some that listen to his lute's soft tone

Do love to deem the silver praise their own;

Some prize his blindfold sight; and there be they
Who kissed his wings which brought him yesterday,
And thank his wings to-day that they are flown.
My lady only loves the heart of Love;

Therefore Love's heart, my lady, hath for thee
His bower of unimagined flower and tree:
There kneels he now, and all an hungered of
Thine eyes grey-lit in shadowing air above,
Seals with thy mouth his immortality.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

XIX.

LOVE'S ECHOES.

THE splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow; set the wild echoes flying ;
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark! O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!

O sweet and far from cliff and scar

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying; Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O Love, they die in yon rich sky,

They faint on hill or field or river :

Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow for ever and for ever.

Blow, bugle, blow; set the wild echoes flying; And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. Alfred Tennyson.

XX.

THE LOOK OF LOVE.

'Tis not the lily brow I prize,
Nor roseate cheeks nor sunny eyes,-
Enough of lilies or of roses!

A thousand-fold more dear to me
The look that gentle love discloses,
That look which love alone can see.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge,

XXI.

LOVE'S COLOURS.

NOT violets I gave my love,

That in their life are sweet and rare,

And deep in colour, as the heart

Whose every thought of her is prayer ;

For violets grow pale and dry,

And lose the semblance of her eye.

No lily's bud I gave my love,

Though she is white and pure as they;
For they are cold to smell and touch,
And blossom but a single day;

And pressed by love, in love's own page,
They yellow into early age.

But cyclamen I chose to give,

Whose pale white blossoms at the tips (All else is driven snow) are pink,

And mind me of her perfect lips; Still, till this flower is kept and old, Its worth to love is yet untold.

Old, kept, and kissed, it does not lose
As other flowers the hues they wear;
Love is triumphant, and this bloom
Will never whiten from despair;
Rather it deepens as it lies,

This flower that purples when it dies.

So shall my love, as years roll by,
Take kingly colours from its own;
Sole master of her vanquished heart,
Am I not master of a throne?
Crushed by no foot, nor cast away,
My purple love shall rule the day.

C. C. Fraser Tytler.

XXII.

THE SWEETS OF LOVE.

Aн, how sweet it is to love!

Ah, how gay is young desire!
And what pleasing pains we prove
When we first approach love's fire!
Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.

Sighs which are from lovers blown
Do but gently heave the heart:
E'en the tears they shed alone

Cure, like trickling balm, their smart.
Lovers, when they lose their breath,
Bleed away in easy death.

Love and Time with reverence use;
Treat them like a parting friend :
Nor the golden gifts refuse

Which in youth sincere they send;
For each year their price is more,
And they less simple than before.