Charm me with your violet eyes, Kneel, and with your sweet lips meet The flaming buds of mine, athirst In the roses at your feet! "Leave the lilies on the lake, Do not break its pale repose: Tear your heart with cruel thorns, Such as grow beneath the rose. "So you love me? You are mine? Break from yon dead tree a bough, Lay it down among these roses-- Ah! I do not charm you now!" "OH, THE WILD, WILD DAYS OF YOUTH!" Oh, the wild, wild days of youth! My royal youth; My blood was then my king: Maybe a little mad, But full of truth! Oh, my lips were like a rose! And my heart, too; It was torn out leaf by leaf: Ah! there be none that know How the leaves flew! Oh, they dropped in the wine! The royal wine; There were showers for the girls, Crowns for their white brows, And for mine! "ON MY BED OF A WINTER NIGHT." On my bed of a winter night, Deep in a sleep and deep in a dream, What care I for the wild wind's scream, What to me is its crooked flight? On the sea of a summer day, Wrapped in the folds of a snowy sail, What care I for the fitful gale, Now in earnest, now in play? What care I for the fitful wind, That groans in a gorge, or sighs in a tree? Groaning and sighing are nothing to me, For I am a man of steadfast mind. "HALLO! MY FANCY, WHITHER WILT THOU GO?" Swift as the tide in the river The blood flows through my heart, At the curious little fancy That to-morrow we must part. It seems to me all over, The last words have been said; And I have the curious fancy To-morrow will find me dead! YOU LEFT ME. You left me, and the anguish passed, And passed the day, and passed the night-- A blank in which my senses failed; Then slowly came an inward light. So plain it reproduced the hours We lived as one,--the books we read, Our quiet walks and pleasant talks-- Love, by your spirit was I led? Oh, love, the vision grows too dear, I live in visions--I pursue Them only; come, your rival meet, My future bring, it will be--_you!_ "O FRIEND, BEGIN A LOFTIER SONG." O friend, begin a loftier song. Confusion falls upon your mind; A sense of evil makes you blind; "What use," you say, "is it to be? I know not GOD, GOD knows not me!" O friend, begin a loftier song. In other minds you place no trust: You tread your laurels in the dust: You see no Future, Hope has fled, Youth had its dreams, but Youth is dead. O friend, begin a loftier song. "The sweet ideal of past years Speaks in my songs, they are my tears: I'll weep no more, I'll sing no lays To bury Youth for idle praise!" O friend, begin a loftier song. Come through the gateway of the Past, Dear friend. The world will hear at last The little songs the poets sing: Do thou with anthems make it ring!