What will you give me for this heart of mine, No heart of gold--and yet my dearest treasure? It has its graces--it can ache and pine, And beat true time to your sweet voice’s measure; It bears your name, it lives but for your pleasure: What will you give me for this heart I bring, That holds my life, my joy, my everything? How can I ask a price, when all my prayer Is that, without return, you will but take it-- Feed it with hope, or starve it to despair, Keep it to play with, mock it, crush it, break it, And, if your will lies there, at last forsake it? Its epitaph shall voice its deathless pride: “She held me in her hands until I died.” ENTREATY O love, let us part now! Ours is the tremulous, low-spoken vow, Ours is the spell of meeting hands and eyes. The first, involuntary, sacred kiss Still on our lips in benediction lies. O Love, be wise! Love at its best is worth no more than this-- Let us part now! O Love, let us part now! Ere yet the roses wither on my brow, Ere yet the lilies wither in your breast, Ere the implacable hour shall flower to bear The seeds of deathless anguish and unrest. To part is best. Between us still the drawn sword flameth fair-- Let us part now! THE FOREST POOL Lean down and see your little face Reflected in the forest pool, Tall foxgloves grow about the place, Forget-me-nots grow green and cool. Look deep and see the naiad rise To meet the sunshine of your eyes. Lean down and see how you are fair, How gold your hair, your mouth how red; See the leaves dance about your hair The wind has left unfilleted. What naiad of them can compare With you for good and dear and fair? Ah! look no more--the water stirs, The naiad weeps your face to see, Your beauty is more rare than hers, And you are more beloved than she. Fly! fly, before she steals the charms The pool has trusted to her arms. DISCRETION Ah, turn your pretty eyes away! You would not have me love again? Love’s pleasure does not live a day, Immortal is Love’s pain, And I am tired of pain. I have loved once--aye, once or twice; The pleasure died, the pain lives here; I will not look in your sweet eyes, I will not love you, Dear, Lest you should grow too dear. For I am weary and afraid. Have I not seen why life was fair, And known how good a world God made, How sweet the blossoms were, How dear the green fields were? And I have found how life was gray, A mist-hung road, a quest in vain, Until once more Love smiled my way And fooled me once again, And taught me grief again.