Because, if once I let my caged heart go Through dreams to seek you, I should follow too Through wrong and right, through wisdom and through woe, Through heaven and hell, until I won to you! THE HEART OF JOY Dear, do you sigh that your love may not stay with you, Laugh with and play with you, Weep with and pray with you, All his life through? Think, O my heart, if you never had found me, Crept through the cere-clothes the world has wound round me, What would you do? Wide is the world, and so many would sigh for you, Long for and cry for you, Weep for and die for you, You being you. I only I, am the man you could sigh for, Live for and suffer for, sorrow and die for, Twenty lives through. Think! Had I missed you! The world was so wide for us, Traps on each side for us, Nothing as guide for us, Yet I and you Found Life’s great treasure, the last and the first, love; Life’s little things, Time and Space, do their worst, love! What, after all, can they do? THE HEART OF GRIEF You will not come again Along the deep-banked lane To where the field and fold so long have missed you; You know no more the way To where, so many a day Before the world grew gray, Your lover kissed you. The wonders and delights Of London days and nights Hold fast a soul not made for pastoral pleasures; The scent of mignonette Brings to you no regret, No withered flowers lie yet Among your treasures. And I, who long for you Sad and glad seasons through, Find my grief’s heart in knowing grief will find you; Some day you too will sigh, And lay a dead flower by, And weep to see joy lie At last behind you. What though the flower you hide With London wire be tied? What though the heart that broke your heart be rotten? You too at last must miss The smile, the word, the kiss, And know how hard it is To be forgotten. REQUIEM Now veiled in the inviolable past Love lies asleep, who never more will wake; Nor would you wake him, even for my sake Who for your sake pray he sleep sound at last. What good thing had we of him--we who bore So long his yoke? what pleasant thing had we That we should weep his deathlong sleep to see, Or call on Life to waken him once more? A little joy he gave, and much of pain, A little pleasure, and enduring grief, One flower of joy, and pain piled sheaf on sheaf, Harvests of loss, for every bud of gain.