Attraction

BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

The meadow and the mountain with desire
Gazed on each other, till a fierce unrest
Surged 'neath the meadow's seemingly calm breast,
And all the mountain's fissures ran with fire.
A mighty river rolled between them there.
What could the mountain do but gaze and burn?
What could the meadow do but look and yearn,
And gem its bosom to conceal despair?
Their seething passion agitated space,
Till lo! the lands a sudden earthquake shook,
The river fled: the meadow leaped, and took
The leaning mountain in a close embrace.

(From) Aspects of Love

BY RUTH MILLER

Love? We should smother it
And push it up the chimney-
He said, half meaning it.
We know now what he intended
For finding love at their door
On a cold night, people-if they are wise-
Will push it up the chimny into the smoke before
It wails at them with such clenched desire
As will bring into the quiet house
The significant ecstatic loss.

(From) A Valentine

BY ELIZABETH TREFUSIS

When to Love's influence woman yields,
She loves for life! and daily feels
Progressive tenderness!--each hour
Confirms, extends, the tyrant's power!
Her lover is her god! her fate!--
Vain pleasures, riches, wordly state,
Are trifles all!--each sacrifice
Becomes a dear and valued prize,
If made for him, e'en tho' he proves
Forgetful of their former loves!

A Birthday

BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves, and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves, and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

A Song

BY ANNE FINCH

Love, thou art best of Human Joys,
Our chiefest Happiness below;
All other Pleasures are but Toys,
Musick without Thee is but Noise,
And Beauty but an empty show.

Heav’n , who knew best what Man wou’d move,
And raise his Thoughts above the Brute;
Said, Let him Be, and Let him Love;
That must alone his Soul improve,
Howe’er Philosophers dispute.

At 3 A.M.

BY WENDY COPE

the room contains no sound
except the ticking of the clock
which has begun to panic
like an insect, trapped
in an enormous box.

Books lie open on the carpet.

Somewhere else
you're sleeping
and beside you there's a woman
who is crying quietly
so you won't wake.

An Answer to a Love-Letter

BY LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU

Is it to me this sad lamenting strain?
Are Heaven's choicest gifts bestow'd in vain?
A plenteous fortune and a beauteous bride,
Your love rewarded, and content your pride;
Yet, leaving her, 'tis me that you pursue,
Without one single charm -- but being new.
How vile is man! How I detest the ways
Of covert falsehood and designing praise!
As tasteless, easier happiness you slight,
Ruin your joy, and mischief your delight.
Why should poor pug (the mimic of your kind)
Wear a rough chain, and be to box confin'd?
Some cup, perhaps, he breaks, or tears a fan,
While moves, unpunish'd, the destroyer man;
Not bound by vows, and unrestrain'd by shame,
In sport you break the heart, and rend the fame.
Not that your art can be successful here,
Th' already plunder'd need no robber fear.
Nor sighs nor charms, nor flattery, can move,
Too well secur'd against a second love.
Once, and but once, that devil charm'd my mind,
To reason deaf, to observation blind,
I idly hop'd (what cannot Love persuade!)
My fondness equall'd and my truth repaid:
Slow to distrust, and willing to believe;
Long hush'd my doubts, I would myself deceive.

But oh! too soon -- this tale would ever last --
Sleep on my wrongs, and let me think them past.
For you, who mourn with counterfeited grief,
And ask so boldly, like a begging thief,
May soon some other nymph inflict the pain
You know so well with cruel art to feign.
Though long you've sported with Dan Cupid's dart,
You may see eyes, and you may feel a heart.
So the brisk wits who stop the evening coach,
Laugh at the fear that follows their approach;
With idle mirth and haughty scorn despise
The passenger's pale cheek and staring eyes;
But seiz'd by justice, find a fright no jest,
And all the terror doubled in their breast.

Auld Robin Gray

BY ANNE LINDSAY

When the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye at hame,
And a' the warld to rest are gane,
The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my e'e,
While my gudeman lies sound by me.

Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me for his bride;
But saving a croun he had naething else beside:
To make the croun a pund, young Jamie gaed to sea;
And the croun and the pund were baith for me.

He hadna been awa' a week but only twa,
When my father brak his arm, and the cow was stown awa;
My mother she fell sick,--and my Jamie at the sea--
And auld Robin Gray came a-courtin' me.

My father couldna work, and my mother couldna spin;
I toil'd day and night, but their bread I couldna win;
Auld Rob maintain'd them baith, and wi' tears in his e'e
Said, 'Jennie, for their sakes, O, marry me!'

My heart it said nay; I look'd for Jamie back;
But the wind it blew high, and the ship it was a wrack;
His ship it was a wrack--Why didna Jamie dee?
Or why do I live to cry, Wae 's me?

My father urged me sair: my mother didna speak;
But she look'd in my face till my heart was like to break:
They gi'ed him my hand, tho' my heart was in the sea;
Sae auld Robin Gray he was gudeman to me.

I hadna been a wife a week but only four,
When mournfu' as I sat on the stane at the door,
I saw my Jamie's wraith,--for I couldna think it he,
Till he said, 'I'm come hame to marry thee.'

O sair, sair did we greet, and muckle did we say;
We took but ae kiss, and we tore ourselves away:
I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to dee;
And why was I born to say, Wae 's me!

I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin;
I daurna think on Jamie, for that wad be a sin;
But I'll do my best a gude wife aye to be,
For auld Robin Gray he is kind unto me.

(From) A Prayer for Indifference

BY FANNY GREVILLE

I ask no kind return of love,
  No tempting charm to please;
Far from the heart those gifts remove,
  That sighs for peace and ease.

Nor peace nor ease the heart can know,
  That, like the needle true,
Turns at the touch of joy or woe,
  But turning, trembles too.

Far as distress the soul can wound,
  'Tis pain in each degree:
'Tis bliss but to a certain bound,
  Beyond is agony.

At Sixteen

BY ANN DARR

We come now to the space which is boy-shaped.
It has always been there, filled or unfilled.
Come ride with me on my motor-cycle, we'll do
the whole mile-square by moonlight and we rode,
I clinging to that boy shape with all the girl
shape I was, and the moon made shadows of us
on the corn rows, and we scared ourselves on
the corners, and laughed as loud as we dared
and swung on home before the night could get us.
In the wane of that same moon, he raced the mile alone
and struck an old car parked without its lights
and the night got to him, and the moon had to shine
a great many nights before I was sure it wouldn't
get me too We had been little kids together,
sitting flat out in my sand box, making pies.
We practised kissing in the alley behind his house
and mine. I can still hear the little lights
in his voice that made my nipples stand out straight.

And On My Eyes Dark Sleep By Night

BY MICHAEL FIELD

Come, dark-eyed Sleep, thou child of Night,
Give me thy dreams, thy lies;
Lead through the horny portal white
The pleasure day denies.

O bring the kiss I could not take
From lips that would not give;
Bring me the heart I could not break,
The bliss for which I live.

I care not if I slumber blest
By fond delusion; nay,
Put me on Phaon's lips to rest,
And cheat the cruel day!