Maggie is pretty to look at - Maggie's a loving lass. But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.
There's peace in a Laranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay, But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away -
Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown - But I never could throw away Maggie for fear o' the talk o' the town!
Maggie, my wife at fifty - gray and dour and old - With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold.
And the light of Days that have Been, the dark of the Days that Are, And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar -
The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket - With never a new one to light, though it's charred and black to the socket.
Open the old cigar-box - let me consider awhile; Here is a mild Manilla - there is a wifely smile.
Which is the better portion - bondage bought with a ring, Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?
Counselors cunning and silent - comforters true and tried, And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride.
Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes, Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close.
This will the fifty give me, asking naught in return, With only a Suttee's passion - to do their duty and burn.
This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead, Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.
The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main, When they hear that my harem is empty, will send me my brides again.
I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal, So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.
I will scent'em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides, And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.
For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o' Teen.
And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear, But I have been Priest of Partagas a matter of seven year;
And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light Of stumps that I burned to Friendship, and Pleasure, and Work, and Fight.
And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove, But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o'-the-Wisp of Love.
Will it see me safe through my journey, or leave me bogged in the mire? Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?
Open the old cigar-box - let me consider anew - Old friends, and who is Maggie, that I should abandon you?
A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke; And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke.
Light me another Cuba - I hold to my first-sworn vows, If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for spouse!
Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936]
LOVE'S SADNESS
"THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES"
The night has a thousand eyes, And the day but one; Yet the light of the bright world dies With the dying sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes, And the heart but one; Yet the light of a whole life dies When love is done.
Francis William Bourdillon [1852-1921]
"I SAW MY LADY WEEP"
I saw my Lady weep, And Sorrow proud to be advanced so In those fair eyes where all perfections keep. Her face was full of Woe, But such a Woe (believe me) as wins more hearts Than Mirth can do with her enticing parts.
Sorrow was there made fair, And Passion, wise; Tears, a delightful thing; Silence, beyond all speech, a wisdom rare: She made her sighs to sing, And all things with so sweet a sadness move As made my heart at once both grieve and love.
O fairer than aught else The world can show, leave off in time to grieve! Enough, enough: your joyful look excels: Tears kill the heart, believe. O strive not to be excellent in Woe, Which only breeds your beauty's overthrow.
Unknown
LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM
Oh! the days are gone, when Beauty bright My heart's chain wove; When my dream of life, from morn till night, Was love, still love. New hope may bloom, And days may come, Of milder, calmer beam, But there's nothing half so sweet in life As love's young dream; No, there's nothing half so sweet in life As love's young dream.
Though the bard to purer fame may soar, When wild youth's past; Though he win the wise, who frowned before, To smile at last; He'll never meet A joy so sweet, In all his noon of fame, As when first he sung to woman's ear His soul-felt flame, And, at every close, she blushed to hear The one loved name.
No, - that hallowed form is ne'er forgot Which first love traced; Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot On memory's waste. 'Twas odor fled As soon as shed; 'Twas morning's winged dream; 'Twas a light that ne'er can shine again On life's dull stream; Oh! 'twas light that ne'er can shine again On life's dull stream.
Thomas Moore [1779-1852]
"NOT OURS THE VOWS"
Not ours the vows of such as plight Their troth in sunny weather, While leaves are green, and skies are bright, To walk on flowers together.
But we have loved as those who tread The thorny path of sorrow, With clouds above, and cause to dread Yet deeper gloom to-morrow.
That thorny path, those stormy skies, Have drawn our spirits nearer; And rendered us, by sorrow's ties, Each to the other dearer.
Love, born in hours of joy and mirth, With mirth and joy may perish; That to which darker hours gave birth Still more and more we cherish.
It looks beyond the clouds of time, And through death's shadowy portal; Made by adversity sublime, By faith and hope immortal.
Bernard Barton [1784-1849]
THE GRAVE OF LOVE
I dug, beneath the cypress shade, What well might seem an elfin's grave; And every pledge in earth I laid, That erst thy false affection gave.
I pressed them down the sod beneath; I placed one mossy stone above; And twined the rose's fading wreath Around the sepulcher of love.
Frail as thy love, the flowers were dead Ere yet the evening sun was set: But years shall see the cypress spread, Immutable as my regret.
Thomas Love Peacock [1785-1866]
"WE'LL GO NO MORE A ROVING"
So, we'll go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And Love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we'll go no more a roving By the light of the moon.
George Gordon Byron [1788-1824]
SONG
Sing the old song, amid the sounds dispersing That burden treasured in your hearts too long; Sing it, with voice low-breathed, but never name her: She will not hear you, in her turrets nursing High thoughts, too high to mate with mortal song - Bend o'er her, gentle Heaven, but do not claim her!
In twilight caves, and secret lonelinesses, She shades the bloom of her unearthly days; And the soft winds alone have power to woo her: Far off we catch the dark gleam of her tresses; And wild birds haunt the wood-walks where she strays, Intelligible music warbling to her.
That Spirit charged to follow and defend her, - He also, doubtless, suffers this love-pain; And she, perhaps, is sad, hearing his sighing: And yet that face is not so sad as tender; Like some sweet singer's, when her sweetest strain From the heaved heart is gradually dying!
Aubrey Thomas De Vere [1814-1902]
THE QUESTION
I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way, Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring; And gentle odors led my steps astray, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.
There grew pied wind-flowers and violets; Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets - Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth - Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.
And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, Green cowbind and the moonlight-colored may, And cherry-blossoms, and white cups whose wine Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, With its dark buds and leaves wandering astray; And flowers, azure, black, and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.
And nearer to the river's trembling edge There grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked with white, And starry river-buds among the sedge, And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge With moonlight beams of their own watery light; And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.
Methought that of these visionary flowers I made a nosegay, bound in such a way That the same hues which in their natural bowers Were mingled or opposed, the like array Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours Within my hand; - and then, elate and gay, I hastened to the spot whence I had come, That I might there present it - O! to whom?