Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and the never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that's lovely is but a brief, dreamy, kind of delight. O never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love? He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost.

One that is ever kind said yesterday: 'Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey, And little shadows come about her eyes; Time can but make it easier to be …

I heard the old, old men say, 'Everything alters, And one by one we drop away.' They had hands like claws, and their knees Were twisted like the old thorn-tree…

I thought of your beauty, and this arrow, Made out of a wild thought, is in my marrow. There's no man may look upon her, no man, As when newly grown to be a wo…

I am two fools, I know, For loving, and for saying so In whining poetry.

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.

A woman is more beautiful than the world in which I live; and so I close my eyes.