The highest spiritual quality, the noblest property of mind a man can have, is this of loyalty ... a man with no loyalty in him, with no sense of love or reverence or devotion due to something outside and above his poor daily life, with its pains and pleasures, profits and losses, is as evil a case as man can be.

Love is a barren sea, bitter and deep;

And though she saw all heaven in flower above,

She would not love.

If you were life, my darling,

And I your love were death,

We'd shine and snow together

Ere March made sweet the weather

With daffodil and starling

And hours of fruitful breath;

If you were life, my darling,

And I your love were death.

The loves and hours of the life of a man,

They are swift and sad, being born of the sea.

Ah, ah, thy beauty! like a beast it bites,

Stings like an adder, like an arrow smites.

Ah sweet, and sweet again, and seven times sweet,

The paces and the pauses of thy feet!

Ah sweeter than all sleep or summer air

The fallen fillets fragrant from thine hair!

Yea, though their alien kisses do me wrong,

Sweeter thy lips than mine with all their song;

Thy shoulders whiter than a fleece of white,

And flower-sweet fingers, good to bruise or bite

As honeycomb of the inmost honey-cells,

With almond-shaped and roseleaf-coloured shells

And blood like purple blossoms at the tips

Quivering; and pain made perfect in thy lips

For my sake when I hurt thee; O that I

Durst crush thee out of life with love, and die,

Die of thy pain and my delight, and be

Mixed with thy blood and molten into thee!

I have no remedy for fear; there grows

No herb of help to heal a coward heart.

If you were Queen of pleasure

And I were King of pain

We'd hunt down Love together,

Pluck out his flying-feather,

And teach his feet a measure,

And find his mouth a rein;

If you were Queen of pleasure

And I were King of pain.

Not from without us, only from within,

Comes or can ever come upon us light

Whereby the soul keeps ever truth in sight.

No truth, no strength, no comfort man may win,

No grace for guidance, no release from sin,

Save of his own soul's giving.

God by God flits past in thunder, till His glories turn to shades;

God to God bears wondering witness how His gospel flames and fades.

God's own hand

Holds fast all issues of our deeds: with him

The end of all our ends is, but with us

Our ends are, just or unjust: though our works

Find righteous or unrighteous judgment, this

At least is ours, to make them righteous.

From too much love of living

From hope and fear set free,

We thank with brief thanksgiving

Whatever gods may be

That no life lives for ever;

That dead men rise up never;

That even the weariest river

Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Come life, come death, not a word be said;

Should I lose you living, and vex you dead?

I never shall tell you on earth; and in heaven,

If I cry to you then, will you hear or know?

If I were what the words are,

And love were like the tune,

With double sound and single

Delight our lips would mingle,

With kisses glad as birds are

That get sweet rain at noon;

If I were what the words are,

And love were like the tune.