SONNET XIV

F thou must love me, let it be for naught Except for love's sake only. Do not say "I love her for her smile . . . her look . . . her way Of speaking gently, for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day."

For these things in themselves, beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee, and love so

wrought

May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby.
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

OW

SONNET XLIII

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and
height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

Browning

HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD

OH,

H, to be in England now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England sees some morning unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England now!

And after April, when May follows

And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!

Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's

edge

That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over

Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture!

And, though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
- Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!.

THE LOST LEADER *

UST for a handful of silver he left us,

JUST

Just for a riband to stick in his coat

Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,

Lost all the others she lets us devote;

They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,

So much was theirs who so little allowed: How all our copper had gone for his service! Rags were they purple, his heart had been proud!

We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him,

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,

Made him our pattern to live and to die! Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,

Burns, Shelley, were with us, they watch from their graves!

He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

*The Lost Leader. This refers to Wordsworth, who, like Burke and many others, was driven from the radical ranks by the excesses of the French Revolution.