The kiss, dear maid ! thy lip has left

Shall never part from mine,

Till happier hours restore the gift

Untainted back to thine.

Thy parting glance, which fondly beams,

An equal love may see:

The tear that from thine eyelid streams

Can weep no change in me.

I ask no pledge to make me blest

In gazing when alone;

Nor one memorial for a breast,

Whose thoughts are all thine own.

Nor need I write — - to tell the tale

My pen were doubly weak:

Oh ! what can idle words avail,

Unless the heart could speak ?

By day or night, in weal or woe,

That heart, no longer free,

Must bear the love it cannot show,

And silent ache for thee.

History can only take things in the gross;
But could we know them in detail, perchance
In balancing the profit and the loss,
War's merit it by no means might enhance,
To waste so much gold for a little dross,
As hath been done, mere conquest to advance.
The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.

Love in full life and length, not love ideal,
No, nor ideal beauty, that fine name,
But something better still, so very real...