Relationships and Family

Is come, my love is come to me.

My heart is like a singing bird.

Eden is that old-fashioned House We dwell in every day Without suspecting our abode Until we drive away.

Love’s stricken “why” Is all that love can speak— Built of but just a syllable The hugest hearts that break.

Not with a Club, the Heart is broken Nor with a Stone— A Whip so small you could not see it I’ve known To lash the Magic Creature Till it fell.

I cannot live with You— It would be Life— And Life is over there— Behind the Shelf.

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church— I keep it, staying at Home— With a bobolink for a Chorister— And an Orchard, for a Dome—

No villain need be! Passions spin the plot: We are betrayed by what is false within.

What is that sad, dark island?—It is Cythera, They tell us, a country famous in song, Banal Eldorado of all the old bachelors. Look! after all, it is a poor land! 8

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love.

All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys.

“I would be your wife most gladly!” (Here she twirled her fingers madly),

Never the time and the place And the loved one all together!

O Lyric Love, half angel and half bird, And all a wonder and a wild desire.

Do I find love so full in my nature, God’s ultimate gift, That I doubt his own love can compete with it? Here, the parts shift?

What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?

Escape me? Never— Beloved! While I am I, and you are you.

Let’s contend no more, Love, Strive nor weep: All be as before, Love, —Only sleep!

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!

Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat.

And neither the angels in Heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love that was more than love— I and my Annabel Lee— With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven Coveted her and me.

And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.

Thou wast that all to me, love, For which my soul did pine— A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine, All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine.