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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1883 edition. Excerpt: ...kiss that your lips have given In the lost and beautiful past to me, I would gladly barter my hopes of Heaven And all the bliss of Eternity. For never a joy are the angels keeping To lay at my feet in Paradise, Like that of into your strong arms creeping, And looking into your love-lit eyes. I know, in the way that sins are reckoned, This thought is a sin of the deepest dye j But I know, too, if an angel beckoned, Standing close by the Throne on High, And you, adown by the gates infernal, Should open your loving arms and smile, I would turn my back on things supernal, To lie on your breast a little while. To know for an hour you were mine completely--Mine in body and soul, my own--I would bear unending tortures sweetly, With not a murmur and not a moan. A lighter sin or a lesser error Might change through hope or fear divine; But there is no fear, and hell has no terror To change or alter a love like mine. NEW AND OLD. I and new love, in all its living bloom, Sat vis-a-vis, while tender twilight hours Went softly by us, treading as on flowers. Then suddenly I saw within the room The old love, long since lying in its tomb. It dropped the cerecloth from its fleshless face And smiled on me, with a remembered grace That, like the noontide, lit the gloaming's gloom. Upon its shroud there hung the grave's green mould, About it hung the odor of the dead; Yet from its cavernous eyes such light was shed That all my life seemed gilded, as with gold; Unto the trembling new love Go, I said, I do not need thee, for I have the old. THE TRIO. We love but once. The great gold orb of light From dawn to eventide doth cast his ray; But the full splendor of his perfect might Is reached but once throughout the livelong day. We love but once. The waves, with...