GIVE ALL TO LOVE

Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good-fame,
Plans, credit and the Muse,—­
Nothing refuse.

’T is a brave master;
Let it have scope: 
Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope: 
High and more high
It dives into noon,
With wing unspent,
Untold intent;
But it is a god,
Knows its own path
And the outlets of the sky.

It was never for the mean;
It requireth courage stout. 
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending,
It will reward,—­
They shall return
More than they were,
And ever ascending.

Leave all for love;
Yet, hear me, yet,
One word more thy heart behoved,
One pulse more of firm endeavor,—­
Keep thee to-day,
To-morrow, forever,
Free as an Arab
Of thy beloved.

Cling with life to the maid;
But when the surprise,
First vague shadow of surmise
Flits across her bosom young,
Of a joy apart from thee,
Free be she, fancy-free;
Nor thou detain her vesture’s hem,
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.

Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Though her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive;
Heartily know,
When half-gods go. 
The gods arrive.

TO ELLEN AT THE SOUTH

The green grass is bowing,
  The morning wind is in it;
’T is a tune worth thy knowing,
  Though it change every minute.

’T is a tune of the Spring;
  Every year plays it over
To the robin on the wing,
  And to the pausing lover.

O’er ten thousand, thousand acres,
  Goes light the nimble zephyr;
The Flowers—­tiny sect of Shakers—­
  Worship him ever.

Hark to the winning sound! 
  They summon thee, dearest,—­
Saying, ’We have dressed for thee the ground,
  Nor yet thou appearest.

‘O hasten;’ ’t is our time,
  Ere yet the red Summer
Scorch our delicate prime,
  Loved of bee,—­the tawny hummer.

’O pride of thy race! 
  Sad, in sooth, it were to ours,
If our brief tribe miss thy face,
  We poor New England flowers.

’Fairest, choose the fairest members
  Of our lithe society;
June’s glories and September’s
  Show our love and piety.

’Thou shalt command us all,—­
  April’s cowslip, summer’s clover,
To the gentian in the fall,
  Blue-eyed pet of blue-eyed lover.

’O come, then, quickly come! 
  We are budding, we are blowing;
And the wind that we perfume
  Sings a tune that’s worth the knowing.’

TO ELLEN

And Ellen, when the graybeard years
  Have brought us to life’s evening hour,
And all the crowded Past appears
  A tiny scene of sun and shower,