ONE star only for Love's heaven;
One rose only for Love's breast;
One love only to be given.

Star that gathers all stars' glory;
Rose all sweetness of the rest;
Love that is all life's glad story.

AUGUSTA WEBSTER.

The Auspicious Day. (Macmillan and Co.)

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TO PHOEBE.

"GENTLE, modest little flower,
Sweet epitome of May,
Love me but for half an hour,
Love me, love me, little fay."
Sentences so fiercely flaming

In your tiny shell-like ear,
I should always be exclaiming
If I loved you, PHŒвE dear.

"Smiles that thrill from any distance
Shed upon me while I sing!
Please ecstaticize existence,

Love me, oh, thou fairy thing!"
Words like these, outpouring sadly,
You'd perpetually hear,

If I loved you fondly, madly ;-
But I do not, PHOEBE dear.

W. S. GILBERT.
The "Bab" Ballads. (Routledge.)

Once on the brow for sorrow,

And once on the lips for love; And I passed, with a light in my heart-deeps, And a God in the heavens above.

ALEXANDER R. EAGAR.

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A MAN'S REQUIREMENTS.
LOVE me, Sweet, with all thou art,
Feeling, thinking, seeing;
Love me in the lightest part,
Love me in full being.

Love me with thine open youth

In its frank surrender;

With the vowing of thy mouth,

With its silence tender.

Love me with thine azure eyes,
Made for earnest granting;
Taking colour from the skies,
Can Heaven's truth be wanting?

Love me with their lids, that fall
Snow-like at first meeting;

Love me with thine heart, that all
Neighbours then see beating.

Love me with thine hand stretched out
Freely-open-minded:

Love me with thy loitering foot,
Hearing one behind it.

Love me with thy voice, that turns
Sudden faint above me;

Love me with thy blush that burns
When I murmur, Love me!

Love me with thy thinking soul,
Break it to love-sighing;

Love me with thy thoughts that roll
On through living- dying.

Love me in thy gorgeous airs,
When the world has crowned thee;
Love me, kneeling at thy prayers,
With the angels round thee.

Love me pure, as musers do,
Up the woodlands shady :
Love me gaily, fast and true,
As a winsome lady.

Or to hear it sung so high
That the idle passer-by
Paused to hear your lays.

I but ask you for your faith
That, wounded by the herd,
I may bring you healing with
The magic of a word;
Pray you to believe me so
That in darkness, doubt or woe,

I may guide you when you grope,
Light you with my stronger hope,
Warm you with my glow.

I would have you love me well
That, fainting in the strife,
Kiss of mine should be a spell

To win you back to life ;
Love me so that day or night
I could shut the world from sight,
Keep it out with woven arms,
Or subdue it with my charms

As a goddess might !

Love! my worth will wax or wane
As your light shall shine;
Now a homely thing, or vain,

Now almost divine.

Lorn of love my hands hang down,
I am nothing when you frown;

Hold me fair and keep me great,
With your faithfulness for state,
And your love for crown!

EMILY PFEIFFER. Sonnets and Songs. (C. Kegan Paul and Co.)

TO THE HON. M. C. STANHOPE.
HAIL, day of music, day of Love,
On earth below, in air above.
In air the turtle fondly moans,
The linnet pipes in joyous tones;
On earth the postman toils along,
Bent double by huge bales of song,
Where, rich with many a gorgeous dye,
Blazes all Cupid's heraldry-

Myrtles and roses, doves and sparrows,
Love-knots and altars, lamps and arrows.
What nymph without wild hopes and fears
The double rap this morning hears?

Unnumbered lasses, young and fair,

From Bethnal Green to Belgrave Square,

With cheeks high flushed, and hearts loud beating,
Await the tender annual greeting.

The loveliest lass of all is mine—
Good morrow to my Valentine !

Good morrow, gentle child! and then
Again good morrow, and again,

Good morrow following still good morrow,
Without one cloud of strife or sorrow.
And when the god to whom we pay
In jest our homages to-day,

Shall come to claim, no more in jest,
His rightful empire o'er thy breast,
Benignant may his aspect be,
His yoke the truest liberty:
And if a tear his power confess,
Be it a tear of happiness.

It shall be so. The Muse displays
The future to her votary's gaze;
Prophetic rage my bosom swells—

I taste the cake-I hear the bells!
From Conduit Street the close array
Of chariots barricades the way
To where I see, with outstretched hand,
Majestic, thy great kinsman stand,
And half unbend his brow of pride,
As welcoming so fair a bride.

Gay favours, thick as flakes of snow,
Brighten St. George's portico :
Within I see the chancel's pale,
The orange flowers, the Brussels veil,
The page on which those fingers white,
Still trembling from the awful rite,
For the last time shall faintly trace
The name of Stanhope's noble race.
I see kind faces round thee pressing,
I hear kind voices whisper blessing;
And with those voices mingles mine-
All good attend my Valentine!

LORD MACAULAY.

LOVE'S CALENDAR. TALK of love in Vernal hours, When the landscape blushes With the dawning glow of flowers, While the early thrushes

Warble in the apple tree;

When the primrose, springing From the green bank, lulls the bee, On its blossom swinging. Talk of love in Summer-tide, When thro' bosky shallows Trills the streamlet-all its side Pranked with freckled mallows ;When in mossy lair of wrens

Tiny eggs are warming; When above the reedy fens

Dragon-gnats are swarming,

Talk of love in Autumn days,
When the fruit, all mellow,
Drops amid the ripening rays,
While the leaflets yellow
Circle in the sluggish breeze

With their portents bitter;
When between the fading trees
Broader sunbeams glitter.
Talk of love in Winter-time,
When the hailstorm hurtles,
While the robin sparks of rime
Shakes from hardy myrtles;
Never speak of love with scorn,

Such were direst treason;
Love was made for eve and morn,

And for every season.

CHARLES KENT. Aletheia, and other Poems. (Longman and Co.)

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TOUJOURS AMOUR.

PRITHEE tell me, Dimple-Chin!
At what age does Love begin?
Your blue eyes have scarcely seen
Summers three, my fairy queen!
But a miracle of sweets,
Soft approaches, sly retreats,
Show the little archer there,
Hidden in your pretty hair;

When didst learn a heart to win?
Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin!

"Oh!" the rosy lips reply, "I can't tell you if I try. 'Tis so long I can't remember: Ask some younger lass than I!"

Tell, O tell me, Grizzled-Face!
Do your heart and head keep pace?
When does hoary Love expire,
When do frosts put out the fire ?
Can its embers burn below
All that chill December snow?
Care you still soft hands to press,
Bonny heads to smooth and bless ?
When does Love give up the chase?
Tell, O tell me, Grizzled-Face !

"Ah!" the wise old lips reply,— "Youth may pass and strength may die; But of Love I can't foretoken:

Ask some older sage than I?"

E. C. STEDMAN.

VALENTINE'S DAY.

OH! I wish I were a tiny browny bird from out the south,

Settled among the alder-holts, and twittering by the stream;

I would put my tiny tail down, and put up my tiny mouth,

And sing my tiny life away in one melodious dream.

I would sing about the blossoms, and the sunshine and the sky,

And the tiny wife I meant to have in such a cosy

nest;

And if some one came and shot me dead, why then I could but die,

With my tiny life and tiny song just ended at their best.

CHARLES KINGSLEY. Poems. (Macmillan.)

A HYMN TO BISHOP ST. VALENTINE.

[EXTRACT.]

THE day, the only day returns,
The true redde letter day returns,

When summer time in winter burns;

When a February dawn

Is open'd by two sleeves in lawn
Fairer than Aurora's fingers,

And a burst of all bird singers,

And a shower of billet-doux,

Tinging cheeks with rosy hues,

And over all a face divine,

Face good-natured, face most fine, Face most anti-saturnine,

Even thine, yea, even thine,

Saint of sweethearts, Valentine!

LEIGH HUNT.

Poetical Works. (Routledge.)

I LOVED it was a photograph,

Blue eyes and golden hair: An unaffected angel laugh

Made fairness doubly fair.

I wrote and offered her my hand
With lots of £. s. d.
Return of post brought answer, and
She had accepted me.

She came the likeness had been good, In eighteen sixty-one.

I almost wondered that it could

Have been so lately done.

She wished to keep her promise; I
Refused, on various grounds;
And still repent my folly :-why?
It cost a thousand pounds.

EDWIN HAMILTON. Dublin Doggerels. (W. McGee, Dublin.)

SONG.

WHEN I am dead, my dearest,

Sing no sad songs for me; Plant thou no roses at my head,

Nor shady cypress tree : Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet; And if thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,

I shall not feel the rain;

I shall not hear the nightingale

Sing on, as if in pain:

And dreaming through the twilight

That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

And haply may forget.

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. Poems. (Macmillan.)

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
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 may'st love on, through love's eternity.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING,
(Sonnets from the Portuguese.) Poems.
(Smith, Elder, and Co.)

THE clodded earth goes up in sweet-breathed flowers,

In music dies poor human speech,

And into beauty blow those hearts of ours,

When Love is born in each.

Life is transfigured in the soft and tender
Light of Love, as a volume dun

Of rolling smoke becomes a wreathèd splendour
In the declining sun.

ALEXANDER SMITH.

A Life-Drama. (Macmillan.)

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My Love is the Flaming Sword

To fight through the world;

Thy Love is the Shield to ward,

And the Armour of the Lord,

And the Banner of Heaven unfurled.

JAMES THOMSON,

City of Dreadful Night. (Reeves and Turner.)