Poem by James Russell Lowell

To ----

  Deem it no Sodom-fruit of vanity,
  Or fickle fantasy of unripe youth
  Which ever takes the fairest shows for truth,
  That I should wish my verse beloved of thee;
  'Tis love's deep thirst which may not quenchèd be.
  There is a gulf of longing and unrest,
  A wild love-craving not to be represt,
  Whereto, in all our hearts, as to the sea,
  The streams of feeling do forever flow.
  Therefore it is that thy well-meted praise
  Falleth so shower-like and fresh on me,
  Filling those springs which else had sunk full low,
  Lost in the dreary desert-sands of woe,
  Or parched by passion's fierce and withering blaze.

1. Fancies about a Rosebud, Pressed in an Old Copy of Spenser
2. My Friend, Adown Life's Valley, Hand in Hand
3. Verse Cannot Say How Beautiful Thou Art
4. Sayest Thou, Most Beautiful, That Thou Wilt Wear
5. “No More But So?”

Alexander Smith To ---- ("THE BROKEN moon lay in the autumn sky")

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