Poem by Charles Warren Stoddard

Maiden Love

Love, maiden Love, cries not within the gates
  Where sit the watchers, watching hour by hour;
Love hideth by the wayside and Love waits
  Breathless within her bower.

For faint her voice and very sweet to hear,
  And dim her form, yet very fair to see,
O Love! my Love! it quiets all my fear
  And hourly comforts me.

Who blindly loves, and boldly, he but errs;
  Love answers not to each and all who cry;
Perchance this Love her willing love prefers
  To those who pass her by.

They know not where to seek her and to find;
  They wander after her from night till morn;
Their messages are wasted on the wind
  And all in all forlorn.

Yet who shall lead the lover to his Love,
  Or lead his Love to him, to ease his sigh?
No one I wot of out of Heaven above---
  In sooth, not you, or I!

1. Albatross
2. Bells of San Gabriel
3. The Royal Mummy to Bohemia
4. Exile
5. Invocation

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