“Love, is it morning risen or night deceasedThat makes the mirth of this triumphant east?Is it bliss given or bitterness put byThat makes most glad men's hearts at love's high feast?Grief smiles, joy weeps, that day should live and die."Is it with soul's thirst or with body's drouthThat summer yearns out sunward to the south,With all the flowers that when thy birth drew nighWere molten in one rose to make thy mouth?O love, what care though day should live and die?"Is the sun glad of all love on earth,The spirit and sense and work of things and worth?Is the moon sad because the month must flyAnd bring her death that can but bring back birth?For all these things as day must live and die."Love, is it day that makes thee thy delightOr thou that seest day made out of thy light?Love, as the sun and sea are thou and I,Sea without sun dark, sun without sea bright;The sun is one though day should live and die."O which is elder, night or light, who knows?And life or love, which first of these twain grows?For life is born of love to wail and cry,And love is born of life to heal his woes,And light of night, that day should live and die."O sun of heaven above the wordly sea,O very love, what light is this of thee!My sea of soul is deep as thou art high,But all thy light is shed through all of me,As love's through love, while day shall live and die.”

“The night has a thousand eyes,And the day but one; Yet the light of the bright world dies With the dying sun. The mind has a thousand eyes, And the heart but one: Yet the light of a whole life dies When love is done.”

“The sun with loving light makes bright for me each day, the soul with spirit power gives strength unto my limbs. In sunlight shining clear I revere, Oh God, the strength of humankind, which thou has planted in my soul, that I may with all my might, may love to work and learn. From thee stream light and strength to thee rise love and thanks.”

“As the dawn loves the sunlight that must ceaseEre dawn again may rise and pass in peace;Must die that she being dead may live again,To be by his new rising nearly slain.So rolls the great wheel of the great world round,And no change in it and no fault is found,And no true life of perdurable breath,And surely no irrevocable death.Day after day night comes that day may break,And day comes back for night’s reiterate sake.Each into each dies, each of each is born:Day past is night, shall night past not be morn?Out of this moonless and faint-hearted nightThat love yet lives in, shall there not be light?Light strong as love, that love may live in yet?Alas, but how shall foolish hope forgetHow all these loving things that kill and dieMeet not but for a breath’s space and pass by?Night is kissed once of dawn and dies, and dayBut touches twilight and is rapt away.So may my love and her love meet once more,And meeting be divided as of yore.Yea, surely as the day-star loves the sunAnd when he hath risen is utterly undone,So is my love of her and hers of me—And its most sweetness bitter as the sea.”

“There are three lessons I would write-Three words, as with a burning pen, In tracings of eternal light,Upon the heart of men.Have hope! though clouds environ round,And gladness hides her face in scorn,Put thou the shadow from thy brow,No night but hath its morn.Have love! not love alone for one, But man as man thy brother call,And scatter like the circling sun,Thy charities on all.”

“When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,For all the day they view things unrespected;But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,How would thy shadow's form form happy showTo the clear day with thy much clearer light,When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed madeBy looking on thee in the living day,When in dead night thy fair imperfect shadeThrough heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!All days are nights to see till I see thee,And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.”