From: The Bird and the Bell with Other Poems (1875)
Author: Christopher Pearse Cranch
Published: Osgood and Company 1875 Boston
——♦——
LOVE me as the flower loves the bee.
Ask no monopoly of sympathy.
I must flit by,
Nor stay to heave too deep a sigh,
Nor dive too deep into thy charms.
Untwine thy prisoning arms;
Let the truth-garnering bee
Pass ever free!
Yield all the thymy fragrance I can draw
From out thy soul’s rich sweetness. Not forever
Can lovers see one truth, obey one law,
Though they spend long endeavor.
Give me thy blossoming heart;
I can but take thereof that part
Which grand Economy
Permitteth me to see.
Friendship and love may last in name,
As lamps outlive their flame;
An earthly tie may bind our hands;
The spirit snaps the bands.
If Nature made us different,
Our compliments in vain are spent;
But if alike, ah, then I rest in thee
As in the flower’s full heart the sated bee.
1852.
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