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Home  »  The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse  »  Gerald Massey (1828–1907)

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

Young Love

Gerald Massey (1828–1907)

ALL glorious as the Rainbow’s birth

She came in Spring-tide’s golden hours,

When Heaven went hand-in-hand with Earth,

And May was crown’d with buds and flowers.

The mounting devil at my heart

Clomb faintlier, as my life did win

The charmèd heaven she wrought apart

To wake its better Angel in.

With radiant mien she trod serene

And pass’d me smiling by—

O, who that look’d could help but love?

Not I, sweet soul, not I!

Her budding breasts like fragrant fruit

Of love were ripening to be press’d:

Her voice that shook my heart’s red root

Might not have broken a Babe’s rest,—

More liquid than the running brooks,

More vernal than the voice of Spring,

When Nightingales are in their nooks,

And all the leafy thickets ring.

The love she coyly hid at heart

Was shyly conscious in her eye;

O, who that look’d could help but love?

Not I, sweet soul, not I!