love poem

I

Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

II

I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb'd I would sing and say,
'Who is it loves me? who loves not me?'
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall
Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown

SHE flitted by me on the stair--
A moment since I knew not of her.
A look, a smile--she passed! but where
She flitted by me on the stair
Joy cradled exquisite despair;
For who am I that I should love her?
She flitted by me on the stair--
A moment since I knew not of her!

Winter and summer, night and morn,
I languish at this table dark;
My office window has a corn-
er looks into St. James's Park.
I hear the foot-guards' bugle-horn,
Their tramp upon parade I mark;
I am a gentleman forlorn,
I am a Foreign-Office Clerk.

My toils, my pleasures, every one,
I find are stale, and dull, and slow;
And yesterday, when work was done,
I felt myself so sad and low,
I could have seized a sentry's gun
My wearied brains out out to blow.
What is it makes my blood to run?

I.

A mathematician fell madly in love
With a lady, young, handsome, and charming:
By angles and ratios harmonic he strove
Her curves and proportions all faultless to prove.
As he scrawled hieroglyphics alarming.


II.

He measured with care, from the ends of a base,
The arcs which her features subtended:
Then he framed transcendental equations, to trace
The flowing outlines of her figure and face,
And thought the result very splendid.


III.

I come in from a walk
With you
And they ask me
If it is raining.

I didn’t notice
But I’ll have to give them
The right answer
Or they’ll think I’m crazy.

A MAGNET hung in a hardware shop,
And all around was a loving crop
Of scissors and needles, nails and knives,
Offering love for all their lives;
But for iron the Magnet felt no whim,
Though he charmed iron, it charmed not him,
From needles and nails and knives he'd turn,
For he'd set his love on a Silver Churn!
His most aesthetic,
Very magnetic
Fancy took this turn -
"If I can wheedle
A knife or needle,
Why not a Silver Churn?"

And Iron and Steel expressed surprise,

I have been in love, and in debt, and in drink,
This many and many a year;
And those three are plagues enough, one would think,
For one poor mortal to bear.
'Twas drink made me fall in love,
And love made me run into debt,
And though I have struggled and struggled and strove,
I cannot get out of them yet.

There's nothing but money can cure me,
And rid me of all my pain;
'Twill pay all my debts,
And remove all my lets,
And my mistress, that cannot endure me,

The lowest trees have tops, the ant her gall,
The fly her spleen, the little spark his heat,
And slender hairs cast shadows though but small,
And bees have stings although they be not great.
Seas have their source, and so have shallow springs,
And love is love in beggars and in kings.

Where waters smoothest run, deep are the fords,
The dial stirs, yet none perceives it move:
The firmest faith is in the fewest words,
The turtles cannot sing, and yet they love,
True hearts have eyes and ears no tongues to speak:

Three women walked upon a road,
And the first said airily,
“Of all the trees in all the world
Which is the loving tree?”

The second said, “My eyes have seen
No tree that is not fair;
But the Orange tree is the sweetest tree,
The loving blood is there.”

And the third said, “In the green time
I knew a loving tree
That gave a drink of the blood-red milk,
It was the Mulberry.”

Then the first one said, “Of all the trees
No sweetest can I name;
Ask her who yonder slowly comes—

The little one-room schoolhousc among the redwoods

Opened its door, a dozen children ran out

And saw on the narrow road between the dense trees

A persona girl by the long light-colored hair:

The torn brown cloak that she wore might be a man's

Or woman's eitherwalking hastily northward

Among a huddle of sheep. Her thin young face

Seemed joyful, and lighted from inside, and formed

Too finely to be so wind-burnt. As she went forward