love poem

What is love, what is it?
Is it round, is it square?
Is it long, is it short?
More than an inch, more than a yard?
It seems of no great length,
but somehow I don't know where it ends.

Love is a deceit.
She does not love me.
She says she comes to me in a dream:
it is a lie.
Lying awake every night,
in what dream shall I see her?

ON LOVE, TO A FRIEND .

I.

No, foolish youth — To virtuous fame
If now thy early hopes be vow'd,
If true ambition's nobler flame
Command thy footsteps from the crowd,
Lean not to Love's enchanting snare;
His songs, his words, his looks beware,
Nor join his votaries, the young and fair.

II.

By thought, by dangers, and by toils,
The wreath of just renown is worn;
Nor will ambition's awful spoils
The flowery pomp of ease adorn:

IF YOU were with me — as you're not, of course,
I'd taste the elegant tortures of Despair
With a slow, languid, long-refining tongue;
Puzzle for days on one particular stare,
Or if you knew a word's peculiar force,
Or what you looked like when you were quite young.

You'd lift me heaven-high — till a word grated.
Dash me hell-deep — oh that luxurious Pit,
Fatly and well encushioned with self-pity,
Where Love's an epicure not quickly sated!
What mournful musics wander over it,
Faint-blown from some long-lost celestial city!

TO A FRIEND UNSUCCESSFUL IN LOVE .

I.

Indeed , my Phaedria, if to find
That wealth can female wishes gain,
Had e'er disturb'd your thoughtful mind,
Or caused one serious moment's pain,
I should have said that all the rules,
You learned of moralists and schools,
Were very useless, very vain.

II.

Yet I perhaps mistake the case —
Say, though with this heroic air,
Like one that holds a nobler chase,
You try the tender loss to bear;

Ah! not now, when desire burns, and the wind calls, and the suns of spring
Light-foot dance in the woods, whisper of life, woo me to wayfaring:
Ah! not now should you come, now when the road beckons, and good friends call,
Where are songs to be sung, fights to be fought, yea! and the best of all,
Love, on myriad lips fairer than yours, kisses you could not give! . . .
Dearest, why should I mourn, whimper, and whine, I that have yet to live?
Sorrow will I forget, tears for the best, love on the lips of you,

Love, sweet love is the poet's theme;
Love, sweet love is the poet's dream.
What is the love of which they sing?
Only a phantom unreal thing.
'Tis but the dalliance, the dalliance of youth and maid;
'Tis but the passion, the passion of vows that fade.
'Tis not the Heav'n, the Heav'n-implanted glow
That true hearts call love, ah no, ah no!

See a mother gazing on her baby boy
With ecstatic eyes and heart that fills with joy;
He to her is purest gold without alloy;
For him she prays to Heav'n above!

A RE the dead as calm as those
They leave behind them, friends or foes?

However a man may love or fight
Calm he falls asleep at night!

Fast the living sleeps and well;
But the spirits — who can tell?

Are they as a rushing flame
For the Sun from whence it came,

Driven on from star to star,
Where the other dead men are?

I HAVE more sorrow, dearest, in thy love
— Than ever I knew happiness thereby.
Joy was the promise, out of reach — above.
— The sorrow is fulfilment — and I die.

I HAVE not loved the gold of the mine.
— I have not loved the image of gold.
But I have loved the gold divine
— That springs in April from the mould;
And I have loved to see thee shine,
— Thou Sun, that makest all things gold!