love poem

Blue is the water and clear the moon.
He is out on the South Lake,
Gathering white lilies.
The lotus flowers seem to whisper love,
And fill the boatman's heart with sadness.

" I wandered forth alone, " sang she,
" When summer flowers were young,
And birds made merry songs for me,
The summer woods among;
And gaily, gaily danced the rill,
And balmy was the air: —
But there was something failed me still,
Though all the land was fair.

" The blossoms all are dead, " she sings,
" That graced the summer-time;
And summer birds have spread their wings,
To seek a softer clime.
The wintry sky is dark above;
The silent woods are bare: —
But thou art near me, oh, my love,

A youth once lov'd me, and his love I spurn'd.
But see the vengeance of the pow'rs above
On cold indiff'rence: now 'tis I that love,
And my fond love, alas! is not return'd.

Colin, worshipping some frail,
By self-deprecation sways her:
Calls himself unworthy male,
Hardly even fit to praise her.

But this tactic insincere
In the upshot greatly grieves him
When he finds the lovely dear
Quite implicitly believes him.

Except the love of moonfaced maids, This heart of mine a way takes not;
I counsel this and that; but it Advice, say what I may, takes not.

For Heaven's sake, admonisher, Bespeak me of the skinker's down;
For goodlier effect on me Whatever thou canst say takes not.

The wineflask hid with me I bear And folk suppose it is the Book:
Strange if the fire of this my fraud The Book itself some day takes not!

This particoloured gaberdine Some day I sure shall burn; since it
The Elder of the Winesellers For one poor cup in pay takes not.

Not long ago I fell in love,
But unreturned is my affection —
The girl that I'm enamored of
Pays little heed in my direction.

I thought I knew her fairly well:
In fact, I'd had my arm around her;
And so it's hard to have to tell
How unresponsive I have found her.

For, though she is not frankly rude,
Her manners quite the wrong way rub me:
It seems to me ingratitude
To let me love her — and then snub me!

Though I'm considerate and fond,
She shows no gladness when she spies me —

If, loving you, I sometimes seem as sad
Or dull, or tinged with hint of sober mood,
It is because I feel my life renewed
Having your love; and still my treasures add
As misers do; and what of woe I've had
No more with its gaunt shadows may intrude;
Thus silence fills the happy interlude
While I sit wordless, worshiping, and glad.

A boy's love and a man's love intertwined
I give to you to govern all the time,
Whether it run to reason or to rhyme.
The passion and the purity combined;

Though love, like blisters made from leaves
Grown on Mount Ibuki,
Torments me more than I can say,
My lady shall not see,
How she is paining me.

My constancy to her I love
I never will forsake;
As surely as the Palace Guards
Each night their watch-fire make
And guard it till daybreak.

Is love the passion that the poets feign,
Drawn from the ruins of old Grecian time,
Born of the Hermae and all earthly slime,
And tricked by troubadours in trappings vain
Of flowers fantastic, like a Hindoo fane,
Or the long meter of an antique rhyme
Dancing in dactyls? Is love, then, a crime —
A rosy day's eternity of pain?

If we love God, we know what loving is;
For love is God's: He sent it to the earth,
Half-human, half-divine, all glorious —
Half-human, half-divine, but wholly His;