love poem

Shame checks our first attempts; but then 'tis prov'd,
Sins first dislik'd, are after that belov'd.

Darling, my own dear, ownest love,
Shall I put on a dress of white,
A red, red rose in my raven hair,
And meet you at the gate to-night?

By the garden gate that is arched with elms,
With majestic elms tall,
Where night-birds their sweetest melodies croon,
And so softly their love-mates call.

Say, darling, will you greet me with a kiss,
Will you be my love as of yore?
Will you talk of the bliss of our future days,
And tell me you love me more?

And shall we walk down the garden path,

Comes the New Year; wailing the north winds blow;
In her cold, lonely grave my dead love lies;
Dead lies the stiffened earth beneath the snow,
And blinding sleet blots out the desolate skies;
I stand between the living and the dead;
Hateful to me is life, hateful is death;
Her life was sad, and on that narrow bed
She will not turn, nor wake with human breath.
I kneel between the evil and the good;
The struggle o'er, this one sweet faith have I—
Though life and death be dimly understood,

We are all liars, because
the truth of yesterday becomes a lie tomorrow,
whereas letters are fixed,
and we live by the letter of truth.

The love I feel for my friend, this year,
is different from the love I felt last year.
If it were not so, it would be a lie.
Yet we reiterate love! love!

as if it were coin with a fixed value
instead of a flower that dies, and opens a different bud.

O my honey, take me back,
O my dahlin', I'll be true.
I am mo'nin' all day long,
O my honey, I love you.

I have loved you in joy and pain,
In de sunshine and de rain,
O my honey, heah me do,
O my dahlin', I love you.

I have seen men binding their brothers in chains, and crafty traders reaching for the bread that women and children lifted to their mouths;
I have seen suffering go unaided.
I have heard the iron din of war, and have seen the waxen face of early death;
And I have cried in my heart, “The world is hate!”

I have heard birds calling their mates in the still forests, and insects chirping to their loves in the tangled grass of meadows;
I have seen mothers caressing their babes, and aged men supporting with devotion the slow steps of stooping women;

I have a friend; I have a story;
I have a life that's hard to live;
I love; my love is all my glory;
I have been hurt and I forgive.

I have a friend; none could be better;
I stake my heart upon my friend!
I love; I trust her to the letter;
Will she deceive me in the end?

She is my love, my life, my jewel;
My hope, my star, my dear delight.
God! but the ways of God are cruel,—
That love should bow the knee to spite!

She loves, she hates,—a foul alliance!
One King shall rule in one estate.

The wilting flower
in the heart
of one whose love
has died and gone
in the end fades
utterly—
down to its very hue.

So feckless a hope—
that the moon
crossing the sky
would be enough
to keep us
in the same world—
held together

Our pledge
of love—
is as the dew
of evening
hanging on grasses
withered
by the winds
blowing
at the far edge
of autumn fields.