love poem

If you tenderly love me,
Gird your loins and wade across the Zhen;
But if you do not love me—
There are plenty of other men,
Of madcaps maddest, oh!

If you tenderly love me,
Gird your loins and wade across the Wei;
But if you do not love me—
There are plenty of other knights,
Of madcaps maddest, oh!

I am, and therefore these,
Existence is by me,—
Flux of pendulous seas,
The stable, free.

I am in blush of the rose,
The shimmer of dawn;
Am girdle Orion knows,
The fount undrawn.

I am earth's potency,
The chemic ray's, the rain's,
The reciprocity
That loads the wains.

I am, or the heavens fall!
I dwell in my woven tent,
Am immanent in all,—
Suprámanent!

I am the Life in life,
Impact and verve of thought,
The reason's lens and knife,
The ethic “ought.”

Knowing beauty my misfortune,
I face my mirror with a sigh.
To please a fastidious emperor,
How shall I array myself?…
Birds flock and sing when the wind is warm,
Flower-shadows climb when the sun is high—
And year after year girls in the south
Are picking hibiscus, dreaming of love!

To-morrow shall be my dancing day:
I would my true love did so chance
To see the legend of my play,
To call my true love to my dance:

Sing O my love, O my love, my love, my love;
This have I done for my true love.

Then was I born of a virgin pure,
Of her I took fleshly substance;
Thus was I knit to man's nature,
To call my true love to my dance:

In a manger laid and wrapped I was,
So very poor, this was my chance,
Betwixt an ox and a silly poor ass,
To call my true love to my dance:

Live Jesus, Live, and let it bee
My life to dye, for love of thee.

Love, you have broken my wings—I cried—
And oh, the sky!
Never, never to lift me high!

Only the broken-winged can fly.
Look!—Love replied.

Love, you have shattered the songs of me
And oh, the pain!
Never, never to sing again!

Singing lives on when song is dead.
Listen!—Love said.

There is a sky for a broken wing,
That I have found;
And in the stillness after song,
There is a Sound!

When weight of all the garnered years
—Bows me, and praise must find relief
In harvest-song, and smiles and tears
—Twist in the band that binds my sheaf;

Thou known Unknown, dark, radiant sea
—In whom we live, in whom we move,
My spirit must lose itself in Thee,
—Crying a name—Life, Light, or Love.

When you kiss me I am blind,
My senses
Are filled with ecstasy.
I only feel how strong my life is,
And so know myself.
From love I understand all things that live,
And even the dead.

I am like a tree
Shaken in wind.
Or like water that is drawn into the air
Through the strong loving of the sun.

When you are gone,
I am myself earthquake and eclipse,
And all cold darkness, and rending grief.
When you kiss me I am blind.

Lo! an old song, yellow with centuries!
She, she who with her young dust kept it sweet;
She, in some green court on a carvëd seat,
Read it at dusk fair-paged upon her knees;
And, looking up, saw there, beyond the trees,
Tall Helen through the darkling shadows fleet;
And heard, out in the fading river-street,
The roar of battle like the roar of seas.
Love, weeping, laid this song when she was dead
In that sealed chamber, strange with nard and musk.
Outliving Egypt, see it here at last.

Come all you hustling gamblers,
Who have one dollar to spend.
Tomorrow my pockets will be empty,
I'll be without money or friends.
Just see that pretty girl coming,
With curls all around her head.
I think how well I love her,
And I wish that I was dead.

I'm just a hustling gambler,
I've staked my last red cent.
If fortune goes against me,
My last thin dime is spent.
I'll meet that pretty young damsel,
I'll take her by her hand.
She'll whisper to her mother,
“I love that gamblin' man.”