love poem

Fair partner of my Nancy's heart,
Who feel'st, like me, love's poignant dart;
Who at a frown can'st pant for pain,
And at a smile revive again;
Who doat'st to that severe degree,
You're jealous, e'en of constancy;
Born hopes and fears and doubts to prove,
And each vicissitude of love!
To this my humble suit attend,
And be my advocate and friend.
So may just heav'n your goodness bless,
Successful ev'n in my success!
Oft at the silent hour of night,
When bold intrusion wings her flight,

Where heat of love doth once possess the heart,
There cares oppress the mind with wondrous ill:
Wit runs awry, not fearing future smart,
And fond desire doth overmaster will:
The belly neither cares for meat nor drink,
Nor over-watched eyes desire to wink.

Footsteps are false, and wavering to and fro;
The pleasing flower of beauty fades away;
Reason retires, and pleasure brings in woe,
And wisdom yieldeth place to black decay:
Counsel and fame, and friendship are contemned,
And bashful shame, and Gods themselves condemned.

Red, red roses glowing in the garden,
Rare, white lilies swaying on your stalks,
Did you hear me pray my sweet love for pardon,
Straying with him through your garden walks?

Ah, you glow and smile when the sun shines upon you—
You thrill with delight at the tears of the dew,
And the wind that caresses you boasts that he won you—
Do you think, fair flowers, to them all to be true?

Sun, dew, and wind, ah, they all are your lovers—
Sun, dew, and wind, and you love them back again—

Not only once, and long ago,
There on Golgotha's rugged side,
Has Christ, the Lord, been crucified
Because He loved a lost world so.
But hourly souls, sin-satisfied,
Mock His great love, flout His commands.
And I drive nails deep in His hands,
You thrust the spear within His side.

Not only once, and long ago,
There on Golgotha's rugged side,
Has Christ, the Lord, been crucified
Because He loved a lost world so.
But hourly souls, sin-satisfied,
Mock His great love, flout His commands.

If I live all my days by routine,
Keeping days ordered and ways clean,
Will there be room for Love in my life?
Love who is born in storm, and lives in strife.

Youth hath many charms,—
—Hath many joys, and much delight;
Even its doubts, and vague alarms,
—By contrast make it bright:
And yet—and yet—forsooth,
—I love Age as well as Youth!

Well, since I love them both,
—The good of both I will combine,—
In women, I will look for Youth,
—And look for Age, in wine:
And then—and then—I'll bless
—This twain that gives me happiness!

O vocables of love,
O zones of dreamt responses
Where wing on wing folds in
The negro centuries of sleep
And the thick lips compress
Compendiums of silence—

Throats claw the mirror of blind triumph,
Eyes pursue sight into the heart of terror.
Call within call
Succumbs to the indistinguishable
Wall within wall
Embracing the last crushed vocable,
The spoken unity of efforts.

O vocables of love,
The end of an end is an echo,
A last cry follows a last cry.
Finality of finality

Let me love bright things
Before my life is over . . .
Moons, and shining wings
Of bees about the clover.

Bathers in seas;
Cities by night;
Tall rainy trees;
Yellow candle-light.

And long sunlit lands
That lie anywhere;
And one with white hands
To comb her gleaming hair!

In each man's heart that doth begin
To love, there's ever fram'd within
A little world, for so I found,
When first my passion reason drown'd.

Instead of earth unto this frame,
I had a faith was still the same;
For to be right it doth behoove
It be as that, fixt and not move;

Yet as the earth may sometime shake
(For winds shut up will cause a quake),
So, often jealousy and fear,
Stol'n into mine, cause tremblings there.

My Flora was my sun, for as
One sun, so but one Flora was:

Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why
Does that ecclipsing hand, so long, deny
The Sun-shine of thy soule-enliv'ning eye?

Without that Light, what light remaines in me?
Thou art my Life, my Way, my Light; in Thee
I live, I move, and by thy beames I see.

Thou art my Life; If thou but turne away,
My life's a thousand deaths: thou art my Way;
Without thee, Lord, I travell not, but stray.

My Light thou art; without thy glorious sight,
Mine eyes are darkned with perpetuall night.