love poem

"England! with all thy faults I love thee still,"
I said at Calais, and have not forgot it;
I like to speak and lucubrate my fill;
I like the government (but that is not it);
I like the freedom of the press and quill;
I like the Habeas Corpus (when we've got it);
I like a parliamentary debate,
Particularly when 'tis not too late;

I like the taxes, when they're not too many;
I like a seacoal fire, when not too dear;
I like a beef-steak, too, as well as any;
Have no objection to a pot of beer;

G OD'S world is bathed in beauty,
God's world is steeped in light;
It is the self-same glory
That makes the day so bright,
Which thrills the earth with music,
Or hangs the stars in night.

Hid in earth's mines of silver,
Floating on clouds above,—
Ringing in Autumn's tempest,
Murmured by every dove,—
One thought fills God's creation,
His own great name of Love!

In God's world Strength is lovely,
And so is Beauty strong,
And Light—God's glorious shadow—
To both great gifts belong;

Lest thou forget in the years between
The beautiful things thine eyes have seen:
The light of the sun and the silver sheen
Of cobwebs over a field of green . . .

The birth of love on a destined day
When blossomed the first sweet flowers of May
And sunlight flooded the wistful way;

The vows we took and the prayers we said
When the urge of love to the altars led
And the mystical marriage rites were read;

The sacrament scenes of death and birth;
The tragedies testing human worth—

You will remember me in days to come,
With love, or pride, or pity, or contempt,
So will my friends (not many friends, yet some),
When this my life will be a dream out-dreamt;
And one, remembering friendship by the fire,
And one, remembering love time in the dark,
And one, remembering unfulfilled desire,
Will sigh, perhaps, yet be beside the mark;
For this my body with its wandering ghost
Is nothing solely but an empty grange,
Dark in a night that owls inhabit most,
Yet when the King rides by there comes a change,

I LOVE my little gowns;
I love my little shoes,
All standing still below them,
Set quietly by twos.

All day I wear them careless,
But when I put them by
They look so dear and different,
And yet I don't know why.

My oldest one of all,—
Worn out; and then the best;
But that I have not worn enough
To love it, like the rest.

The dimity for Sunday,
The blue one and the wool,
Now that I see them hanging up,
Are somehow beautiful.

Of all the white, with ribbons

I seek the woods with courage brave,
I fear no robber's snares;
A loving heart is all I have,
For that no robber cares.

Who breaks, who rustles through the bush,
A murderer threatening death?
My lover forward springs, and—hush!
With hugs nigh chokes my breath!

Love's a gentle, gen'rous passion,
Source of all sublime delight,
When with mutual inclination
Two fond hearts in one unite.

What are titles, pomp or riches,
If compar'd with true content?
That false joy which now bewitches
When obtain'd, we may repent.

Lawless passions bring vexation,
But a chaste and constant love
Is a glorious emulation
Of the blissful state above.

Listen a while, the moon is a lovely woman, a lonely woman, lost in a silver dress, lost in a circus rider's silver dress.

Listen a while, the lake by night is a lonely woman, a lovely woman, circled with birches and pines mixing their green and white among stars shattered in spray clear nights.

I know the moon and the lake have twisted the roots under my heart the same as a lonely woman, a lovely woman, in a silver dress, in a circus rider's silver dress.

My God, wilt Thou accept, and will not we
Give aught to Thee?
The kept we lose, the offered we retain
Or find again.

Yet if our gift were lost, we well might lose
All for Thy use:
Well lost for Thee, Whose Love is all for us

The lips of Venus are as sweet
Though sipped within a London street,
And her rich hair
Is just as soft for lips to meet
In London air.

And Daphne's limbs are pure and white
Though darkness of a London night
Beholds them kissed,
Not skies with tints of sapphire bright
Or amethyst.

And Psyche's lips are no less red
In that two thousand years have fled
With all their flowers
Since her old namesake sweet was wed
In Southern bowers

And passion is no less divine