love poem

Sullenly falls the rain,
Still hangs the dripping leaf,
And ah, the pain!--
The slow, dull ache of my grief,
That throbs--"In vain, in vain,--
You have garnered your sheaf!"

You have garnered your sheaf, with the tares
Therein, and unripe wheat,--
All that Death spares,
Who has come with too swift feet,
Not turning for any prayers
Nor all who entreat.

They entreated with tears. But I--
Ah me, all I can say
Is only a cry!
I had loved you many a day,
Yet never had fate drawn nigh

Love, if you love me, love with heart and soul!
I am not liberal as some lovers are,
Accepting small return, and scanty dole,
Gratefully glad to worship from afar.

Ah, love me passionately, or not at all!
For love that counts the cost I have small need.
My fingers would with laughing scorn let fall
That poor half-love so many lovers heed.


Then be mine wholly,--body, soul, and brain!
Your memory shall outlive kings. For Time
Forgets his cunning and assails in vain
Her whose name rings along the poet's rhyme.

Afloat!--
Ah Love, on the mirror of waters
All the world seems with us afloat,--
All the wide, bright world of the night;
But the mad world of men is remote,
And the prating of tongues is afar.
We have fled from the crowd in our flight,
And beyond the gray rim of the waters
All the turmoil has sunk from our sight.
Turn your head, Love, a little, and note
Low down in the south a pale star.
The mists of the horizon-line drench it,
The beams of the moon all but quench it,
Yet it shines thro' this flood-tide of light.

Love, what were fame,
And thou not in it,
That I should hold it worth
Much toil to win it?

What were success
Didst thou not share it?
As Spring can spare the snows
I well could spare it!

Love, what were love
But of thy giving
That it should much prevail
To sweeten living?

Nay, what were life,
Save thou inspire it,
That I should bid my soul
Greatly desire it?

And friends fell from me--all, save God, and one
Beside--and she my mother--gentle, true.
As the bleak wind sweeps o'er the trembling limbs
Of some fair tree denuded of its dress,
How oft is seen, upon the topmost spray,
One lonely leaf, which braves the passing storm
Of Winter, and when gladsome Spring arrives,
And blossoms bloom in beauty all around,
It bends its brow and silent falls away.
So droopt that friend, who, through the livelong day
Of icy cold that chill'd my inmost life,
Sat like a bird upon the outside branch,

My sorrowing heart is like the blasted oak
That claspt the dazzling lightning to its breast,
Yielding its life up to the burning kiss.
Springs came along and fondled all in vain,
And Summers toy'd with warm and am'rous breath;
But nought in life could e'er again restore
The greening foliage of its early days.
Man never loves but once--then 'tis a cast
For life or death. If death--alas the day!
If life--'twere perfect Paradise.

When Beauty smiles upon thee--have a care.
Kingdoms ere this have hinged upon a kiss
From woman's lips: and smiles have won a crown.
Glances from bright eyes of a gentle maid,
Whose cheeks would redden at a mouse's glance,
Have hearts befool'd that in their noble strength
Had shaken Kingdoms down. Have thou a care.

She was a simple cottage-girl,
But lovely as a poet's richest thought
Of woman's beauty--and as false as fair.
I've writhed beneath the witchery of her voice
As cornfields palpitate beneath the breeze--
Have sued with praying hands--lavished my life
Upon her image, as the bright stars pour
Their trembling splendours on the cold-heart lake--
Wounded my manliness upon the rock
Of her too fatal beauty, like a storm
That twines with sobbing fondness round the neck
Of some sky-kissing hill, bursts in his love,

Man's faith in woman's love
Is all the darken'd earth can boast of Heaven.
That faith destroyed--farewell to happiness,
And joy, and worldly hope, and all that goes
To deify mankind.

My heart is dark again.
My tree of life but yestermorn was flusht
With golden fruit: to-day it creaks in pain,
And wintry winds moan through its leafless boughs.
Time, some hours younger, saw me clasp the sky
Of hope with radiant brow: the plodding churl
May see me now go stumbling in the dark,
And blindly groping for the hand of Death
To lead me hence. O life! O world! O woman!