love poem

I cannot make less red the rose's fold,
Less white the wave,
Less blue the sea, less bright the garner's gold,
Less dark the grave,
Nor make thy soul less beautiful and bold,
Queen of the brave.

Fair love, o'er my heart let thy gentle hand pass.
Dost hear in that chamber the knocking, alas!
A carpenter cross-grained and spiteful dwells there,
Who's making for me a coffin so rare.

There's tapping and rapping by night and by day,
'Tis long since it drove all my slumber away.
Oh, good Master Carpenter, hammer amain,
That soon I may slumber right soundly again.

There are who say we are but dust,
We may be soon, but are not yet,
Nor should be while in Love we trust
And never what he taught forget.

Up from the South come the birds that were banished,
Frightened away by the presence of frost.
Back to the vale comes the verdure that vanished,
Back to the forest the leaves that were lost.
Over the hillside the carpet of splendor,
Folded through Winter, Spring spreads down again;
Along the horizon, the tints that were tender,
Lost hues of Summer time, burn bright as then.

Only the mountains' high summits are hoary,
To the ice-fettered river the sun gives a key.
Once more the gleaming shore lists to the story

O Slain for love of me, canst Thou be cold,
Be cold and far away in my distress:
Is Thy love also changed growing less and less
That carried me thro' all the days of old?—
O Slain for love of me, O Love untold,
See how I flag and fail thro' weariness:
I flag, while sleepless foes dog me and press
On me; behold O Lord, O Love behold.
I am sick for home, the home of love indeed;
I am sick for Love, that dearest name for Thee:
Thou Who hast bled, see how my heart doth bleed;
Open Thy bleeding Side and let me in;

Ah, do not say you love me as a rose,
A rose that blossoms for a day and dies,
But rather as a tranquil, guiding star
That lights the evening skies.

Ah, do not say you love me as a jewel,
A jewel,—a tinseled trinket, trivial, vain;
But rather as a rainbow shining through
A world of wailing rain.

Ah, do not say you love me as the spring,
The spring that lingers all too brief a time,
But rather as a happy, sun-winged song
Of sweet, immortal rhyme.

Who loves a tree he loves the life that springs in star and clod;
He loves the love that gilds the clouds and greens the April sod;
He loves the Wide Beneficence. His soul takes hold on God.

A tree is one of nature's words, a word of peace to man,
A word that tells of central strength from whence all things began,
A word to preach tranquillity to all our restless clan.

Ah, bare must be the shadeless ways, and bleak the path must be,
Of him who, having open eyes, has never learned to see,

GOOD-NIGHT ! good-night! for the day is done,
And the shadow-ships lie long
Where the moon shines dim o'er the curved sea's rim,
And the wild wind sings its song.

The wild wind sings to the sea, my love—
Sing, heart of my heart, to me,
While the waves' dull roar on the sounding shore
Fills up the melody;

Till I rest in peace in thine arms, my love;
Till slumber has loosed the bars,
And my thought flies forth, as a gull to the north,
To wander among the stars.

The limbs remember blood and fire:
a hurt that's done may in the mind
sink and lose identity;

for the mind has reasons of its own
for covering with an eyeless mask
marks of mortality.

The limbs remember fire and joy
and flesh to flesh is benison
of entity;

but the mind has reasons of its own
for circumventing life and love's

Tho' nought, amid these darkened groves,
But various groups of death appear,
Scar'd at the sight, tho' fly the Loves,
And Sickness saddens all the year,

Yet, Clara, where you deign to stay,
Your sense and manners charm us so,
E'en sick'ning Sorrow's self looks gay,
And smiles amid the wreck of woe.