love poem

Tho Ive sung in rambles cheery
Springs & summers almost weary
Ere since my boyish hand dare try
To cull a wreath of poesy
& woo that sun tand beautious maid
The rural muse beneath the shade
Binding free her carless hair
To win her smiling favours there
Tho ere since wi countless pleasures
In unpremedi[t]ated measures
Ive sung of woods & dribbling rills
& pastures speckt wi little hills
& meadows smooth as bowling greens
& fields of grain & many scenes
Were manhoods leisure joys to dwell

Our first young love resembles
That short but brilliant ray,
Which smiles and weeps and trembles
Thro' April's earliest day.
And not all life before us,
Howe'er its lights may play,
Can shed a lustre o'er us
Like that first April ray.

Our summer sun may squander
A blaze serener, grander;
Our autumn beam
May, like a dream
Of heaven, die calm away;
But no—let life before us
Bring all the light it may,
'T will ne'er shed lustre o'er us
Like that first youthful ray.

Weeping for thee, my love, thro' the long day,
Lonely and wearily life wears away.
Weeping for thee, my love, thro' the long night—
No rest in darkness, no joy in light!
Naught left but Memory whose dreary tread
Sounds thro' this ruined heart, where all lies dead—
Wakening the echoes of joy long fled!

Dear , when you came the day was bright;
The moments, roseate to my sight,
Flew by me, and my heart was glad
Without you; but I loved you, lad—
Loved in my own despite!

As morn, I thought, so would be night,
Nor feared eclipsing cloud, nor blight—
Nay, fancied naught to life could add,
Dear, when you came!

And now—the good I deemed my right—
But you with love will still requite
The follies that have made you sad!
You smile—there—whisper! Nothing had
Illumined for me love's altar-light.

When first I saw that dear abode
It was a lovely winter's day;
After a night of perilous storm
The west wind ruled with gentle sway—

A day so mild it might have been
The first day of the gladsome spring;
The robins warbled, and I heard
One solitary throstle sing.

Thou man, first-comer, whose wide arms entreat,
Gather, clasp, welcome, bind,
Lack, or remember; whose warm pulses beat
With love of thine own kind:—

Unlifted for a blessing on yon sea,
Unshrined on this highway,
O flesh, O grief, thou too shalt have our knee,
Thou rood of every day!

When Winter's ahead,
What can you read in November
That you read in April
When Winter's dead?

I hear the thrush, and I see
Him alone at the end of the lane
Near the bare poplar's tip,
Singing continuously.

Is it more that you know
Than that, even as in April,
So in November,
Winter is gone that must go?

Or is all your lore
Not to call November November,
And April April,
And Winter Winter—no more?

But I know the months all,
And their sweet names, April,

The wind at the casement enters, like a child's soul into the dusk,
With the cool, fresh scent of the garden, a fragrance of roses and musk.

Sing me a song, my love, and plead with the ivory keys
Till the soul of the organ wakes, astir with such visions as these,
While the golden day fades slowly among the garden trees
And I hear the robins coining their hearts upon the breeze.

Sing me a song, my love, of joys more sharp than pain,
The sweet, wild heart of dream athrill in the Autumn rain,

Ask me not how much I love you;
Be content!
If too much love were sin
You would but win
Some of my punishment.
Ask me not, but believe I merely love you.

If indeed I truly love you,
Never more
Will any harm come near,
Nor need you fear
My heart's voice at the door
Of your heart, whisp'ring, Open, sweet, I love you.

See! I cannot choose but love you
Soberly.
For, having felt your touch,
My pride in such
Familiarity
Warns me how he must worship who would love you.

Nay , not rewardless did your hero fall!
No pealing fame could match this great repose;
Death's grassy calm, after life's bugle call,
And love's white lily after war's red rose.