love poem

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.

I know the ways of learning; both the head
And pipes that feed the press, and make it run;
What reason hath from nature borrowed,
Or of it self, a good huswife, spun
In laws and policy; what the stars conspire,
What willing nature speaks, what forc'd by fire;

Both th' old discoveries, and the new-found seas,
The stock and surplus, cause and history:
All these stand open, or I have the keys:
Yet I love thee.

I know the ways of honour, what maintains
The quick returns of courtesy and wit:

Sitting by a river side,
Where a silent stream did glide,
Bank'd about with choice flowers,
Such as spring from April showers,
When fair Iris smiling shows
All her riches in her dews;
Thick-leav'd trees so were planted,
As nor art nor nature wanted,
Bordering all the brook with shade,
As if Venus there had made,
By Flora's wile, a curious bower,
To dally with her paramour;
At this current as I gaz'd,
Eyes intrapt, mind amaz'd,
I might see in my ken
Such a flame as fireth men,
Such a fire as doth fry

O God, our loving Father, help us
Rightly to remember the birth of Jesus,
That we may share in the song of the
Angels, the gladness of the shepherds
And the worship of the wise men.

Close the door of hate and open the
Door of love all over the world.

Deliver us from evil by the blessing
That Christ brings, and teach us
To be merry with clear hearts.

May the Christmas morning make us happy
To be thy children and the Christmas
Evening bring us to our beds with
Grateful thoughts, forgiving, and

In some far-off
cleft of the rock
let me live alone,
thinking no longer of outsiders' eyes,
thinking only of my love

There is a voice, and there is only one,
Thrilling my bosom, as if tuned on high
Amid the spheres revolving round the sky,
Whose roll is tempered to the sweetest tone,
Whose blended harmonies are heard at night,
Now falling distant, now ascending nigh,
And with the saffron burst of dawning light
Peal like the long, loud clarion-swell of fight,
When columns in the deadly charge rush by.
As sweet, but fainter, of as a clear a note,
Yet softened into calmness, is that sound
Whose tones in recollection round me float,

Love is a beggar, most importunate,
Uncalled he comes and makes his dear demands.
He storms my heart which doth capitulate
And then he asks the homage of my hands.
He claims my eyes, and wistfully they turn,
He craves my lips, half-willingly they yield
Their soft obeisance to his own that burn
With potent passion in the power they wield.
And when, with woman's faith, I give my whole,
I wonder if dear Love doth recognize
That, with it all, unless he claim my soul,
He gives me naught and asks but sacrifice!

Ah my dear angry Lord,
Since thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise;
I will bewail, approve;
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament, and love.

Dear friend, sit down: the tale is long and sad,
And in my faintings I presume your love
Will more comply than help. A lord I had,
And have, of whom some grounds which may improve,
I hold for two lives, and both lives in me.
To him I brought a dish of fruit one day,
And in the middle placed my heart. But he
(I sigh to say)
Looked on a servant, who did know his eye
Better than you know me, or (which is one)
Than I my self. The servant instantly
Quitting the fruit, seized on my heart alone,
And threw it in a font, wherein did fall

Immortal Heat, O let thy greater flame
Attract the lesser to it: let those fires,
Which shall consume the world, first make it tame;
And kindle in our hearts such true desires,
As may consume our lusts, and make thee way.
Then shall our hearts pant thee; then shall our brain
All her invention on thine Altar lay,
And there in hymns send back thy fire again:
Our eyes shall see thee, which before saw dust;
Dust blown by wit, till that they both were blind:
Thou shalt recover all thy goods in kind,