love poem

There shall be a song for both of us that day,
Though fools say you have long outlived your songs,
And when perhaps because your hair is grey
You go unsung, to whom all praise belongs,
And no men kiss your hands, your fragile hands
Folded like empty shells on lonely sands.
And you that were dawn whereat men shouted once,
Are sunset now, with but one worshipper.
Then to your twilight heart this song shall be
Sweeter than those that did your youth announce,
For your brave, beautiful spirit is lovelier

Who shall to th' elect's charge ought lay,
Since God hath justified?
Who shall condemn by any way,
Since Christ the Surety died?

Who can adjudge their souls to hell,
Since he, who in their stead
Has suffer'd, seal'd their blood so well,
By rising from the dead?

Yea, now he lives and sits above,
Still interceding there.
What can divide us from his love,
Or tempt us to despair?

Shall persecution, or distress,
A separation make?
Shall famine, sword, or nakedness,
Love's bond asunder break?

Gulls on the wind!
Crying! Crying!
Are you the ghosts
Of Erin's dead?
Of the forlorn
Whose days went sighing
Ever for Beauty
That ever fled?
Ever for Light
That never kindled?
Ever for Song
No lips have sung?
Ever for Joy
That ever dwindled?
Ever for Love that stung?

Mother, my love is going hence
In distant lands to be,
But from my mind he cannot go:
Who will bring him back to me?
Who will bring him back to me?

Mother, it came into my heart,
In dream it came to me,
That my dear love was going hence,
To the islands of the sea;
But from my mind he cannot go:
Who will bring him back to me?
Who will bring him back to me?

Mother, it struck upon my heart,
In dream it came to me,
That my dear love was going hence
Unto a far country,
Even in Aragon to dwell;

The love of man for woman and woman for man,
It is not often love …

When the married couple kiss do they drink the music of each other's souls,
Are they moved to unspeakable reverence and adoration,
Would they renounce the world for the good of the beloved?

No, kisses are become to them a routine and a duty:
They find each other's bodies at midnight as they find breakfast in the morning:
And they fill the idle hours with games, shows, rides and liquor,
All to escape from one another …

I have thoughts of a love that might be;

The Garden that I love is full of Light;
—It lies upon the sloping of a hill,
Where Dawn first stirs the curtains of the Night,
—And the breeze whispers when the Noon is still.

The garden that I love is full of Peace;
—The voices of the vale are faint and far,
The busy murmurs of the highway cease,
—And silently, at evening, comes the Star.

The garden that I love is full of Dreams;
—Visions of joy gone by, and bliss that waits,
Beyond the furthest verge of sunset gleams,
—With the wide opening of the Golden Gates.

Baby loves to play with me,
Peek-a-boo! Peek-a-boo!
She goes and hides behind a tree,
I see you! I see you!

Baby is so very wee,
Hiding's easy as can be!

Rose-bloom and lilies that no frost can kill;
Visions of youthful grace that yet persist;
Maidens with pleading arms at twilight tryst,
Ye were the lures that made the young heart thrill:
For you the passion, unrequited still;
O vanished lips that loved us, never kissed,
Only the worn heart knows what it hath missed—
How Heaven itself can not that dream fulfill!

Dear wraiths of Maidens bearing fragrant urns
Exhaling incense of remembered years
When we, in shadowy walks of woodland ferns

How can I tell thee when I love thee best?
In rapture or repose? how shall I say?
I only know I love thee every way,
Plumed for love's flight, or folded in love's nest.
See, what is day but night bedewed with rest?
And what the night except the tired-out day?
And 'tis love's difference, not love's decay,
If now I dawn, now fade, upon thy breast.
Self-torturing sweet! Is't not the self-same sun
Wanes in the west that flameth in the east,
His fervour nowise altered nor decreased?
So rounds my love, returning where begun,

Queen of all streets, you stand alway
Lovely by dusk or dark or day.
Cruellest of streets that I do know,
I love you wheresoe'er I go.

The daytime knows your lyric wonder:
Your tunes that rhyme and chime and thunder,
And exiles vision with delight
Your million-blossomed charm of night.

Sweet frivolous frock and fragrant face
Your shadow-fretted pavements trace;
And all about your haunted mile
Hangs a soft air, a girlish smile.

But other steps make echo here,
With curse and prayer and wasted tear;