love poem

“Lose and love” is love's first art;
So it was with thee and me,
For I first beheld thy heart
On the night I last saw thee.
Pine-woods and mysteries!
Sea-sands and sorrows!
Hearts fluttered by a breeze
That bodes dark morrows, morrows,—
Bodes dark morrows!

Moonlight in sweet overflow
Poured upon the earth and sea!
Lovelight with intenser glow
In the deeps of thee and me!
Clasped hands and silences!
Hearts faint and throbbing!
The weak wind sighing in the trees!
The strong surf sobbing, sobbing,—

You that I loved all my life long,
you are not the one.
You that I followed, my line or path or way,
that I followed singing, and you
earth and air of the world the way went through,
and you who stood around it so it could be
the way, you forests and cities,
you deer and opossums struck by the lonely hunter
and left decaying, you paralyzed obese ones
who sat on a falling porch in a deep green holler
and observed me, your bald dog barking,
as I stumbled past in a hurry along my line,
you are not the one. But you

Though thou, indeed, hast quite forgotten ruth,
Its steadfast truth my heart abandons not;
But still its thought yields service in good part
To that hard heart in thee.

Alas! who hears believes not I am so.
Yet who can know? of very surety, none.
From Love is won a spirit, in some wise,
Which dies perpetually:

And, when at length in that strange ecstasy
The heavy sigh will start,
There rains upon my heart
A love so pure and fine,
That I say: "Lady, I am wholly thine.'

Fullness of love sleeps in us like a sea
After night's tempest, O thou lovely thing!
The meadow breezes kiss our cheeks, the bee
Hums by us with the honey of the Spring.

“I have not sought Thee, I have not found Thee,
I have not thirsted for Thee:
And now cold billows of death surround me,
Buffeting billows of death astound me,—
Wilt Thou look upon, wilt Thou see
Thy perishing me?”

“Yea, I have sought thee, yea, I have found thee,
Yea, I have thirsted for thee,
Yea, long ago with love's bands I bound thee:
Now the Everlasting Arms surround thee,—
Thro' death's darkness I look and see
And clasp thee to Me.”

I know this perilous love-lane
No whither the traveller leads,
Yet my fancy the sweet scent of
Thy tangled tresses feeds.

In the midnight of thy locks,
I renounce the day;
In the ring of thy rose-lips,
My heart forgets to pray.

The chemist of love
Will this perishing mould,
Were it made out of mire,
Transmute into gold

The understanding's copper coin
Counts not with the gold of love.

Come my love the summers day
Has brought the Cuckows to green trees
Oh come my Mary come away
And let us share the woodland breeze
The woodland breeze I love to share
Where green leaves whisper all the day
Come hither with thy face so fair
Mary my loved one come away

I would not for a world of gold
Thy innocence from beauty steal
Sweet is thy face which I behold
All its Love memories I feel
The swaying boughs the shaking leaves
And every rural sight and sound
The soft wind secret spells he weaves

When out of bed my Love doth spring,
'Tis but as day a kindling:
But when She's up and fully drest,
'Tis then broad Day throughout the East.