love poem

Was never true love loved in vain,
For truest love is highest gain.
No art can make it: it must spring
Where elements are fostering.
So in heaven's spot and hour
Springs the little native flower,
Downward root and upward eye,
Shapen by the earth and sky.

Let the high Muse chant loves Olympian:
We are but mortals, and must sing of man.

Tell me, dearest, what is love?
'Tis a lightning from above,
'Tis an arrow, 'tis a fire,
'Tis a boy they call Desire
'Tis a grave,
Gapes to have
Those poor fools that long to prove.

Tell me more, are women true?
Yes, some are, and some as you
Some are willing, some are strange,
Since you men first taught to change.
And till troth
Be in both,
All shall love, to love anew.

Tell me more yet, can they grieve?
Yes, and sicken sore, but live,
And be wise, and delay,

I will walk into some one's dwelling,

I will walk into somebody's home.

My sweetheart, into thy home
I will walk, in the night.

My sweetheart, in the winter
I shall walk into your abode.

This night I will walk into your lodge.

The thoughts that haunt the poet like a dream,
Strange sweet ghost-shapes that through his fancy gleam,
Will one day haunt all hearts as well.
He fills the wide world with his love of flowers,
And with his love of summer sunlit hours,
And with his hate of hell.

The woman whom he loves and crowns shall stand
One day imperial over every land.
The passionate eyes that haunt his sleep
Shall one day flash upon the world, and make
(Not now the poet's, nay) the world's heart ache,
And make the world's eyes weep.

My love's a rose,
A perfect flower.
Her beauty grows
With every hour.

And when she smiles,
A fragrance rare
My heart beguiles
With visions fair.

And when she pouts
At me forlorn,
I have no doubts
About the thorn!

I would be ever your desired,
Never the possessed—
Nor in this will of mine is wantonness expressed.
The desired woman is most dear,
The possessed wanton is too near.

I would be far on unattainable height—
Always for knowledge, always for sight:
While from your touch and kisses I am free,
Our love is the high, perfect thing to be.

When at your desk you sit with studious look
Forgetting all the world for one small book,

And she who is your all comes up behind you
And nestles, eager in her arms to bind you,

Don't gruffly bid her leave you, don't demur,
But leave your book and go along with her!

Your dusty tomes will bide with you for aye,
You do not know how long your love will stay.

There 's many a lonely man with care-worn brow
Would gladly be disturbed as you are now.

Let love illuminate in shining gold

Thy love permits not my complaint to rise,
It reaches to my lips, and then it dies.
Now, helpless heart, I cannot aid thee more,
And thus for thee God's pity must implore.

Seest thou not how much disgrace and pain
The scornful world has heaped upon us twain,
On thee for beauty and the sins thereof,
On me for this infirmity of love.

Oft-times she will not speak to me at all,
Or if she deign to speak, the words that fall
Cold from her haughty lips are words of blame:—
—I know thee not—I have not heard thy name!

Old love would seem as though not love today:
Spell-bound by thee, my laughter dies away.
The very wax sheds sympathetic tears
And gutters sadly down till dawn appears.