love poems for her

O we have loved you through cold and rain
And pitiless frost,
Consuming our offering of blood and brain
Gladly again and again and again,
Though it all seemed lost,
Ireland, Ireland!
O we will fight, fight on for you till
Your anguish is past,
The wronged ones righted, the tyrants still. —
Though God has not saved you, yet we will,
At the last, at the last,
Ireland, Ireland!
O we will love you in warmth and light
And the happy day,
When you have forgotten the terrible night,
Standing proud and beautiful bright

Homage to Shiva-Shakti
The first and greatest of lovers,
Whose love bears the burden of cosmic mysteries;
Then obeisance to Ganesha, Lord of the masses,
Remover of obstacles, who loves dance, music, poetry,
And all the arts: vouchsafe the safe passage
Of this slender verse-offering at Love's shrine;
Look benignly on a beginner's faltering muse,
Which totters even as it commences
Not unlike a new-born heifer struggling to get on its feet,
Lowing in feeble and pitiful accents for its Mother;

We've a room
That we call home,
With a bed in it,
And a table
And some chairs,
A to Z in it.
There's a mirror,
And a safe,
And a lamp in it.
Were there more,
Our mighty love
Might get cramp in it.

THOU art my love
And thou art the peace of sundown
When the blue shadows soothe
And the grasses and the leaves sleep
To the song of the little brooks
Woe is me.

Thou art my love,
And thou art a storm
That breaks black in the sky
And, sweeping headlong,
Drenches and cowers each tree
And at the panting end
There is no sound
Save the melancholy cry of a single owl
Woe is me!

Thou art my love
And thou art a tinsel thing
And I in my play
Broke thee easily

Intoxicated by the Wine of Love.
From each a mystic silence Love demands.
What do all seek so earnestly? 'Tis Love.
What do they whisper to each other? Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts.
In Love no longer 'thou' and 'I' exist,
For Self has passed away in the Beloved.
Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,
And in the temple of mine inmost soul,
Behold the Friend; Incomparable Love.
He who would know the secret of both worlds,
Will find the secret of them both, is Love.

Somewhere within your loving look I sense,
Without the least intention to deceive,
Without suspicion, without evidence,
Somewhere within your heart the heart to leave.

You don't survive in me
because of memories;
nor are you mine because
of a lovely longing's strength.

What does make you present
is the ardent detour
that a slow tenderness
traces in my blood.

I do not need
to see you appear;
being born sufficed for me
to lose you a little less.


Translated by A. Poulin

Best of painters come, pursue
What our Muse invites thee to,
And Lyæus, whose shrill flute
Vies with her harmonious lute;
Draw me a full city, where
Several shapes of mirth appear;
And the laws of love, if cold
Wax so great a flame can hold.

When the day is brightest,
Darkness draweth near;
When the heart is lightest,
Coming grief I fear.
Eyes of heavenly splendour,
Radiance o’er me fling;
But when their light’s most tender
I fear its vanishing.

Lips, where passion keepeth
Holiest incense, bend to mine;
But when woman speaketh,
Who would trust so false a shrine?
Even in twined caresses
Where love has woven his spells,
Of the mutual love that blesses,
I hear a voice which tells.
As light with darkness weddeth,

Our lips can only stammer, yet we chant
High things of God. We do not hope to praise
The splendour and the glory of his ways,
Nor light up Heaven with our low descant:
But we will follow thee, his hierophant
Filling with secret canticles the days
To shadow forth in symbols for their gaze
What crowns and thrones await his militant.

For all his beauty showered on the earth
Is summed in thee, O thou most perfect flower;
His dew has filled thy chalice, and his power
Blows forth the fragrance of thy mystic worth: