love poems for her

I am thy fugitive, thy votary,
Nor even thy mother tempts me from thy shrine:
Mirror, nor gold, nor ornament of mine
Appease her: thou art all my gods to me,
And I so breathless in my loyalty,
Youth hath slipped by and left no footprint sign:
Yet there are footsteps nigh. My years decline.
Decline thy years? Burns thy torch duskily?
Lord Love, to thy great altar I retire;
Time doth pursue me, age is on my brow,
And there are cries and shadows of the night.
Transform me, for I cannot quit thee now:

I am a roving gambler, I've gambled all around,
Wherever I meet with a deck of cards I lie my money down.

2

I've gambled down in Washington and I've gambled over in Spain;
I am on my way to Georgia to knock down my last game.

3

I had not been in Washington many more weeks than three,
Till I fell in love with a pretty little girl and she fell in love with me.

4

She took me in her parlor, she cooled me with her fan,
She whispered low in her mother's ears, " I love this gambling man! "

5

The hunched camels of the night
Trouble the bright
And silver waters of the moon.
The Maiden of the Morn will soon
Through Heaven stray and sing,
Star gathering.
Now while the dark about our loves is strewn,
Light of my dark, blood of my heart, O come!
And night will catch her breath up, and be dumb.

Leave thy father, leave thy mother
And thy brother;
Leave the black tents of thy tribe apart!
Am I not thy father and thy brother,
And thy mother?
And thou--what needest with thy tribe's black tents

How they came into the world,
the women-loving-women
came in three by three
and four by four
the women-loving-women
came in ten by ten
and ten by ten again
until there were more
than you could count

they took care of each other
the best they knew how
and of each other's children,
if they had any.

How they lived in the world,
the women-loving-women
learned as much as they were allowed
and walked and wore their clothes
the way they liked

1. How sweet is the language of love, Which dwells on the penitents' tongue! The
3. Immanuel's glory the theme, Our hearts are inflamed with desire; Or
theme of their heavenly joys, The notes of Immanuel's song!
while of his suffering we tell, We wonder, repent, and admire.
2. 'Twas thus with the converts of old, Though prisons and chains were their lot; At
4. O loving Redeemer, we come, With panting and longing to be As-
midnight, when Jesus appeared, They sang, and their bands were forgot.

How strangely this sun reminds me of my love!
Of my walk alone at evening, when like the cottage smoke
Hope vanished into the red fading of the sky.
I remember my strained listening to his voice
My staring at his face and taking the photograph
With the river behind, and the woods touched by Spring:
Till the identification of a morning —
Expansive sheets of blue rising from fields
Roaring movements of light discerned under shadow —
With his figure leaning over a map, is now complete.

How should I love my best?
What though my love unto that height be grown,
That taking joy in you alone
I utterly this world detest,
Should I not love it yet as th'only place
Where Beauty hath his perfect grace,
And is possest?

But I beauties despise,
You, universal beauty seem to me,
Giving and shewing form and degree
To all the rest, in your fair eyes,
Yet should I not love them as parts whereon
Your beauty, their perfection
And top, doth rise?

But ev'n my self I hate,

Of course nostalgia Of course brooding

Give me the missing scattered through twelve states & three continents
Give me those scattered as ash

Give them their places at the table I have set
For them as much as for those gathered

How little it takes: a year ten years
A shiver fast passing & the eye clears

What was love once casts off disguises

— A cardinal's flare against forsythia simplified by snow —

What once was love spurns shallow guises & returns
startling as love

How ill doth he deserve a Lovers name,
Whose pale weak flame
Cannot retain
His heat in spight of absence or disdain;
But doth at once, like paper set on fire,
Burn and expire;
True love can never change his seat,
Nor did he ever love, that could retreat.

That noble flame, which my brest keeps alive,
Shall still survive,
When my soule 's fled;
Nor shall my love dye, when my bodye 's dead,
That shall wait on me to the lower shade,
And never fade:
My very ashes in their urn,

How do I love you?
— I do not know.
Only because of you
— Gladly I go.

Only because of you
— Labor is sweet,
And all the song of you
— Sings in my feet.

Only the thought of you
— Trembles and lies
Just where the world begins —
— Under my eyes.