love poems for her

You are a poet, sycamore,
A minor poet.
You are not much good in a practical world;
You shed your ragged leaves early, and clutter up the landscape.
But you are lovely on winter evenings
Against the afterglow—
Bare and pale and a little disdainful,

O peace is a white bird,
And Beauty is a castled cloud,
And Love is a fierce fire that loves to be made kind;

And I have climbed the castled cloud,
And I have caged the fierce fire,
But the white bird, the white bird—her I cannot bind!

Jesus, I covet to love Thee,
And that is wholly my yearning:
Therefore to love Thee Thou teach me,
And I Thy love shall ever sing.

Jesus, Thy love into me send
And with Thy love Thou me feed.
Jesus, Thy love aye in me lend!
Thy Love ever be my soul's meed.

Jesus, my heart with love Thou light!
Thy love me make e'er to forsake
All worldly joy both day and night
Thee alone my joy to make.

Jesus, Thy love me chaufe within
So that no thing but Thee I seek;
In Thy love make my soul to brynne

I can tell you the name right down
Of the prettiest things in all the town;
But there isn't a thing the people sell
So fine as the girl who loves me well.

I sit in my Gipsy tent all day,
And, “How are you all?” to the folk I say;
But I'd sit for a year, and it's truth I tell,
For a glimpse of the girl who loves me well.

Oh, I'd like to be a lord, of course,
And I'd like to have a hunting-horse;
But the one and the other I'd gladly sell,
For a kiss from the girl who loves me well.

Fear no more the wingèd boy,
He has spent on me his quiver,
Tortures me in cruel joy,
Burns my heart nor leaves me ever,
Cast aside his plumage vain,
Never more to fly again.

If Leander's lips I meet
All my thoughts to Xanthus turn,
If 'tis Xanthus that I greet
For Hippomenes I burn,
If Hippomenes be nigh
To Leander back I fly.

Full possession has no charms;
What I have not, that I love.
Taking all men to my arms
There I win my treasure trove.
Blame me, maidens, if you will,
You that love one lover still.

To sea those pirate craft again have gone,
Euphro and Thaïs and Boïdion.
Such harpies once as vexed King Diomede,
Stripping their victims naked in their greed.
Agis they've wrecked and Cleophon as well,
Antagoras of them a tale can tell.
Fly then Love's corsairs, fly these frigates bold,
More deadly they than Siren maids of old.

Pour out and pour and pour again,
And ‘Heliodora’ cry;
Let that dear word be our refrain,
As fast the wine cups fly.

Three spirits fair in her combined
Have come from heaven above,
And we in her one body find
Allurement, Grace, and Love.

The house was still, our lamp burned bright,
We two and none else nigh.
The lamp alone might know our troth
And night's sweet mystery.

He vowed to love me true: I vowed
Never to part again,
Thou, sacred Night, and thou, dear Lamp,
Were for us witness twain.

But now he says our vows are dead,
Swept by the changing tide;
This eve will see my own false love
Sleep by another's side.

An angel watched the world rejoicing:
The flowers sang in the morning light;
The blue sea sang its tender love-song
To golden-girdled stars at night.
All seemed so full of peace and gladness—
Till lo! a sudden ice-cold breath
Passed over hill and wave and meadow:
A stern voice whispered, “I am Death!”

Alas! in all that angel's dreaming
His loving heart had never dreamed
That only for one single moment
The fairy blossoms sang and gleamed.
He turned, and in despairing sadness