Sunlight and Love

Fleecy and white the clouds are westward streaming;
On mart and street, as the dank mist retires,
Smiles out the sky: the sun's triumphant fires
Greet the vast world with human labour teeming.

All rose-red stands the great cathedral, seeming
To shout hosannas with its thousand spires
And saints of gold: while the brown-feathered choirs
Of wheeling falcons swoop around it screaming.

E'en so, when love's sweet smile hath set me free
From the dark clouds that weighed on me so long,
My soul expands and suns itself: I see

Dream-Love

The union of thy heart and mine,
Ah yes! I know 'tis all a dream:
For I am dark, in life's decline—
Round thee the noon-day splendours beam:
But let this fair tho' flickering gleam
Of fancied love one moment shine;
Thou mayst afford at least to seem
For one brief moment to be mine.

Haste not at once to break the spell—
Before thee is the long long day
With gayer hearts than mine to dwell,
In laughing meads far off to stray:
One little hour beside me stay,
And let the conscious dream go on;

Where Helen Sits

Where Helen sits, the darkness is so deep,
No golden sunbeam strikes athwart the gloom;
No mother's smile, no glance of loving eyes,
Lightens the shadow of that lonely room.

Yet the clear whiteness of her radiant soul
Decks the dim walls, like angel vestments shed.
The lovely light of holy innocence
Shines like a halo round her bended head,
Where Helen sits.

Where Helen sits, the stillness is so deep,
No children's laughter comes, no song of bird.
The great world storms along its noisy way,

Madrigal: Love Vagabonding

Sweet nymphs, if, as ye stray,
Ye find the froth-borne goddesse of the sea,
All blubb'red, pale, undone,
Who seeks her giddy son,
That little god of love,
Whose golden shafts your chastests bosomes prove,
Who leaving all the heavens hath run away;
If ought to him that finds him she'll impart,
Tell her he nightly lodgeth in my heart.

Home and Love

Just Home and Love! the words are small
Four little letters unto each;
And yet you will not find in all
The wide and gracious range of speech
Two more so tenderly complete:
When angels talk in Heaven above,
I'm sure they have no words more sweet
Than Home and Love.

Just Home and Love! it's hard to guess
Which of the two were best to gain;
Home without Love is bitterness;
Love without Home is often pain.
No! each alone will seldom do;
Somehow they travel hand and glove:
If you win one you must have two,

He is Sadhu, he is perfect: his words are true, his heart is brave

He is Sadhu, he is perfect: his words are true, his heart is brave.
He, O Dadu, is a mighty muni, who ever stands before the Lord.
He is true, he is faithful, he is devout and virtuous.
He is wise, he is learned, whose love is given to Bhagwan.
Dadu, he is Jogi and Jangam: he is Sufi, he is Sheikh.
He is Sanyasi, he is mighty: Dadu, at once and many.
He is Qazi, he is Mulla: he is the faithful Musalman.
He is wisest, best of all, whose love is given to Rahman.
Traffic in Rama's name is opened, and a mart therefor established.

Love and Age

When young, I loved. At that enchanting age,
So sweet, so short, love was my sole delight;
And when I reached the time for being sage,
Still I loved on, for reason gave me right.

Snows come at length, and livelier joys depart,
Yet gentle ones still kiss these eyelids dim;
For still I love, and love consoles my heart;
What could console me for the loss of Him?

O Love, That Dost with Goodness Crown

O Love, that dost with goodness crown
The years through all the ages down,
Our highest faith, our deepest cheer,
Is that thy life is ever near!

From planets singing on their way
To flowers that fear the eye of day,
From rivers that rejoicing go
To brooks that murmur sweet and low,

Well know I that the pageant vast,
So beautiful from first to last,
Is but the smile upon thy face,
The sign of love's unmeasured grace.

The seasons roll at thy command;
'Tis in thy strength the mountains stand;

Song of the Spring

I sing of the woods where the languid mosses dwell,
Of the shimmering forests of May which the sun loves well,
Of the gleaming gold of the jonquil buds that sway
In the soft caress of the evening breeze at play.

I sing of the silver stars that shine in the sky,
Of the argent glow of the moonbeams fluttering by,
Of the rainbow surf that breaks on the pallid sand,
Of the purple sea embracing the blossom-land.

I sing of the meadows a-bright with flowery dew,
Of the scarlet starling that soars from the desert blue,—

Prefatory Sonnet to an Unpublished Book of Verse

You the one woman who could have me all
because you would, because it multiplied,
all that I said and did, your joy and pride
to have and hold me; you Love's gladsome thrall
and hence exactress that you must forestall
nor yet remit to all the world beside
love of that lover whom your love defied
to rate himself less than itself should call:

Death that is dire to all, most dreadful here
to you the smitten and this stricken man
you made and call'd your own, let him have done
that thing he can, the one, no more to fear

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - love poems for her