love poems for her

God doth embrace the good with love; & gaines
The good by mercy, as the bad by paines.

Fire that must flame is with apt fuell fed,
Flowers that wil thrive in sunny soyle are bred;
How can a hart feele heate that no hope findes?
Or can hee love on whom no comfort shines?

Fayre, I confesse there's pleasure in your sight:
Sweet, you have powre, I grant, of all delight:
But what is all to mee, if I have none?
Churle that you are, t' injoy such wealth alone.

Prayers move the heav'ns, but finde no grace with you;
Yet in your lookes a heavenly forme I view:
Then will I pray againe, hoping to finde,

When first my old, old love I knew,
My bosom welled with joy;
My riches at her feet I threw;
I was a love-sick boy!
No terms seemed too extravagant
Upon her to employ—
I used to mope, and sigh, and pant,
Just like a love-sick boy!

But joy incessant palls the sense;
And love unchanged will cloy,
And she became a bore intense
Unto her love-sick boy?
With fitful glimmer burnt my flame,
And I grew cold and coy,
At last, one morning, I became
Another's love-sick boy!

Yet not this color, not these lovely forms,
That chiefly should engross and ask thy praise;
Rather the revelation of abiding grace
Continuous, as the morning's voice
Lifts up the chant of universal faith,
Perpetual newness and the health in things.
This, is the startling theme, the lovely birth
Each morn of a new day, so wholly new,
So absolutely penetrated by itself,
The fresh, the fair, the ever-living grace,—
The tender joy, that still forever clothes
This orb of Beauty, this, of bliss the abode!

As one upon no mission bent
I came—no sacerdotal cause
Save just to live by nature's laws,
And her direct arbitrament.
To hold in awe; to please myself,
And thus the world a service do;
To drive devoid the greed of pelf,
The product of my labor mine.
To crouch to none, to crave no sway,
But inward from the leagues of blue
To drink the gladness of the lovely day,
To dwell in peace, and bear no fruitless pain.

But I—who love the wood and stream,
The winning voice of Day and Night,

Three ladies went a-walking
Among the garden bowers;
They said: “Would we had with us
Those lovers brave of ours.”
A little bird, all silent,
Listened among the flowers.

“What will you pay me, ladies,
To be ambassador?”
The first said: “I will pay thee
This purse of gold, and more.”

“I will pay,” said the second,
“A nosegay sweet, like this.”
And the third, who was the fairest:
“I will pay a true-love kiss.”

The little bird went flying
Past tower and roof and tree,

Last night no comb held back my hair,
My silken tresses covered both my shoulders
As I stretched myself upon your knees
Was I not made for love?

O hands that I have held in mine,
That knew my kisses and my tears,
Hands that in other years
Have poured my balm, have poured my wine;

Women, once loved, and always mine,
I call to you across the years,
I bring a gift of tears,
I bring my tears to you as wine.

Nay, lady, one frown is enough
In a life as soon over as this—
And though minutes seem long in a huff,
They're minutes 'tis pity to miss!
The smiles you imprison so lightly
Are reckon'd, like days in eclipse;
And though you may smile again brightly,
You've lost so much light from your lips!
Pray, lady, smile!

The cup that is longest untasted
May be with our bliss running o'er,
And, love when we will, we have wasted
An age in not loving before!
Perchance Cupid's forging a fetter
To tie us together some day,

O judgment sleep!
I love an unkind thief.
Let me be friend of Frailty
For my sick heart's relief.

I would be as the shore's sand
Subject to an advancing sea,
I would be as sunken land
Swept by a tide's strong mastery.

But my contemning mind is as a lighthouse tower,
And I am sore for strength, and lashed because of power.