love poems for her

Children of the future Age,
Reading this indignant page:
Know that in a former time,
Love! sweet Love! was thought a crime.

In the Age of Gold,
Free from winters cold:
Youth and maiden bright,
To the holy light,
Naked in the sunny beams delight.

Once a youthful pair
Fill'd with softest care:
Met in garden bright,
Where the holy light,
Had just remov'd the curtains of the night.

There in rising day,
On the grass they play:
Parents were afar:
Strangers came not near:

Nought loves another as itself,
Nor venerates another so,
Nor is it possible to Thought
A greater than itself to know:

"And Father, how can I love you
Or any of my brothers more?
I love you like the little bird
That picks up crumbs around the door.'

The Priest sat by and heard the child,
In trembling zeal he siez'd his hair:
He led him by his little coat,
And all admir'd the Priestly care.

And standing on the altar high,
"Lo! what a fiend is here!' said he,
"One who sets reasons up for judge

"Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."

So sang a little Clod of Clay
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these meters meet:

"Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to Its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite."

Others call it love in laziness,
or violence in loveliness,
or affectation on the couchness,
or Won't you ever get up for lunchness,
or I have made an awful mistake, Miss,
or You're prurient, yes you are, Sis,
whereas I prefer beer in beer glassness
and to dwell on the past less.

In old jokes a monarch is referred to as Your Lowness.
Maidens exist, but no one anymore calls them this.
I don't think any less of them. Nevertheless,
this thing you're going to find for us?
It's called love-in-idleness—

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And "Thou shalt not' writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore;

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be;
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

Again I see you, ah my queen,
Of all my old loves that have been,
The first love, and the tenderest;
Do you remember or forget—
Ah me, for I remember yet—
How the last summer days were blest?

Ah lady, when we think of this,
The foolish hours of youth and bliss,
How fleet, how sweet, how hard to hold.
How old we are, ere spring be green.
You touch the limit of eighteen
And I am twenty winters old.

My rose, that mid the red roses,
Was brightest, ah, how pale she is.
Yet keeps the beauty of her prime;

I am a fool, I can no good:
Who that me loveth, I holde him wood.
I brenne hot, I smite sore:
Who that me loveth shal thee no more.
Dredful deth out of me sprong,
For I am welle of wo;
I slow a wise king, fair and strong,
And yet I shal slee mo.

When I came to you banned, dishonored,
Brother of yours no more,
And raised my hands where your roof-tree stands,
Why did you open the door?

When I came to you starving, thirsting,
Beggared of aught but sin,
Why did you rise with welcoming eyes
And lift me and bid me in?

You have set me first at your feast,
You have robed me in tenderness,
Yet, Brothers of mine, these tears for sign
That I would your grace were less.

For I had not been crushed by your hate,
Who courted the pain thereof;

There is an eye that never sleeps
Beneath the wing of the night;
There is an ear that never shuts
When sink the beams of light.

There is an arm that never tires
When human strength gives way;
There is a love that never fails
When earthly loves decay.

That eye is fixed on seraph throngs;
That arm upholds the sky;
That ear is filled with angel songs;
That love is throned on high.

But there's a power which man can wield,
When mortal aid is vain,
That eye, that arm, that love to reach,

What makes a garden?
Flowers, grass and trees,
Odor, grace and color:
Lovely gifts like these.

What makes a garden
And why do gardens grow?
Love lives in gardens—
God and lovers know!