love poems for her

I sometimes think I love the rose
More than all other flowers,
Because its fragrance falls on me
In copious, dainty showers;
And blushing in its modesty,
I press it to my heart,
As the idol of my dalliance
That should no more depart.

But when I see the lily fair--
The meadow's beauteous queen--
Surrounded by her myriad friends
All dressed in Nature's green,
My heart goes out in ecstasy,
And naught on earth to me
Seems fairer type of loveliness,
Than this daughter of th' lea.

I heard a merry voice one day
And glancing at my side,
Fair Love, all breathless, flushed with play,
A butterfly did ride.
"Whither away, oh sportive boy?"
I asked, he tossed his head;
Laughing aloud for purest joy,
And past me swiftly sped.

Next day I heard a plaintive cry
And Love crept in my arms;
Weeping he held the butterfly,
Devoid of all its charms.
Sweet words of comfort, whispered I
Into his dainty ears,
But Love still hugged the butterfly,
And bathed its wounds with tears.

If I had known
Two years ago how drear this life should be,
And crowd upon itself allstrangely sad,
Mayhap another song would burst from out my lips,
Overflowing with the happiness of future hopes;
Mayhap another throb than that of joy.
Have stirred my soul into its inmost depths,
If I had known.

If I had known,
Two years ago the impotence of love,
The vainness of a kiss, how barren a caress,
Mayhap my soul to higher things have soarn,
Nor clung to earthly loves and tender dreams,

Who'll have the crumpled pieces of a heart?
Let him take mine!
Who'll give his whole of passion for a part,
And call't divine?
Who'll have the soiled remainder of desire?
Who'll warm his fingers at a burnt-out fire?
Who'll drink the lees of love, and cast i' the mire
The nobler wine?

Let him come here, and kiss me on the mouth,
And have his will!
Love dead and dry as summer in the South
When winds are still
And all the leafage shrivels in the heat!
Let him come here and linger at my feet

"Lose and love" is love's first art;
So it was with thee and me,
For I first beheld thy heart
On the night I last saw thee.
Pine-woods and mysteries!
Sea-sands and sorrows!
Hearts fluttered by a breeze
That bodes dark morrows, morrows,--
Bodes dark morrows!

Moonlight in sweet overflow
Poured upon the earth and sea!
Lovelight with intenser glow
In the deeps of thee and me!
Clasped hands and silences!
Hearts faint and throbbing!
The weak wind sighing in the trees!
The strong surf sobbing, sobbing,--

I was reading a letter of yours to-day,
The date--O a thousand years ago!
The postmark is there--the month was May:
How, in God's name, did I let you go?
What wonderful things for a girl to say!
And to think that I hadn't the sense to know--
What wonderful things for a man to hear!
O still beloved, O still most dear.

"Duty" I called it, and hugged the word
Close to my side, like a shirt of hair;
You laughed, I remember, laughed like a bird,
And somehow I thought that you didn't care.

Had I the gold that some so vainly spend,
For my lost loves a temple would I raise,
A shrine for each dear name: there should ascend
Incense for ever, and hymns of golden praise;
And I would live the remnant of my days,
Where hallowed windows cast their painted gleams,
At prayer before each consecrated face,
Kneeling within that cloister of old dreams.

And each fair altar, like a priest, I'd tend,
Trimming the tapers to a constant blaze,
And to each lovely and beloved friend

The human heart will never change,
The human dream will still go on,
The enchanted earth be ever strange
With moonlight and the morning sun,
And still the seas shall shout for joy,
And swing the stars as in a glass,
The girl be angel for the boy,
The lad be hero for the lass.

The fashions of our mortal brains
New names for dead men's thoughts shall give,
But we find not for all our pains
Why 'tis so wonderful to live;
The beauty of a meadow-flower
Shall make a mock of all our skill,

I am too proud of loving thee, too proud
Of the sweet months and years that now have end,
To feign a heart indifferent to this loss,
Too thankful-happy that the gods allowed
Our orbits cross,
Beloved and lovely friend;
And though I wend
Lonely henceforth along a road grown gray,
I shall not be all lonely on the way,
Companioned with the attar of thy rose,
Though in my garden it no longer blows.

Thou canst not give elsewhere thy gifts to me,
Or only seem to give;
Yea, not so fugitive

Shadows! the only shadows that I know
Are happy shadows of the light of you,
The radiance immortal shining through
Your sea-deep eyes up from the soul below;
Your shadow, like a rose's, on the grass
Where your feet pass.

The shadow of the dimple in your chin,
The shadow of the lashes of your eyes,
As on your cheek, soft as a moth, it lies;
And, as a church, I softly enter in
The solemn twilight of your mighty hair,
Down falling there.

These are Love's shadows, Love knows none but these: