love poems for her

Yearning upon the faint rose-curves that flit
About her child-sweet mouth and innocent cheek,
And in her eyes watching with eyes all meek
The light and shadow of laughter, I would sit
Mute, knowing our two souls might never knit;
As if a pale proud lily-flower should seek
The love of some red rose, but could not speak
One word of her blithe tongue to tell of it.

For oh, my Love was sunny-lipped and stirred
With all swift light and sound and gloom not long
Retained; I, with dreams weighed, that ever heard

Oh night and sleep,
Ye are so soft and deep,
I am so weary, come ye soon to me.
Oh hours that creep,
With so much time to weep,
I am so tired, can ye no swifter be?

Come, night, anear;
I'll whisper in thine ear
What makes me so unhappy, full of care;
Dear night, I die
For love that all men buy
With tears, and know not it is dark despair.

Dear night, I pray,
How is it that men say
That love is sweet? It is not sweet to me.
For one boy's sake
A poor girl's heart must break;

No girdle hath weaver or goldsmith wrought
So rich as the arms of my love can be;
No gems with a lovelier lustre fraught
Than her eyes, when they answer me liquidly.
Dear lady of love, be kind to me
In days when the waters of hope abate,
And doubt like a shimmer on sand shall be,
In the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait.

Sweet mouth, that the wear of the world hath taught
No glitter of wile or traitorie,
More soft than a cloud in the sunset caught,
Or the heart of a crimson peony;

I love you, but a sense of pain
Is in my heart and in my brain;
Now, when your voice and eyes are kind,
May I reveal my complex mind?

Though I am yours, it is my curse
Some ideal passion to rehearse:
I dream of one that's not like you,
Never of one that's half so true.

To quell these yearnings, vague and wild,
I often kneel by our dear child,
In still, dark nights (you are asleep),
And hold his hands, and try to weep.

I cannot weep; I cannot pray--
Why grow so pale, and turn away?

1 Love! in what poison is thy dart
Dipp'd, when it makes a bleeding heart?
None know but they who feel the smart.

2 It is not thou, but we are blind,
And our corporeal eyes (we find)
Dazzle the optics of our mind.

3 Love to our citadel resorts;
Through those deceitful sally-ports,
Our sentinels betrays our forts.

4 What subtle witchcraft man constrains,
To change his pleasure into pains,
And all his freedom into chains?

5 May not a prison, or a grave,

This Iron Age (so fraudulent and bold!)
Touch'd with this love, would be an Age of Gold;
Not, as they feign'd, that oaks should honey drop,
Or land neglected bear an unsown crop;
Love would make all things easy, safe, and cheap;
None for himself would either sow or reap;
Our ready help, and mutual love, would yield
A nobler harvest than the richest field.
Famine and death, confined to certain parts,
Extended are by barrenness of hearts.
Some pine for want where others surfeit now;

1 'Tis not your beauty can engage
My wary heart;
The sun, in all his pride and rage,
Has not that art;
And yet he shines as bright as you,
If brightness could our souls subdue.

2 'Tis not the pretty things you say,
Nor those you write,
Which can make Thyrsis' heart your prey:
For that delight,
The graces of a well-taught mind,
In some of our own sex we find.

3 No, Flavia! 'tis your love I fear;
Love's surest darts,
Those which so seldom fail him, are

Thrice happy pair! of whom we cannot know
Which first began to love, or loves most now;
Fair course of passion! where two lovers start,
And run together, heart still yoked with heart;
Successful youth! whom love has taught the way
To be victorious in the first essay.
Sure love's an art best practisèd at first,
And where th'experienced still prosper worst!
I, with a different fate, pursued in vain
The haughty Cælia, till my just disdain
Of her neglect, above that passion borne,

As gather'd flowers, while their wounds are new,
Look gay and fresh, as on the stalk they grew;
Torn from the root that nourish'd them, awhile
(Not taking notice of their fate) they smile,
And, in the hand which rudely pluck'd them, show
Fairer than those that to their autumn grow;
So love and beauty still that visage grace;
Death cannot fright them from their wonted place.
Alive, the hand of crooked Age had marr'd,
Those lovely features which cold Death has spared.

No wonder then he sped in love so well,

1 They that never had the use
Of the grape's surprising juice,
To the first delicious cup
All their reason render up;
Neither do, nor care to know,
Whether it be best or no.

2 So they that are to love inclined,
Sway'd by chance, not choice or art,
To the first that's fair, or kind,
Make a present of their heart;
'Tis not she that first we love,
But whom dying we approve.

3 To man, that was in th'ev'ning made,
Stars gave the first delight,
Admiring, in the gloomy shade,