love poems for her

I dreamt I was in love again
With the One Before the Last,
And smiled to greet the pleasant pain
Of that innocent young past.

But I jumped to feel how sharp had been
The pain when it did live,
How the faded dreams of Nineteen-ten
Were Hell in Nineteen-five.

The boy's woe was as keen and clear,
The boy's love just as true,
And the One Before the Last, my dear,
Hurt quite as much as you.

* * * * *

Sickly I pondered how the lover
Wrongs the unanswering tomb,

When I see you, who were so wise and cool,
Gazing with silly sickness on that fool
You've given your love to, your adoring hands
Touch his so intimately that each understands,
I know, most hidden things; and when I know
Your holiest dreams yield to the stupid bow
Of his red lips, and that the empty grace
Of those strong legs and arms, that rosy face,
Has beaten your heart to such a flame of love,
That you have given him every touch and move,
Wrinkle and secret of you, all your life,
-- Oh! then I know I'm waiting, lover-wife,

1.

You say you love, and yet your eye
No symptom of that love conveys,
You say you love, yet know not why,
Your cheek no sign of love betrays.


2.

Ah! did that breast with ardour glow,
With me alone it joy could know,
Or feel with me the listless woe,
Which racks my heart when far from thee.


3.

Whene'er we meet my blushes rise,
And mantle through my purpled cheek,
But yet no blush to mine replies,
Nor e'en your eyes your love bespeak.

What is love? Ask him who lives, what is life? ask him who adores,
what is God?

I know not the internal constitution of other men, nor even thine,
whom I now address. I see that in some external attributes they
resemble me, but when, misled by that appearance, I have thought
to appeal to something in common, and unburthen my inmost soul to
them, I have found my language misunderstood, like one in a distant
and savage land. The more opportunities they have afforded me for
experience, the wider has appeared the interval between us, and

Thou sent'st to me a true love-knot, but I
Returned a ring of jimmals to imply
Thy love had one knot, mine a triple tie.

Jimmal or gimmal, double or triple ring.

How long, Perenna, wilt thou see
Me languish for the love of thee?
Consent, and play a friendly part
To save, when thou may'st kill a heart.

Love scorch'd my finger, but did spare
The burning of my heart;
To signify in love my share
Should be a little part.

Little I love; but if that he
Would but that heat recall;
That joint to ashes burnt should be,
Ere I would love at all.

I'll do my best to win whene'er I woo:
That man loves not who is not zealous too.

Ah, my Anthea! Must my heart still break?
(Love makes me write, what shame forbids to speak.)
Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score;
Then to that twenty add a hundred more:
A thousand to that hundred: so kiss on,
To make that thousand up a million.
Treble that million, and when that is done
Let's kiss afresh, as when we first begun.
But yet, though love likes well such scenes as these,
There is an act that will more fully please:
Kissing and glancing, soothing, all make way
But to the acting of this private play:

How love came in I do not know,
Whether by the eye, or ear, or no;
Or whether with the soul it came
(At first) infused with the same;
Whether in part 'tis here or there,
Or, like the soul, whole everywhere,
This troubles me: but I as well
As any other this can tell:
That when from hence she does depart
The outlet then is from the heart.