love poems for her

Over the rush of the brown reedy grasses,
Shadows are shimmering, shading along.
Down in the hush of the green marshy passes,
Echoes the trill of the troubadour's song—
“Sweetheart! Sweetheart! Sweetheart!
Come! Come! Come!”

Breezes have swooned with the pelf that they carried,
Sweeping the petals of orange a-bloom;
Beauty is bride, and her handmaids have tarried,
Scattering guerdons, for love is the groom.
“Sweetheart! Sweetheart! Sweetheart!
Come! Come! Come!”

Purple the haze, where the sun-light is drifting,

Lonely at night my watch I keep,
While all the world is hush'd in sleep.
Then tow'rd my home my thoughts will rove;
I think upon my distant love.

When to the wars I march'd away,
My hat she deck'd with ribbons gay;
She fondly press'd me to her heart,
And wept to think that we must part.

Truly she loves me, I am sure,
So ev'ry hardship I endure;
My heart beats warm, though cold's the night;
Her image makes the darkness bright.

Now by the twinkling taper's gleam,
Her bed she seeks, of me to dream,

A lovely woman rolls up
The delicate bamboo blind.
She sits deep within,
Twitching her moth eyebrows.
Who may it be
That grieves her heart?
On her face one sees
Only the wet traces of tears.

I can remember our sorrow, I can remember our laughter;
I know that surely we kissed and cried and ate together;
I remember our places and games, and plans we had—
The little house and how all came to naught—
Remember well:
But I cannot remember our love,
I cannot remember our love.

Who shall sing of the bridal in valleys of autumn, among the vineyards and the cornfields,
Or tell of the scent of apples on the night of love?
Who shall chant of the blood-red harvest-moon above the granaries and the wine-press,
And dropping fruits and the kiss of Adam and Eve?

O white miraculous bodies that becoming one, change to a channel
For all fire of all suns, the ecstasy of Creation:
And by no love of a sterile God in the heavens,
And by no love of a memory or an idol of the Past,

Lay your hand, sweet wife, in mine;
Half divine
Was the love of long ago.
Dawn's bright hues no longer glow,
And we watch, with fading sight,
Day turn night.

Sitting here at twilight's fall,
I recall
All our days of changing weather;
How we met black care together—
Fought him till he turned to fly,
You and I.

And the hours of glad content
We have spent!
Perfect love and perfect life,
We have run their round, sweet wife,
But of all those hours so blest,
This is best.

Ah! I know it, my darling,—but who can say nay to you?
Who can say nay to those eyes when they pray to you?
Who can say nay to those lips when they say to you—
“On a rose, on a glove, on a jewel I am thinking”?

Were we strong, were we wise, had but virtue the hold of us,
Were we cold to behold such a love's glance unblinking,
Were it aught but such stuff as it is, sweet, the mould of us—
Ah! then we might smile and beguile you with smiling,
Yea, then were we proof against all the beguiling,

Beautiful children of the woods and fields!
That bloom by mountain streamlets 'mid the heather,
Or into clusters, 'neath the hazels, gather,—
Or where by hoary rocks you make your bields,
And sweetly flourish on through summer weather,—
I love ye all!

Beautiful flowers! to me ye fresher seem
From the Almighty hand that fashion'd all,
Than those that flourish by a garden-wall;
And I can image you as in a dream,
Fair modest maidens nursed in hamlets small:—
I love ye all!

Beautiful gems! that on the brow of earth

They stirred not, though the drench matted their hair,
And their two bodies streamed, cold and beaten.

He cried out: “I love you,”
But the words meant nothing.

“No,” she said, “it is not I you love! Not I!”

He was numb with despair.

“But you love me?” he faltered.

“Ah,” she said, “the heart must love, though it love but a dream:
But only a man shall win me.”

“And I,” he said, “am I no man?”

She was silent: he heard the rain on her lowered head …
And he knew himself for what he was.

I.

O'er the graveyard burning noonday poured its flood of stainless golden light;
In that hour the sun seemed victor over all the doubts and dreams of night.
II.

From the heavens of boundless azure, from the air superb with summer's breath,
Came, it seemed, a thrill of triumph, wide-winged triumph over wingless death
III.

Though the dead around lay silent, though a thousand souls had watched in vain,
Summer's heart of endless sweetness seemed to soothe man's heart of endless pain.
IV.