love poems

They tell how Atys, wild with love,
Roams the mount and haunted grove;
Cybele's name he howls around,
The gloomy blast returns the sound!
Oft too by Claros' hallow'd spring,
The votaries of the laurell'd king
Quaff the inspiring, magic stream,
And rave in wild, prophetic dream.
But frenzied dreams are not for me,
Great Bacchus is my deity!
Full of mirth, and full of him,
While waves of perfume round me swim;
While flavour'd bowls are full supplied,
And you sit blushing by my side,

They say — priests say —
That God loves the world.
Maybe he does,
When the dew is pearl'd
On the emerald grass,
Or the young dawns shine
Would you be satisfied,
Proteus mine,
Just to be loved
When your hair was curled,
As Earth is beloved
When earth is fine?
I love you more
Than God loves the world.

They loved one another! young Edward and his wife,
And in their cottage-home they dwelt, apart from sin and strife.
Each evening Edward weary came from a day of honest toil,
And Mary made the fire blaze, and smiled a cheerful smile.
Oh! what was wealth or pomp to them, the gaudy glittering show,
Of jewels blazing on the breast, where heaves a heart of woe!
The merry laugh, the placid sleep, were theirs; they hated sloth,
And all the little that they had, belonged alike to both,
For they loved one another!

They lived enamoured of the lovely moon,
The dawn and twilight on their gentle lake.
Then Passion marvellously born did shake
Their breast and drave them into the mid-noon.
Their lives did shrink to one desire, and soon
They rose fire-eyed to follow in the wake
Of one eternal thought,--when sudden brake
Their hearts. They died, in miserable swoon.
Of all their agony not a sound was heard.
The glory of the Earth is more than they.
She asks her lovely image of the day:

They choose not ill their lot who choose
All quietly to live and die,
By Science sheltered or the Muse,
In unpretending privacy.
Proud epitaph—the world's acclaim—
These ask thou not; if, in their room,
Some few but love thy living name,
And household tears bedew the tomb.

Meaningless is the song of cuckoo and that of dove.
There's nothing so important on earth but love.

Meaningless is the gold of Africa, the ruby, the pearl.
There's nothing so important but the love of a girl.

Meaningless is the throne of America, the President's power,
There's nothing so important but the peak of love's tower.

There, where I saw her lovely beauty painted,
Where, Venus-like, my sacred goddess shineth,
There, with *precellent object mine eyes fainted,
That fair, but fatal star, my dole divineth.
As soon as morning in her light appeareth,
Her sweet salute, my mind o’erclouded, cleareth;
When night again the day’s delight bereaveth,
My heart’s true sacrifice she quick receiveth:
But night and day she craftily forsakes me,
To tedious day, to loathsome night betakes me.

I CANNOT die, who drank delight
From the cup of the crescent moon,
And hungrily as men eat bread,
Loved the scented nights of June.
The rest may die—but is there not
Some shining strange escape for me
Who sought in Beauty the bright wine
Of immortality?

THEN

He loved her, and through many years,
Had paid his fair devoted court,
Until she wearied, and with sneers
Turned all his ardent love to sport.

That night within his chamber lone,
He long sat writing by his bed
A note in which his heart made moan
For love; the morning found him dead.

NOW

Like him, a man of later day
Was jilted by the maid he sought,
And from her presence turned away,
Consumed by burning, bitter thought.

He sought his room to write--a curse

Why have you come? to see me in my shame?
A thing to spit on, to despise and scorn?
And then to ask me! You, by whom was torn
And then cast by, like some vile rag, my name!
What shelter could you give me, now, that blame
And loathing would not share? that wolves of vice
Would not besiege with eyes of glaring ice?
Wherein Sin sat not with her face of flame?
'You love me'? God! If yours be love, for lust
Hell must invent another synonym!
If yours be love, then hatred is the way