love poems

SWEET, I have loved before. I know
This longing that invades my days;
This shape that haunts life's busy ways
I know since long and long ago.

This starry mystery of delight
That floats across my eager eyes,
This pain that makes earth Paradise,
These magic songs of day and night--

I know them for the things they are:
A passing pain, a longing fleet,
A shape that soon I shall not meet,
A fading dream of veil and star.

Yet, even as my lips proclaim
The wisdom that the years have lent,

Rosy red the hills appear
With the light of morning,
Beauteous clouds, in aether clear,
All the east adorning;
White through the mist the meadows shine
Wake, my love, my Valentine!

For thy locks of raven hue,
Flowers of hoar-frost pearly,
Crocus-cups of gold and blue,
Snow-drops drooping early,
With Mezereon sprigs combine
Rise, my love, my Valentine!

O'er the margin of the flood,
Pluck the daisy peeping;
Through the covert of the wood,
Hunt the sorrel creeping;

HE that loves a rosy cheek,
   Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
   Fuel to maintain his fires:
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.

But a smooth and steadfast mind,
   Gentle thoughts and calm desires,
Hearts with equal love combined,
   Kindle never-dying fires.
Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes.

There was a road ran past our house
Too lovely to explore.
I asked my mother once—she said
That if you followed where it led
It brought you to the milk-man's door.
(That's why I have not travelled more.)

I have done one braver thing
Than all the Worthies did,
And yet a braver thence doth spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.

It were but madness now t'impart
The skill of specular stone,
When he which can have learn'd the art
To cut it, can find none.

So, if I now should utter this,
Others (because no more
Such stuff to work upon, there is,)
Would love but as before.

But he who loveliness within
Hath found, all outward loathes,
For he who colour loves, and skin,

When I was a child,
I felt the fairies' power.
Of a sudden my dry life
Would burst into flower.
The skies were my path,
The sun my comrade fair,
And the night was a dark rose
I wore in my hair.
But thou camest, love,
Who madest me unfree.
I will dig myself a grave
And hide there from thee.

Once a woman silent stood
While Jesus sat at meat;
From her eyes she poured a flood
To wash his sacred feet
Shame and wonder, joy and love;
All at once possessed her mind:
That she e'er so vile could prove,
Yet now forgiveness find.

How came this vile woman here,
Will Jesus notice such?
Sure, if he a prophet were,
He would disdain her touch!
Simon thus, with scornful heart,
Slighted one whom Jesus loved;
But her Saviour took her part,
And thus his pride reproved.

So many poets die ere they are known,
I pray you, hear me kindly for their sake.
Not of the harp, but of the soul alone,
Is the deep music all true minstrels make:
Hear my soul's music, and I will beguile,
With string and song, your festival awhile.

The stranger, looking on a merry scene
Where unknown faces shine with love and joy,
Feels that he is a stranger: on this green
That fronts the castle, seeing your employ,
My heart sank desolate; yet came I near,
For welcome should be found at all good cheer.

Joy! Joy! I triumph! Now no more I know

Myself as simply me. I burn with love

Unto myself, and bury me in love.

The centre is within me and its wonder

Lies as a circle everywhere about me.

Joy! Joy! No mortal thought can fathom me.

I am the merchant and the pearl at once.

Lo, Time and Space lie crouching at my feet.

Joy! Joy! When I would reveal in a rapture.

I plunge into myself and all things know.

I

Sun-blazed, over Romsley, a livid rain-scarp.

XIII

Whose lives are hidden in God? Whose?
Who can now tell what was taken, or where,
or how, or whether it was received:
how ditched, divested, clamped, sifted, over-
laid, raked over, grassed over, spread around,
rotted down with leafmould, accepted
as civic concrete, reinforceable
base cinderblocks:
tipped into Danube, Rhine, Vistula, dredged up
with the Baltic and the Pontic sludge: