love poems

The night, dark-cloaked like a procuress, brought
him to me, willing, light as a shadow,
speaking words of love
in some tender language I do not know ...
With the crows came the morning, and my limbs
warm of love, were once again so lonely...
At my doorstep I saw a pock-marked face,
a friendly smile and
a rolleiflex. We will go for a drive,
he said. Or go see the lakes. I have
washed my face with soap and water, brushed
my hair a dozen
times, draped myself in six yards of printed

Love has moods: and I am cold,
Very cold ofttimes to Thee;
Fain to slip from Thy dear hold
To my follies and be free.

Yet I love: Thou knowest all.
I am Thine in heat and chill;
Thou, Thou hast my heart in thrall,
All my life and all my will.

Thou, Immortal Lover, sure
Knowest the way that lovers have,
Now so cold, afraid, unsure,
Now afire with love and brave.

If I loved less it might be
That the way was smoother, less
Of the heavenly joys for me
And the cast-down bitterness.

YOU bring your love too late, dear, I have no love to buy it,
I spent my love on worthless toys, at fairs you do not know;
I am a bankrupt trader--dear eyes, do not deny it,
I could have bought your love, dear, but that was long ago.

My soul has left me widowed, my heart has made me orphan,
Leave me--all good things, dear, have left me--leave me too!
For here is ice no tears of yours, no smiles of yours can soften:
Leave me, leave me, leave me, I have no love for you!

I have no flowers to give you, they grow not in my garden;

O thou, by long experience tried,
Near whom no grief can long abide;
My love! how full of sweet content
I pass my years of banishment!

All scenes alike engaging prove
To souls impressed with sacred love
Where'er they dwell, they dwell in thee;
In heaven, in earth, or on the sea.

To me remains nor place nor time;
My country is in every clime;
I can be calm and free from care
On any shore, since God is there.

While place we seek, or place we shun,
The soul finds happiness in none;

The river else doesn’t wholly reign,
But pale-blue ice is drowned now;
And clouds are not blue again,
But sun had drunk the snow out.

Through a half-opened door,
You fret a heart with rustle; though…
You are not else in love; but lor!
You can’t not fall in love tomorrow.

for R.M.



I love shaking the bones in your arm
the humerus, radius and ulna.

Some people have such bones –
men, like you, across the top of the back!

I love you at the train station
so young . . .

The song of that bird
executed only in the morning and evening.

I love the way
you just do it!

Perfect commas, two profiles, eyelashes
moles and turtles in your smile.

I love the movement between our reality
and imagination – that gold step

[HERNANI, ACT I.]


To mount the hills or scaffold, we go to-morrow:
Hernani, blame me not for this my boldness.
Art thou mine evil genius or mine angel?
I know not, but I am thy slave. Now hear me:
Go where thou wilt, I follow thee. Remain,
And I remain. Why do I thus? I know not.
I feel that I must see thee--see thee still--
See thee for ever. When thy footstep dies,
It is as if my heart no more would beat;
When thou art gone, I am absent from myself;
But when the footstep which I love and long for

Where are the bay-leaves, Thestylis, and the charms?
Fetch all; with fiery wool the caldron crown;
Let glamour win me back my false lord's heart!
Twelve days the wretch hath not come nigh to me,
Nor made enquiry if I die or live,
Nor clamoured (oh unkindness!) at my door.
Sure his swift fancy wanders otherwhere,
The slave of Aphrodite and of Love.
I'll off to Timagetus' wrestling-school
At dawn, that I may see him and denounce
His doings; but I'll charm him now with charms.
So shine out fair, O moon! To thee I sing

I made a hundred little songs
That told the joy and pain of love,
And sang them blithely, tho' I knew
No whit thereof.

I was a weaver deaf and blind;
A miracle was wrought for me,
But I have lost my skill to weave
Since I can see.

For while I sang -- ah swift and strange!
Love passed and touched me on the brow,
And I who made so many songs
Am silent now.

SAY, is it day, is it dusk in thy bower,
Thou whom I long for, who longest for me?
Oh! be it light, be it night, 'tis Love's hour,
Love's that is fettered as Love's that is free.
Free love has leaped to that innermost chamber,
Oh! the last time, and the hundred before:
Fettered love, motionless, can but remember,
Yet something that sighs from him passes the door.
Nay, but my heart when it flies to thy bower,
What does it find there that knows it again?
There it must droop like a shower-beaten flower,