love poems

THE LIMIT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE
There is a vice in the world's reasoning. Man
Has conquered knowledge. He has conquered power;
He has traced out the universal plan
Of the Earth's being; and in this last hour
He has unmade the God which he had made.
I cannot doubt but he at length has read
The riddle of the Earth; that he is wise.
He also hath dominion charterèd
Over the lands, the oceans, and the skies,
Which toil and sweat to give him daily bread.
--Knowledge he hath, and power upon the Earth,

IN ANNIVERSARIO MORTIS
If I can bring no tribute of fresh tears
To mingle with the dust which covers thee;
If in this latest dawn of evil years
My rebel eyes withhold their sympathy;
If of a truth my thoughts so barren be
Of their old griefs, so numb to tenderness
That they nor hear nor taste nor feel nor see
The sweetness of thy presence in this place;
If I now drowse,--'tis that the flesh is weak
More than the spirit. See, by thy dear bed
Once more I kneel in sorrow and in love.

A LATER DEDICATION

To her the sweetest, fairest, worthiest one,
Who the inspirer is of my new praise,
Whom lately once, one Autumn afternoon,
I walked with nor told aught a lover says,
And yet who knows I love her in all ways
A maiden dreams: the suppliant at her throne,
The counsellor of strength, the lord of lays
Loyal to chastity and her alone,
These rhymes I dedicate. Oh, if there be
Still in this world of vanished creeds and kings
Some faith in royal blood and right divine,

TO ONE WITH HIS SONNETS
This is the book. For evil and for good,
What my life was in it is written plain.
These are no dreams, but things of flesh and blood,
The past that lived and shall not live again.
This is the book. I dare not bid you read.
Too much of my poor soul you would unlock.
Your own soul, if it tender were, might bleed.
I could not bear that you should only mock.
My life lies here. And yet in vain, dear heart,
The tale is told. One page it yearns to see,
One play where one best actor should find part.

TO THE BEDOUIN ARABS
Children of Shem! Firstborn of Noah's race,
But still forever children; at the door
Of Eden found, unconscious of disgrace,
And loitering on while all are gone before;
Too proud to dig; too careless to be poor;
Taking the gifts of God in thanklessness,
Not rendering aught, nor supplicating more,
Nor arguing with Him when He hides His face.
Yours is the rain and sunshine, and the way
Of an old wisdom by our world forgot,
The courage of a day which knew not death.

THE OASIS OF SIDI KHALED
How the earth burns! Each pebble underfoot
Is as a living thing with power to wound.
The white sand quivers, and the footfall mute
Of the slow camels strikes but gives no sound,
As though they walked on flame, not solid ground.
'Tis noon, and the beasts' shadows even have fled
Back to their feet, and there is fire around
And fire beneath, and overhead the sun.
Pitiful heaven! What is this we view?
Tall trees, a river, pools, where swallows fly,
Thickets of oleander where doves coo,

A FOREST IN BOSNIA
Spirit of Trajan! What a world is here,
What remnant of old Europe in this wood,
Of life primaeval rude as in the year
When thy first legions by the Danube stood.
These are the very Dacians they subdued,
Swineherds and shepherds clad in skins of deer
And fox and marten still, a bestial brood,
Than their own swine begotten swinelier.
The fair oak--forest, their first heritage,
Pastures them still, and still the hollow oak
Receives them in its bosom. Still o'erhead

THE SAME CONTINUED
Clutching the brink with hands and feet and knees,
With trembling heart, and eyes grown strangely dim,
A part thyself and parcel of the frieze
Of that colossal temple raised to Time,
To gaze on horror, till, as in a crime,
Thou and the rocks become accomplices.
There is no voice, no life 'twixt thee and them.
No life! Yet, look, far down upon the breeze
Something has passed across the bosom bare
Of the red rocks, a leaf, a shape, a shade.
A living shadow! Ay, above thee there,

THE SUBLIME
To stand upon a windy pinnacle,
Beneath the infinite blue of the blue noon,
And underfoot a valley terrible
As that dim gulf, where sense and being swoon
When the soul parts; a giant valley strewn
With giant rocks; asleep, and vast, and still,
And far away. The torrent, which has hewn
His pathway through the entrails of the hill,
Now crawls along the bottom and anon
Lifts up his voice, a muffled tremulous roar,
Borne on the wind an instant, and then gone
Back to the caverns of the middle air;

PALAZZO PAGANI
This is the house where, twenty years ago,
They spent a Spring and Summer. This shut gate
Would lead you to the terrace, and below
To a rose garden long since desolate.
Here they once lived. How often I have sat
Till it was dusk among the olive trees,
Waiting to hear their coming horse--hoofs grate
Upon the gravel; till the freshening breeze
Bore down a sound of voices. Even yet
A broken echo of their laughter rings
Through the deserted terraces; and see,
While I am speaking, from the parapet