love poems

HOW shall I know? Shall I hear Love pass
In the wind that sighs through the poplar tree?
Shall I follow his passing over the grass
By the prisoned scents which his footsteps free?

Shall I wake one day to a sky all blue
And meet with Spring in a crowded street?
Shall I open a door and, looking through,
Find, on a sudden, the world more sweet?

How shall I know?--last night I lay
Counting the hours' dreary sum
With naught in my heart save a wild dismay
And a fear that whispered, 'Love is come!'

In the cold change which time hath wrought on love
(The snowy winter of his summer prime),
Should a chance sigh or sudden tear-drop move
Thy heart to memory of the olden time;
Turn not to gaze on me with pitying eyes,
Nor mock me with a withered hope renewed;
But from the bower we both have loved, arise
And leave me to my barren solitude!
What boots it that a momentary flame
Shoots from the ashes of a dying fire?
We gaze upon the hearth from whence it came,
And know the exhausted embers must expire:

The dew falls and the stars fall,
The sun falls in the west,
But never more
Through the closed door,
Shall the one that I loved best
Return to me:
A salt tear is the sea,
All earth's air is a sigh,
But they never can mourn for me
With my heart's cry,
For the one that I loved best
Who caressed me with her eyes,
And every morning came to me,
With the beauty of sunrise,
Who was health and wealth and all,
Who never shall answer my call,
While the sun falls in the west,

For one brief golden moment rare like wine,
The gracious city swept across the line;
Oblivious of the color of my skin,
Forgetting that I was an alien guest,
She bent to me, my hostile heart to win,
Caught me in passion to her pillowy breast;
The great, proud city, seized with a strange love,
Bowed down for one flame hour my pride to prove.

THE WHILE my mad brain whirled around
She only looked with eyes elate
Immortal love at me. I found
How deep the glance of love can wound,
How cruel pity is to hate.

I was begirt with hostile spears:
My angel warred in me for you
Whose gentle calmness all too fierce
Made unseen lightnings to pierce
My heart that dripped with ruddy dew.

I know how on the final day
The hosts of darkness meet with death:
The angels with their love shall slay,

Buried in childhood’s cloudless dreams, a fair-haired nursling lay,
A soft smile hovered round the lips as if still oped to pray;
And then a vision came to him, of beauty, strange and mild,
Such as may only fill the dreams of a pure sinless child.

Stood by his couch an angel fair, with radiant, glitt’ring wings
Of hues as bright as the living gems the fount to Heaven flings;
With loving smile he bent above the fair child cradled there,
While sounds of sweet seraphic power stole o’er the fragrant air.

LOVE in her sunny eyes does basking play;
Love walks the pleasant mazes of her hair;
Love does on both her lips for ever stray
And sows and reaps a thousand kisses there.
In all her outward parts Love's always seen;
But, oh, He never went within.

Within Love's foes, his greatest foes abide,
Malice, Inconstance, and Pride.
So the Earth's face, trees, herbs, and flowers do dress,
With other beauties numberless;
But at the center, darkness is, and Hell;
There wicked spirits, and there the Damned dwell.

Thy heart is in the upper world, where fleet the chamois bounds;
Thy heart is where the mountain-fir shakes to the torrent-sounds;
And where the snow-peaks gleam like stars, through the stillness of the air,
And where the Lauwine's peal is heart - Hunter! thy heart is there!

I know thou lovest me well, dear friend! but better, better far,
Thou lovest that high and haughty life, with rocks and storms at war;
In the green sunny vales with me, thy spirit would but pine,
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!

Now that we’ve done our best and worst, and parted,
I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend.
(O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted)
I’ll think of Love in books, Love without end;
Women with child, content; and old men sleeping;
And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain;
And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping;
And the young heavens, forgetful after rain;
And evening hush, broken by homing wings;
And Song’s nobility, and Wisdom holy,

There never was a face as fair as yours,
A heart as true, a love as pure and keen.
These things endure, if anything endures.
But, in this jungle, what high heaven immures
Us in its silence, the supreme serene
Crowning the dagoba, what destined die
Rings on the table, what resistless dart
Strike me I love you; can you satisfy
The hunger of my heart!

Nay; not in love, or faith, or hope is hidden
The drug that heals my life; I know too well
How all things lawful, and all things forbidden