love poems

I peeled bits of straws and I got switches too
From the grey peeling willow as idlers do,
And I switched at the flies as I sat all alone
Till my flesh, blood, and marrow was turned to dry bone.
My illness was love, though I knew not the smart,
But the beauty of love was the blood of my heart.
Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude
And fled to the silence of sweet solitude.
Where the flower in green darkness buds, blossoms, and fades,
Unseen of all shepherds and flower-loving maids--

Day by day, with startling fleetness,
Life speeds away;
Love, alone, can glean its sweetness,
Love while you may.
While the soul is strong and fearless,
While the eye is bright and tearless,
Ere the heart is chilled and cheerless-
Love while you may.

Life may pass, but love, undying,
Dreads no decay;
Even from the grave replying,
'Love while you may.'
Love's the fruit, as life's the flower;
Love is heaven's rarest dower;
Love gives love its quick'ning power-
Love while you may.

WE loved, my love, and now it seems
Our love has brought to birth
Friendship, the fairest child of dreams,
The rarest gift of earth.


Soon die love's roses fresh and frail,
And when their bloom is o'er,
Not all our heart-wrung tears avail
To give them life once more.


But when true love with friendship lives,
As now, for thee and me,
Love brings the roses--Friendship gives
Them immortality.

O SING unto my roundelay,
O drop the briny tear with me;
Dance no more at holyday,
Like a running river be:
   My love is dead,
   Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.

Black his cryne as the winter night,
White his rode as the summer snow,
Red his face as the morning light,
Cold he lies in the grave below:
   My love is dead,
   Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.

Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note,
Quick in dance as thought can be,

Love in fantastic triumph sat,
Whilst bleeding hearts around him flow'd,
For whom fresh pains he did create,
And strange tyrannic power he shew'd;
From thy bright eyes he took his fire,
Which round about in sport he hurl'd;
But 'twas from mine he took desire
Enough to undo the amorous world.

From me he took his sighs and tears,
From thee his pride and cruelty;
From me his languishments and fears,
And every killing dart from thee;

I wonder if, when done with
Is all earth's pain and care,
When we at length are one with
The Dead, and with them bear
Our part in the new life that
Is now beyond our ken —
If we shall then remember
Our loves, or love again.
Will, when the flesh is over
And all its needs are gone,
The souls of loved and lover
As in a dream love on?
Or will they live, but mingle
No more in the new sphere,
As they had done for ever
With all that they were here?
Will father then and mother,

Never remember what love's been,
That is the sorrow the world knows;
Forget it, or the heart too keen
Will ache and ache to the weary close.
Harden the heart even to love,
Or the change in the tender eyes
Will more than hate or passion move
The tears to fall, the wrath to rise.
Once the change comes, dare to forget
The sweetest truth you've dreamed of her,
Or the heart will so fret and fret
That it will have no comforter.
Turn not on love in the heart's despair,
For e'en her smiles were bitter then,

Have I not touched thy spirit?
Have I not heard it sing?
And can my love inherit
A purer, sweeter thing?
Alas! I am so earthy,
Yet e'en God's love might be
Less dear to thee, less worthy
Than my humanity.

Two words or three
The bird sings in the tree:
My love was all to me
When life was young.
I lie within the green:
There is not heard or seen
The light of what has been,
The song that's sung.

I have brought thee all the faith
That a man can give,
I have sheltered thee with love,
O life's fugitive!
Round thy feet in the dank night
Death his snare had cast:
Haply in the future thou
Wilt forget the past.
From the cruel thing that would
E'en have ta'en thy breath
I have lifted thee in love
'Yond the doom of death.
Lean thy breast upon my brain,
Let thy faint heart beat
Near me, near me, nearer now,
my own, my sweet!