love poems

Death is my doom, awarded by Disdain,
A ling'ring death that will not let me die:
This length of life is length'ning of my pain,
And length of pain gets strength of pain thereby:
And strength of pain makes pain of longer last;
Ah, who hath tied my life to pain so fast?

And yet I seem as if I did but feign,
Or make my grief much greater than I need,
Whenas the care to hide my burning pain,
With secret sighs, constrains my heart to bleed:

Mine eyes have spent their tears, and now are dry:
My weary hand will guide my pen no more:
My voice is hoarse, and can no longer cry:
My head hath left no new complaints in store:
My heart is overburdened so with pain,
That sense of grief doth none therein remain.

The tears you see distilling from mine eyes,
My gentle Muse doth shed for this my grief;
The plaints you hear are her incessant cries,
By which she calls in vain for some relief.
She never parted since my grief begun;

All is not gold that shineth bright in show,
Nor every flower so good, as fair to sight;
The deepest streams, above do calmest flow
And strongest poisons oft the taste delight;
The pleasant bait doth hide the harmful hook,
And false deceit can lend a friendly look.

Love is the gold, whose outward hue doth pass,
Whose first beginnings goodly promise make
Of pleasures fair, and fresh as summer's grass,
Which neither sun can parch, nor wind can shake:
But when the mould should in the fire be tried,

Close your lids, unhappy eyes,
From the sight of such a change:
Love hath learned to despise;
Self-conceit hath made him strange:
Inward now his sight he turneth
With himself in love he burneth.

If abroad he beauty spy,
As by chance he looks abroad;
Or it is wrought by his eye,
Or forced out by painter's fraud:
Save himself, none fair he deemeth,
That himself too much esteemeth.

Coy disdain hath kindness' place,
Kindness forced to hide his head:
True desire is counted base;

AN EXAMINATION .

Were I so mad as I have been of yore
I would be happy: mad with Beauty's eyes;
Mad with the voice of one I could adore,
And the sweet music of her soft replies:
Mad with the charms of a serene bright face;
Possessed, and inly haunted by the grace
Of some fair creature, in her form and mind
The star and paragon of all her kind.

For, if I were so happy-mad again,
I'd live anew. I'd feed upon delights;
I'd find enraptured frenzy in a pain;

VERBAL LOVE .

If love be made of words, as woods of trees,
Who more beloved than I?
If love be hot where true desire doth freeze,
Who more than she doth fry?
Are drones that make no honey counted bees?
Is running water dry?
Is that a gainful trade that has no fees?
He live, that dead doth lie?
What else but blind is he that nothing sees?
But deaf that hears no cry?
Such is her vowed love to me,

Reason and Love lately at strife contended,
Whose right it was to have my mind's protection.
Reason on his side Nature's will pretended;
Love's title was my Mistress' rare perfection.
Of power to end this strife, each makes election:
Reason's pretence discoursive thoughts defended;
But Love soon brought those thoughts into subjection
By Beauty's troops, which on my saint depended.
Yet since to rule the mind was Reason's duty,
On this condition it by Love was rendered;
That endless praise by Reason should be tendered,

IMITATED FROM THE FRENCH .

Yes, these are the scenes where with Iris I stray'd,
But short was her sway for so lovely a maid!
In the bloom of her youth to a cloister she run,
In the bloom of her graces too fair for a nun!
Ill-grounded, no doubt, a devotion must prove,
So fatal to beauty, so killing to love!

Yes, these are the meadows, the shrubs, and the plains,
Once the scene of my pleasures, the scene of my pains;
How many soft moments I spent in this grove!

" Break ev'ry yoke; " the Gospel cries,
" And let th' oppress'd go free; "
Let ev'ry burden'd captive rise,
And taste sweet Liberty.

Lord! when shall man thy voice obey,
And rend each iron chain?
Oh! when shall Love its golden sway
O'er all the earth maintain?

Send thy good Spirit from above,
And melt th' oppressor's heart;
Send swift deliv'rance to the slave,
And bid his woes depart.

With joy and gladness crown his day,
And fill his heart with love;

I told my nymph, I told her true,
My fields were small, my flocks were few,
While falt'ring accents spoke my fear,
That Flavia might not prove sincere.

Of crops destroy'd by vernal cold,
And vagrant sheep that left my fold;
Of these she heard, yet bore to hear;
And is not Flavia then sincere?

How, changed by Fortune's fickle wind,
The friends I loved became unkind;
She heard, and shed a generous tear;
And is not Flavia then sincere?

How, if she deign my love to bless,