love poems

The day I knew you loved me we had lain
Deep in Coill Doraca down by Gleann na Scath
Unknown to each till suddenly I saw
You in the shadow, knew oppressive pain
Stopping my heart, and there you did remain
In dreadful beauty fair without a flaw,
Blinding the eyes that yet could not withdraw
Till wild between us drove the wind and rain.

Breathless we reached the brugh before the west
Burst in full fury—then with lightning stroke
The tempest in my heart roared up and broke
Its barriers, and I swore I would not rest

Here where the wind is always north-north-east
And children learn to walk on frozen toes,
Wonder begets an envy of all those
Who boil elsewhere with such a lyric yeast
Of love that you will hear them at a feast
Where demons would appeal for some repose,
Still clamoring where the chalice overflows
And crying wildest who have drunk the least.

Passion is here a soilure of the wits,
We're told, and Love a cross for them to bear;
Joy shivers in the corner where she knits
And Conscience always has the rocking-chair,

Never to see or hear her,
never to name her aloud,
but faithfully always to wait for her
and love her.

To open my arms and, tired of waiting,
to close them on nothing,
but still always to stretch them out to her
and to love her.

To only be able to stretch them out to her,
and then to be consumed in tears,
but always to shed these tears,
always to love her.

Never to see or hear her,
never to name her aloud,
but with a love that grows ever more tender,

Is it not pleasant, now we are tired,
and tarnished, like other men, to search for those fires
in the furthest East, where, again, we might see
morning's new dawn, and, in mad history,
hear the echoes, that vanish behind us, the sighs
of the young loves, God gives, at the start of our lives?

I never stoop'd so low, as they
Which on an eye, cheeke, lip, can prey,
Seldom to them, which soare no higher
Than vertue or the minde to'admire,
For sense, and understanding may
Know, what gives fuell to their fire:
My love, though silly, is more brave,
For may I misse, when ere I crave,
If I know yet, what I would have.

If that be simply perfectest
Which can by no way be exprest
But Negatives, my love is so.
To All, which all love, I say no.
If any who deciphers best,

Axe is needed to cut wood;
Love is to cut a heart.

Living in a house
near the Black Forest,
without any clocks,
she's begun

to listen to the walls.
Her neighbors have clocks,
not one
but twenty clocks apiece.

Sometimes
a claque of clocks
applauds
the passing of each day.

Listen to the walls
& wind your watch.
Poor love, poor love,
have they caught you

by the pendulum?
Do they think they've
got you stopped?
Have you

already gathered how,
living near the Black Forest,

Rather I hold with those that tell it thus,
That they, who had made proof of their great faith,
Were joined no less with honour in love's house
By Holy Church, which binding looseneth,
Since it is written that 'twixt maid and man
The wedded contract joining hand and heart
For this life is and passeth not the span
Of victor death which all our bonds doth part.
And it were grievous one should suffer all,
Even death's last pang and an untimely grave,
If overcoming he again should fall

Oh, miracle of love! That death, which seems
So hard a master when he holds his prize,
Whom no cajoleries, nor stratagems
Of beauty's power, nor wisdom's sophistries,
E'er turned aside from his appointed way,
But falcon--like, who with relentless foot
And pinions spread above his captured prey,
Holds his high way in heaven absolute,
Nor heeds our questionings: that this same death
Should have grown soft and yielded to love's tears,
And drawn his talons from their fleshly sheath,

'Twas thus with my Natalia, suppliant soul,
Who loved young Adrian to her heart's despite,
And loved him dearly, yet could not cajole
Her fears of ill nor use her woman's right
To grant his wish, but ever put away
The sweet fulfilment of each day's desire
To a new to--morrow void as yesterday.
Adrian in vain, with wild hopes high and higher,
Essayed to make her convert to his creed.
No laggard he to do, devise or dare.
But still she failed him ever at his need,
And still she gave but tears to his heart's prayer.