love poems

Like a bold, adventurous swain,
Just a year ago to-day,
I launched my bark on a radiant main,
And Hymen led the way:
'Breakers ahead! ' he cried,
As he sought to overwhelm
My daring craft in the shrieking tide,
But Love, like a pilot bold and tried,
Sat, watchful, at the helm.

And we passed the treacherous shoals,
Where many a hope lay dead,
And splendid wrecks were piled, like the ghouls
Of joys forever fled.
Once safely over these,
We sped by a fairy realm,

Shall I with lethal draughts drowse every thought
And let the days pass by with silent tread,–
Dream that the vanished hour I long have sought
Is once more mine, and you no longer dead?
How shall I grasp the skirts of happy chance
And calm my spirit in adventurous ways,
Like bold Don Quixote hold aloft my lance
Against the world without thy meed of praise?
How can I live through long discordant days,
How cheat despair, or speed Time's lagging feet,
Since I have lost the fragrance of love's ways

O you, love's mendicancy who never tried,
How little of your almsman me you know!
Your little languid hand in mine you slide,
Like to a child says--'Kiss me and let me go!'
And night for this is fretted with my tears,
While I:-'How soon this heavenly neck doth tire
Bending to me from its transtellar spheres!'
Ah, heart all kneaded out of honey and fire!
Who bound thee to a body nothing worth,
And shamed thee much with an unlovely soul,
That the most strainedest charity of earth
Distasteth soon to render back the whole

Some that have deeper digg'd love's mine than I,
Say, where his centric happiness doth lie;
I have lov'd, and got, and told,
But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,
I should not find that hidden mystery.
Oh, 'tis imposture all!
And as no chemic yet th'elixir got,
But glorifies his pregnant pot
If by the way to him befall
Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,
So, lovers dream a rich and long delight,
But get a winter-seeming summer's night.

'Sincerity comes with the wine-cup,' my dear:
Then now o'er our wine-cups let us be sincere.
My soul's treasured secret to you I'll impart;
It is this; that I never won fairly your heart.
One half of my life, I am conscious, has flown;
The residue lives on your image alone.
You are kind, and I dream I'm in paradise then;
You are angry, and lo! all is darkness again.
It is right to torment one who loves you? Obey
Your elder; 'twere best; and you'll thank me one day.
Settle down in one nest on one tree (taking care

JOIN hands, my dear, clasp long and close and fast,
Even this present we shall soon call past,
And lay among the unforgotten days,
Not the less loved because they could not last.


Make haste to put our hasty words away,
And hide them with dead leaves of yesterday,
Cast them aside among forgotten things,
Keep the love warm that turns to green life's grey.


Each little thorn that pricks these present hours
Is sure to hide under our memories' flowers,

He.
To what, love, shall I liken thee?
Thou, methinks, shalt firstly be
A blue flower with nodding bells
In the hollow of a tree.
When the wind blows wantonly,
Thou shalt ever shake thy head
At the idle tale he tells.
But at evening from the clover,
When the world is all abed,
And the noisy day is over,
And the birds have gone to rest,
In the darkness will I hover
Till thou bid me come to thee,
Till I creep into thy nest,
I thy long--expected lover,
I thy sweet, thy honey bee.

What name is his, thy knight's? Nay, ask it not.
If fate should hear thee, child, what griefs might come.
Love rides disguised. He fears a counterplot
For his own plot of joy in heathendom.
Restrained he goes; a single rose--red plume
Is all his badge. No blazon hath he wrought,
Device nor sign; his motto ``sum qui sum.''
Silent is he of Court and Camelot.
--Be wise, sweetheart, nor tempt time to mischance.
Love at his own hour shall his whole face show.
Oh, if thou hast not seen him, thou shalt see!

Love me a little, love me as thou wilt,
Whether a draught it be of passionate wine
Poured with both hands divine,
Or just a cup of water spilt
On dying lips and mine.
Give me the love thou wilt,
The purity, the guilt,
So it be thine.

Love me a little. Let it be thy cheek
With its red signals. That were dear to kiss.
Or, if thou mayest not this,
A finger--tip my own to seek
At nightfall when none guess.
Eyes have the wit to speak,
And sighs send messages:
Even give less.

Since that it may not be,
The thing my soul desires,
And that Love's tenderer fires
Are doomed to loss and Time's sterility,
Ours be it this one day
Flowers at Love's feet to lay,
For Love is master still, or be we bond or free.

We may not quite be blest.
Time's treasure is too great,
And ours too weak a fate,
And Joy burns low, a sun--flame in the West.
Night comes, the while we stand
Forlornly hand in hand,
And then the tears begin, the dreams that have no rest.

Yet, since it may not be,