love poems

Too much my heart of Beauty's power hath known,
Too long to Love hath reason left her throne;
Too long my genius mourn'd his myrtle chain,
And three rich years of youth consum'd in vain.
My wishes, lull'd with soft inglorious dreams,
Forgot the patriot's and the sage's themes:
Through each Elysian vale and fairy grove,
Through all the enchanted paradise of love,
Misled by sickly hope's deceitful flame,
Averse to action, and renouncing fame.

At last the visionary scenes decay,

Tell me if you can, the rule by which a man
Selects his worse or better half.
Truly it would seem to be a lott'ry scheme,
The prizes often make one laugh.

The woman slim and thin and tall,
Will love a human butter ball;
While one who's round and plump and fat,
Adores some one as tall as that.
The author of a learned book,
Is sometimes wedded to his cook;
The girl who's frivolous and gay,
Picks out a meek Y. M. C. A.
The statesman with ambition high,
Will choose a social butterfly;

Love, we're going home now,
Where the vines clamber over the trellis:
Even before you, the summer will arrive,
On its honeysuckle feet, in your bedroom.

Our nomadic kisses wandered over all the world:
Armenia, dollop of disinterred honey:
Ceylon, green dove: and the YangTse with its old
Old patience, dividing the day from the night.

And now, dearest, we return, across the crackling sea
Like two blind birds to their wall,
To their nest in a distant spring:

Because love cannot always fly without resting,

When first Alexis did in Verse delight,
His Muse in Low, but Graceful Numbers walk't,
And now and then a little Proudly stalk't;
But never aim'd at any noble Flight:
The Herds, the Groves, the gentle purling Streams,
Adorn'd his Song, and were his highest Theams.

But Love these Thoughts, like Mists, did soon disperse,
Enlarg'd his Fancy, and set free his Muse,
Biding him more Illustrious Subjects choose;
The Acts of Gods, and God-like Men reherse.
From thence new Raptures did his Breast inspire,

What is the glory far above
All else in human life?
Love! Love!
There is no form in which the fire
Of love its traces has impressed not.
Man lives far more in love's desire
Than by life's breath, soon possessed not.
If all that lives must love or lie,
All shapes on earth, or sea, or sky,
With one consent, to Heaven cry
That the glory far above
All else in life is--
Love! O, Love!
Thou melancholy thought, which art
So fluttering and so sweet, to thee
When did I give the liberty

I dreamt my little boys were dead
And I was sitting wild and lone;
On closed unmoving knees my head
Lay rigid as a stone.
And thus I sat without a tear,
And though I drew life’s painful breath,
All life to me seemed cold and drear,
And comfortless as death:

Sat on the earth as on a bier,
Where loss and ruin lived alone,
Without the comfort of a tear—
Without a passing groan.

And there was stillness everywhere,
Ensphering one wide sense of woe;

Reputation, Love, and Death,
(The Last all Bones, the First all Breath,
The Midd'st compos'd of Restless Fire)
From each other wou'd Retire;
Thro' the World resolv'd to stray;
Every One a several Way;
Exercising, as they went,
Each such Power, as Fate had lent;
Which, if it united were,
Wretched Mortals cou'd not bear:
But as parting Friends do show,
To what Place they mean to go,
Correspondence to engage,
Nominate their utmost Stage;
Death declar'd he wou'd be found

Love, dearest Lady, such as I would speak,
Lives not within the humor of the eye;—
Not being but an outward phantasy,
That skims the surface of a tinted cheek,—
Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak,
As if the rose made summer,—and so lie
Amongst the perishable things that die,
Unlike the love which I would give and seek:
Whose health is of no hue—to feel decay
With cheeks' decay, that have a rosy prime.
Love is its own great loveliness alway,
And takes new lustre from the touch of time;

NOT on the word alone
Let love depend;
Neither by actions done
Choose ye the friend.

Let the slow years fly—
These are the test;
Never to peering eye
Open the breast.

Psyche won hopeless woe,
Reaching to take;
Wait till your lilies grow
Up from the lake.

Gather words patiently;
Harvest the deed;
Let the winged years fly,
Sifting the seed.

Judging by harmony,
Learning by strife;
Seeking in unity
Precept and life.

Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher
Swept off his tall hat to the Squire's own daughter,
So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly
Singing about her head, as she rode by.