They came to tell your faults to me,
They named them over one by one;
I laughed aloud when they were done,
I knew them all so well before, --
Oh, they were blind, too blind to see
Your faults had made me love you more.
Submitted by Venus
Fair Iris I love and hourly I die,
But not for a lip nor a languishing eye:
She's fickle and false, and there I agree;
For I am as false and as fickle as she:
We neither believe what either can say;
And, neither believing, we neither betray.
'Tis civil to swear and say things, of course;
We mean not the taking for better or worse.
When present we love, when absent agree;
I think not of Iris, nor Iris of me:
The legend of love no couple can find
So easy to part, or so equally join'd.
Faint with love, the Lady of the South
Lay in the paradise of Lebanon
Under a heaven of cedar boughs: the drouth
Of love was on her lips; the light was gone
Out of her eyes--
FAST-ANCHOR'D, eternal, O love! O woman I love!
O bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thought of you!
--Then separate, as disembodied, or another born,
Ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation;
I ascend--I float in the regions of your love, O man,
O sharer of my roving life.
Love and thy vain employs, away
From this too oft deluded breast!
No longer will I court thy stay,
To be my bosom's teazing guest.
Thou treacherous medicine, reckoned pure,
Thou quackery of the harassed heart,
That kills what it pretends to cure,
Life's mountebank thou art.
With nostrums vain of boasted powers,
That, ta'en, a worse disorder leave;
An asp hid in a group of flowers,
That bites and stings when few perceive;
Thou mock-truce to the troubled mind,
Leading it more in sorrow's way,
Love grasps my heart in a net
Like the strong roots of a flower;
So surely his root is set
In my spirit, to hold me with power.
Yet to--night, O forgive me, Dear!
I am troubled, my heart trembles.
There flutters within me a fear
That Love in vain dissembles.
O is it that even our trust,
So strongly planted,
How steadfast soever, must
By its own fear be haunted?
As the heart must beat in the breast
If the pulse to its life be true,
Love must tremble and throb in his nest
Fear of seeing a police car pull into the drive.
Fear of falling asleep at night.
Fear of not falling asleep.
Fear of the past rising up.
Fear of the present taking flight.
Fear of the telephone that rings in the dead of night.
Fear of electrical storms.
Fear of the cleaning woman who has a spot on her cheek!
Fear of dogs I've been told won't bite.
Fear of anxiety!
Fear of having to identify the body of a dead friend.
Fear of running out of money.
Fear of having too much, though people will not believe this.
I'm tired of Love: I'm still more tired of Rhyme.
But Money gives me pleasure all the time.
Hellish beast hunts the night
Stealing loved ones from my sight
In the darkness all is lost
Was my freedom worth the cost?
Locked in a prison of fear,
Taunting words only I can hear
He’s scratching at the walls,
“Let me in, ” his mocking voice calls
Bound by fear, blinded by hate,
I deny this is my fate
Wishing it would go away
Yet not knowing what to say
In the coming morn, there will be no trace
Of what went on in this horrid place
No scattered clothes, few drops of blood
Father of love, to thee I bend
My heart, and lift mine eyes;
O let my pray'r and praise ascend
As odours to the skies.
Thy pard'ning voice I come to hear,
To know thee as thou art:
Thy ministers can reach the ear,
But thou must touch the heart.
O stamp me in thy heav'nly mould,
And grant thy word appl'd
May bring forth fruit an hundred fold
And speak me justify'd.
