love poems

Those envied places which do know her well,
And are so scornful of this lonely place,
Even now for once are emptied of her grace:
Nowhere but here she is: and while Love's spell
From his predominant presence doth compel
All alien hours, an outworn populace,
The hours of Love fill full the echoing space
With sweet confederate music favourable.

Now many memories make solicitous
The delicate love-lines of her mouth, till, lit
With quivering fire, the words take wing from it;
As here between our kisses we sit thus

Warmed by her hand and shadowed by her hair
 As close she leaned and poured her heart through thee,
 Whereof the articulate throbs accompany
The smooth black stream that makes thy whiteness fair,—
Sweet fluttering sheet, even of her breath aware,—
 Oh let thy silent song disclose to me
 That soul wherewith her lips and eyes agree
Like married music in Love's answering air.
Fain had I watched her when, at some fond thought,
 Her bosom to the writing closelier press'd,
 And her breast's secrets peered into her breast;

Some ladies love the jewels in Love's zone
And gold-tipped darts he hath for painless play
In idle scornful hours he flings away;
And some that listen to his lute's soft tone
Do love to vaunt the silver praise their own;
Some prize his blindfold sight; and there be they
Who kissed his wings which brought him yesterday
And thank his wings to-day that he is flown.

My lady only loves the heart of Love:
Therefore Love's heart, my lady, hath for thee
His bower of unimagined flower and tree:

By what word's power, the key of paths untrod,
Shall I the difficult deeps of Love explore,
Till parted waves of Song yield up the shore
Even as that sea which Israel crossed dryshod?
For lo! in some poor rhythmic period,
Lady, I fain would tell how evermore
Thy soul I know not from thy body, nor
Thee from myself, neither our love from God.

Yea, in God's name, and Love's, and thine, would I
Draw from one loving heart such evidence
As to all hearts all things shall signify;

O thou who at Love's hour ecstatically
Unto my heart dost evermore present,
Clothed with his fire, thy heart his testament;
Whom I have neared and felt thy breath to be
The inmost incense of his sanctuary;
Who without speech hast owned him, and, intent
Upon his will, thy life with mine hast blent,
And murmured, ‘I am thine, thou'rt one with me!‘

O what from thee the grace, to me the prize,
And what to Love the glory,—when the whole
Of the deep stair thou tread'st to the dim shoal
And weary water of the place of sighs,

I marked all kindred Powers the heart finds fair:--
Truth, with awed lips; and Hope, with eyes upcast;
And Fame, whose loud wings fan the ashen Past
To signal-fires, Oblivion's flight to scare;
And Youth, with still some single golden hair
Unto his shoulder clinging, since the last
Embrace wherein two sweet arms held him fast;
And Life, still wreathing flowers for Death to wear.
Love's throne was not with these; but far above
All passionate wind of welcome and farewell
He sat in breathless bowers they dream not of;

This craving 'tis that's Venus unto us:
From this, engender all the lures of love,
From this, O first hath into human hearts
Trickled that drop of joyance which ere long
Is by chill care succeeded. Since, indeed,
Though she thou lovest now be far away,
Yet idol-images of her are near
And the sweet name is floating in thy ear.
But it behooves to flee those images;
And scare afar whatever feeds thy love;
And turn elsewhere thy mind; and vent the sperm,
Within thee gathered, into sundry bodies,

The Argument

The swo[u]nding Swaine recovered is
By th' Goddesse; his soule rapting blisse:
There mutuàll conference, and how
Her service she doth him allow.

1

Soft-sleeping Venus waked with the fall,
Looking behind, the sinking Boy espies,
With all she starts, and wondereth withall,
She thinkes that there her faire Adonis dyes,
And more she thinkes the more the Boy she eyes:
 So stepping neerer, up begins to reare him;
 And now with love himselfe she will confer him,

When Atyches with better sight I eye,
Some powre me thinks beyond humanity,
Some heavenly power within his bosome lyes
And plainely looks through th' windowes of his eyes.
Thalander , if that soules departed rest
In other men, thou livest in his brest,
He is more then he seemes, or else — but see!
My love, my hate, my joy, my miserie.
Glau. Perindus , whither turnst thou? if thy wandring love
My love eschew, yet nothing canst thou see
Why thou shouldst flye me, I am no monster, friend,

I
Each Moment of the long-liv'd Day,
Lesbia for me does backward pray,
And rails at me sincerely;
Yet I dare pawn my Life, my Eyes,
My Soul, and all that Mortals prize,
That Lesbia loves me dearly.
II

Why shou'd you thus conclude, you'll say,
Faith 'tis my own beloved Way,
And thus I hourly prove her;
Yet let me all those Curses share
That Heav'n can give, or Man can bear,
If I don't strangely love her.