love poems

Oh for my love, my only love,
Oh for my lost love far away! —
Oh that the grass were green above
Her head or mine this weary day: —
The grass green in the morning grey.

She lies down in a foreign land
And in a foreign land doth rise.
I cannot hold her by the hand;
I cannot read her speaking eyes
That turned mere spoken words to lies.

This is the bough she leaned upon
And watched the rose deep western sky,
For the last sun rays almost gone:
I did not hear the wind pass by,

When we can all so excellently give
The measure of love's wisdom with a blow, —
Why can we not in turn receive it so,
And end this murmur for the life we live?
And when we do so frantically strive
To win strange faith, why do we shun to know
That in love's elemental over-glow
God's wholeness gleams with light superlative?

Oh, brother men, if you have eyes at all,
Look at a branch, a bird, a child, a rose,
Or anything God ever made that grows, —
Nor let the smallest vision of it slip,

DEDICATION TO THE Nursery " A LICE ," 1889

A Mother's breast:
Safe refuge from her childish fears,
From childish troubles, childish tears,
Mists that enshroud her dawning years!
See how in sleep she seems to sing
A voiceless psalm — an offering
Raised, to the glory of her King,
In Love: for Love is Rest.

A Darling's kiss:
Dearest of all the signs that fleet
From lips that lovingly repeat
Again, again, their message sweet!
Full to the brim with girlish glee,

There was an old Rabbi of Ur;
He loved a Miss Beaulieu.
She sent him a letter: " Dear Sir . . ."
Then a stone-cold " Yours truly."
Now what she could mean
By the dots in between
Is not plain to be seen.
We can but infer the Rabbi of Ur
Enquired of Miss Beaulieu.

When Love, puffed up with rage of high disdain,
Resolved to make me pattern of his might,
Like foe, whose wits inclined to deadly spite,
Would often kill, to breed more feeling pain;
He would not, armed with beauty, only reign
On those affects which eas'ly yield to sight,
But virtue sets so high, that reason's light,
For all his strife can only bondage gain:
So that I live to pay a mortal fee,
Dead-palsy sick of all my chiefest parts;
Like those whom dreams make ugly monsters see,

Why should I be bound to thee
O my lovely mirtle tree
[Love free love cannot be bound
To any tree that grows on ground]

To a lovely mirtle bound
Blossoms showring all around
[Like to dung upon the ground
Underneath my mirtle bound]
O how sick & weary I
Underneath my mirtle lie

Love to faults is always blind
Always is to joy inclind
[Always] Lawless wingd & unconfind
And breaks all chains from every mind

Deceit to secresy [inclind] confind
[Modest prudish & confind]
Lawful cautious [changeful and] & refind
[Never is to] To every thing but interest blind
[And chains & fetters every mind]
And forges fetters for the mind

Love is the very heart of spring;
Flocks fall to loving on the lea
And wildfowl love upon the wing,
When spring first enters like a sea.

When spring first enters like a sea
Into the heart of everything,
Bestir yourselves religiously,
Incense before love's altar bring.

Incense before love's altar bring,
Flowers from the flowering hawthorn tree,
Flowers from the margin of the spring,
For all the flowers are sweet to see.

Love is the very heart of spring;
When spring first enters like a sea

There where the land of love,
Grown about by fragrant bushes,
Sunken in a winding valley,
Where the clear winds blow
And the shadows come and go,
And the cattle stand and low
And the sheep bells and the linnets
Sing and tinkle musically.
Between the past and the future,
Those two black infinities
Between which our brief life
Flashes a moment and goes out.

O now, although the year be done,
Now, although the love be dead,
Dead and gone;
Hear me, O loved and cherished one,
Give me still the hand that led,