love poems

With a rocking
(As) of great ships
Riding at anchor
I have at last become worn out with love,
Because of a child of man.

Too late, alas! ... I came to find
the lovely spring had fled
Yet must I not regret the days
of youth that now are dead;
For though the rosy buds of spring
the cruel winds have laid,
Behold the clustering fruit that hangs
beneath the leafy shade.

Xi Shi dreaming at dawn,
In the cool of silken curtains,
Scented coils of her falling chignon,
Half aloes and sandalwood.

The turning windlass of the well,
Creaking like singing jade,
Wakes with a start this lotus-blossom,
That has newly slept its fill.

Twin simurghs open her mirror,
An autumn pool of light.
She loosens her tresses before the mirror,
Stands by her ivory bed.

A single skein of perfumed silk,
Clouds cast on the floor,
Noiseless, the jade comb lights upon

She is so winsome and so wise
She sways us at her will,
And oft the question will arise
What mission does she fill?
And so I say, with pride untold
And love beyond degree,
This woman with the heart of gold,
She just keeps house for me.

A full content dwells in her face,
She's quite in love with life,
And for a title wears with grace
The sweet old-fashioned — Wife. —

What though I toil from morn till night,
What though I weary grow,
A spring of love and dear delight

Mine is no wayside rose
All may attend:
At the hill's top it grows,
At the road's end.

Deep in unchidden weeds,
Rose without stain—
His soul its beauty feeds
Who can attain.

He who attains thereto
Faith must disclose,
Ere he will shake the dew
Round its repose.

No pleasant garden-slope
Waiteth for him—
It is to him whose hope
Stayeth undim.

Who trusting receives it,
A faith, in the dale,
His hoping achieves it,
His toil shall avail!

I learn to lag behind my life's desire,
That I, impelled not rashly to despair,
May rather guide still hope to some sweet air
Of high achievement where, with statelier fire,
Nearer the stars, my passion may aspire!
Slow-tongued Experience teaches me to bear
On lips more patient Love's impatient prayer,
With toiling hands to weave my dream's attire!
Yet, oh, when fragrant evening dims the world,
What moon-flames burn in all the lamps of dew!
What lonely roses lift their hearts impearled —

Her whom dark cities never pleased
The wandergeist again hath seized;
She who in gardens loves to bore,
And the moist, rooty soil explore,
Now all the furrows of the deep,
Parterres of waving green, shall sweep.
So shall she pile with richer store
The memories on her harvest-floor;
Red sunsets, and the long, superb
White spires of many a wave-crest herb.
Amid those pleasant, foam-flowered leas,
The unwalled orchards of the seas,
She whose life loves the golden sun
Each ripening dusk shall pluck her one,

Did ever a youth pass by the spot
Your fragrance, love, made dear,
Without a heart-leap at the lot
That drew his fancy near?

Was ever a maid of fairy stuff
Like this in days of old —
A rose already fine enough
Without that heart of gold!

How can a soul of sinless ray,
Now breathing love, incline to stray,
Or need to be forgiven?
O Innocence, with laughing eyes!
Thou art a cherub from the skies,
A wanderer from heaven.

Ha! gentle spirit, gift divine,
There's nectar on those lips of thine,
And sweet the kiss I've won:
There dwells no dew on proffered lip,
That's pure, like that on thine, to sip, —
On loveliest woman's, — none.

With heart sincere, while it shall beat,
May violets spring beneath thy feet,
And roses crown thy youth;

If lock'd in soft and sweet repose
(The balm which Heaven assigns to woe,)
Thy soul ideal pleasure knows,
And gentle passions calmly glow,
Still, still entranc'd in slumber lie,
Till morn invades the eastern sky.

But if contending passions tear
That bosom form'd for love alone;
If haggard Grief, and wild Despair,
Torment thee with fictitious moan;
O quit the scene of misery,
And wake, dear maid, to love and me.