love poems

" LOVE , your love — speak low —
Now, give it now to me,
Your pride? Let it go, let it go.
Your wealth? Let it sink in the sea.
Women like you should be poor;
Gold upon beauty is vain:
Love, O lady, be sure
Is loveless without some pain.
Let the triumph of love be seen;
Come poor to me, poor, my queen. "

The lady rose at length,
And looked to earth and sky;
She laughed in her loving strength,
And flung her bracelets by;
She scattered her wealth abroad,
She donned a homespun gown,

NOT every one who crieth, Lord ,
Or hear, or pray, or preach thy word,
Wilt thou in God-like accents own,
Or hail, as partners of thy throne.

What! if this sect, or that, I join,
Believe my party most divine;
Vain will my warmest notions prove,
If absent from my heart, thy love.

What! if with Calvin I agree,
Or to Arminian doctrines flee,
I still remain a child of sin,
If love does not preside within.

Let bigots for the shell contend,
In idle controversies spend

Rue and roses, is it so,
Where roses blossom, must rue grow,
And shade the roses, as they blow?

The roses spread their lovely sheen
Upon the swelling meadow's green,
And light the fields, with joy serene.

But in their midst there stands the rue,
With saddened mien and ashen hue,
And reaches up into the blue.

Rue and roses, must it be,
May not the roses blossom free,
And joy in sunshine perfectly?

Ah, no, for joy is one with pain —
They both must follow in love's train,

Since short the busy scene of life will prove,
Let us, my Hoyland, learn to live and love;
To love with passions pure as morning light,
Whose saffron beams, unsullied by the night,
With rosy mantles do the heavens streak,
Faint imitators of my Hoyland's cheek.
The joys of nature in her ruin'd state
Have little pleasure, though the pains are great:
Virtue and Love when sacred bands unite,
'Tis then that nature leads to true delight.
Oft as I wander through the myrtle grove,
Bearing the beauteous burden of my love,

Play it slowly, sing it lowly,
Old, familiar tune!
Once it ran in dance and dimple,
Like a brook in June;
Now it sobs along the measures
With a sound of tears;
Dear old voices echo through it,
Vanished with the years.

Ripple, ripple, goes the love-song,
Till in slowing time
Early sweetness grows completeness,
Floods its every rhyme.
Who together learn the music
Life and death unfold,
Know that love is but beginning
Until love is old.

Play it slowly, — it is holy

The poise of your small head, how proud it seems;
How sad your great dark eyes; and your mouth's bow
Has such a petulant disdainful pout,
As though it wearied of the ebb and flow
Of life within the soul where shapes of dreams
In endless long processions come and go,
And all the tumult of the world without.
Slowly about us the grave dusk is shed,
Behind us as we stand the frost-stung fire
Flames up and fills the room with dancing light,
Speech is not, but in silence I aspire
To praise you in a song unsung, unsaid,

O Prophet souls of all the years,
Bend o'er us from above;
Your far-off vision, toils and tears
Now to fulfilment move!

From tropic clime and zones of frost
They come, of every name, —
This, this our day of Pentecost,
The Spirit's tongue of flame!

The ancient barriers disappear:
Down bow the mountains high;
The sea-divided shores draw near
In world-wide unity.

One Life together we confess,
One all-indwelling Word,
One holy Call to righteousness
Within the silence heard:

Your delicate fingers on the keyboard make
The riotous notes beat swift as driving rain
With thunder in its pauses, and constrain
The spirit of music's inmost heart to awake.
Once more, once more, bid rise and swoon and ache
This song of Schumann's filled with tremulous pain,
Rapture and peace and joy that soars again
In fierce delight of love for love's own sake!

How vain, in sight of yours, seems this my art!
For could I play, or paint you, I could deem
My art not wholly worthless of its theme:

A LONG wet day and now, the twilight hour
Fine, but not golden, delicately gray …
We pace the garden path
Talking: and faint between the words we say
Fall troubled silences of pleasant sound …
I speak of love, and laugh!

The flowers stand drenched and bruised on either hand,
Only the leaves shine softly and seem glad …
And so the light grows less …
We turn: I take your hand … your lips look sad,
As though the rain had also hurt the flower
Of your mouth's loveliness …

Full of rain crystals, the asparagus

A MONG the garden walks of Proserpine,
Love, I will wait for you until your eyes
Are wearied of the sad monotonous skies,
And till you have drained the last cup of life's wine.
You bade me wait since to this love of mine
Might no responsive love within you rise.
I waited long: and now being one who dies,
Go hence to linger at a duskier shrine.

I had no will but yours; I gave to you
My life, albeit for all that I could do
You would not have me call you more than friend.
Of this I am glad — that while we drew life's breath