love poems

Maker of love and longing!
Thou fountain of our tears!
When in one night come thronging
The memories of years,
God of the fallen sparrow!
God of the mateless dove!
Give to her lonely sorrow
The solace of Thy love.

Soft-waving sheet of water! When a boy,
My heart responded to thy look of joy;
'Twas my delight to sit upon thy shore,
And hear thy billows breaking at my feet;
Not, like the ocean's, with incessant roar,
But, like a sea-shell, low-voiced, hushed and sweet.
'Twas my delight from the uprising hill —
The great sun sinking in the crimson west —
To gaze across thy scarcely-ruffled breast,
On those dark pines that rise in grandeur still,
As high, as graceful, and as richly green,
As when in youth I loved the lovely scene.

As I lay in the early sun,
Stretched in the grass, I thought upon
My true love, my dear love,
Who has my heart for ever,
Who is my happiness when we meet,
My sorrow when we sever.
She is all fire when I do burn,
Gentle when I moody turn,
Brave when I am sad and heavy
And all laughter when I am merry.
And so I lay and dreamed and dreamed,
And so the day wheeled on,
While all the birds with thoughts like mine
Were singing to the sun.

I

Love the Conqueror came to me, —
He whom I did long deride, —
Gave humility for pride,
April voicing
My rejoicing
I — who fancied I was free —
Glad to be with garlands tied!

II

Love the Awakener came to me;
Called my sleeping soul to strife,
Offered gift of fuller life
(Wish, the measure
Of my pleasure);
And the bud that knew no bee
Burst, a rose with beauty rife.

III

Love the Tester came to me;
For the paean gave the dirge,

When too much zeale doth fire devotion,
Love is not love, but superstition:
Even so in civill duties, when we come
Too oft, we are not kind but troublesome.
Yet, as the first is not Idolatry,
So is the last but grieved industry;
And such was mine, whose strife to honour you
By overplus hath robd you of your due.

Thou seekest, " Where is heaven? " Oh, Love, 't is where
Thou shalt be, though thou be in hell.
" And what is hell? " Oh, darling, 't were to dwell
In highest heaven and thou not there.

Music inspires me but to think of thee,
For thou art of the music of the world —
A strain of that imperishable voice
That speaks in beauty, harmony, and love.
When Mozart wakes the gladness of my youth
I see perpetual childhood in thy face.
When Chopin, hand in hand with Love, leads on
Through meadowy pleasures to the verge of pain,
How near, how tender is thy beating heart!
And oh, when from the skies Beethoven sounds
His sure, triumphant song, how it vibrates
Deep memories of thy reposeful soul!

I F you were dead, Love — what would Life be then?
The south-west wind — the breathing balm — the sweet,
Still fragrant, freshness of the morning — when
The first bird calls and dawn's swift-sailing fleet
Sweeps past the head-lands of the sky's wide sea;
What touch of cheer could all these bring to me
If you were dead?

If you were dead, Love — and this blissful field,
New-greening now from soft September's rain,

I

Soon as the busy Day is o'er,
And Evening comes with pleasant shade,
We Gondoliers from shore to shore,
Merrily ply our jovial trade.

And while the Moon shines on the stream,
And as soft music breathes around;
The feathering oar returns the gleam,
And dips in concert to the sound.

II

HAIL ! daughter of the sun!
White-robed and fair to see, where goest thou now
In haste from thy spiced garden? Hath thy brow,
Crowned with white blooms, begun
To grow a-weary of its fragrant wreath,
And do thy temples long to ache beneath
A gilded, iron crown?
Tak'st thou the glint of Mammon's glittering car
To be the gleam of some new-risen star —
Yond clamor, for renown?

Stay, lovely one, oh stay!
Within thy gates, love-garlanded, remain: