love poems

Love , like a bird born in a cage,
In bondage gaily sings,
Nor sighs to rove, but prizes more
His fetters than his wings.
Then do not strive those chains to break,
Tho' lighter than a feather —
They're twined so closely round the heart,
That both must break together.

Never tell me of loving by measure and weight,
As one's merits may lack or abound;
As if love could be carried to market, like skate,
And cheapened for so much a pound.

If it can, — if yours can, — let them have it who care;
You and I, friend, shall never agree;
Pack, and to market; be off with your ware;
It's a great deal too common for me.

Do ye linger and laugh? I'm sincere, I declare,
But belike over-hasty in thought;
If it suits ye to close with my terms as they are,

MURLIN'STUNE .

Hosannah to the God of love,
Who condescended from above
To bring salvation down!
We bless his name, who stoop'd so low
To save us from eternal woe,
And raise us to a crown.

When we, in our first parents, fell
From Eden to the gates of hell,
And lay like captives there,
Then Jesus cast a pitying eye
On wretches doom'd for sin to lie
For ever in despair.

His bowels, where compassion rolls,
Then yearning o'er our guilty souls,

Beautiful maid! I court thy smiles,
I woo that breast which ne'er beguiles.
The warmest love is soonest past,
But ours with heaven and earth shall last;
Hands fastest knit will often sever,
But ours once joined, are joined for ever!

Do I not love thee? read this brow —
Lines of thy own are traced there now;
This cheek has caught thy pallid hue,
This lip thy bitter smiling too,
And this sunk eye, this wasted frame,
The mistress whom I serve proclaim.

Alas! the bride I should have wed,

Cold blows the north wind, bleak and strong,
Wild beat the waves upon the shore;
The tempest howls, the surges roar,
And from the angry ocean wide,
In flows the restless, white-crowned tide,
O'er the whole night long.

Cold blows the north wind bleak and strong,
The billows in delirious glee,
Roll in from 'cross the foaming sea;
And in their mad and merry race,
They fling the salt spray in my face,
And chant their dreary song.

The wind is fierce, the sea is bold,
But what care I for wind or sea;

III.

Why do we love thee, Fame? thou art not sweet
If sweetness dwell with softness and repose;
Thou art not fair, if beauty be replete
With peace and tenderness, and ease from woes;
Thou art not faithful, for thy power and flame
To fierce extremes the maddening votary urge;
And oft the winds that should his bliss proclaim,
Swell but the chorus of his funeral dirge:
Yet we do love thee — love thee till the blood

Let others have what earth can give,
Rich treasures boundless as the sea;
For me it is enough to live,
To love you and be cared by thee.

Love has turned his face away,
Weep, sad eyes!
Love is now of yesterday
Time that flies,
Bringing glad and grievous things,
Bears no more Love's shining wings.

Love was not all glad, you say;
Tears and sighs
In the midst of kisses lay
Were it wise,
If we could, to bid him come,
Making with us once more home?

Little doubts that sting and prey,
Hurt replies,
Words for which a life should pay, —
None denies
These of Love were very part, —
Thorns that hurt the rose's heart.

Ah , happy youths! ah, happy maid!
Take present pleasure while ye may;
Laugh, dance, and sing in sunny glade;
Your limbs are light, your hearts are gay;
Ye little think there comes a day
('Twill come to you, it came to me,)
When love and life shall pass away, —
I too once dwelt in Arcady!

Or listless lie by yonder stream,
And muse and watch the ripples play;
Or note their noiseless flow and deem
That life thus gently glides away,
That love is but a sunny ray
To make our years go joyously;

Op HoeBUS ! down the western sky
Far hence diffuse thy burning ray,
Thy light to distant worlds supply,
And wake them to the cares of day.
Come, gentle eve, the friend of care,
Come, Cynthia, lovely queen of night!
Refresh me with a cooling air,
And cheer me with a lambent light.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .