love poems

Primrose and Violet —
May they help thee to forget
All that love should not remember,
Sweet as meadows after rain
When the sun has come again,
As woods awakened from December.
How they wash the soul from stain!
How they set the spirit free!
Take them dear, and pray for me.

Dear wife, there is no word in all my songs
But unto thee belongs:
Though I indeed before our true day came
Mistook thy star in many a wandering flame,
Singing to thee in many a fair disguise,
Calling to thee in many another's name,
Before I knew thine everlasting eyes.

Faces that fled me like a hunted fawn
I followed singing, deeming it was Thou,
Seeking this face that on our pillow now
Glimmers behind thy golden hair like dawn,
And, like a setting moon, within my breast
Sinks down each night to rest.

So you think you love me, do you?
Well, it may be so;
But there are many ways of loving
I have learnt to know.
Many ways, and but one true way,
Which is very rare;
And the counterfeits look brightest,
Though they will not wear.

Yet they ring, almost, quite truly,
Last (with care) for long;
But in time must break, may shiver
At a touch of wrong:
Having seen what looked most real
Crumble into dust;
Now I choose that test and trial
Should precede my trust.

I

He was not learned in any art;
But Nature led him by the hand;
And spoke her language to his heart
So he could hear and understand:
He loved her simply as a child;
And in his love forgot the heat
Of conflict, and sat reconciled
In patience of defeat.

II

Before me now I see him rise —
A face, that seventy years had snowed
With winter, where the kind blue eyes
Like hospitable fires glowed:
A small gray man whose heart was large,
And big with knowledge learned of need;

The pledge
we exchanged
in a dream-world
long ago
has never changed;
what turned out
to be fickle
is the world

Now, at last,
I know:
that when
I waited to see him
night after night,
beneath it all
already
in his heart
he had changed.

We pledged our love,
but all
to no avail —
since I do not know
where
in those far, cloudy hills
the pheasant has flown.

The years
passed by
and I had though that
at last
I could rest secure,
Why now,
then,
after all this time,
does he seem to drift away?

If even in dreams
we cannot meet,
then how am I
to send a message?
Here on this Gloomy
Mountain road
I meet no one at all.

When we parted,
he promised
nothing — not even
" Wait 'til this evening. "
Yet as soon
as I fall asleep
I see him