love poems

I'm guided in the darkest night
By flashes of auroral light,
Which over dart thy eastern home
And teach me not in vain to roam.
Thy steady light on t'other side
Pales the sunset, makes day abide,
And after sunrise stays the dawn,
Forerunner of a brighter morn.

There is no being here to me
But staying here to be
When others laugh I am not glad,
When others cry I am not sad,
But be they grieved or be they merry
I'm supernumerary.
I am a miser without blame
Am conscience stricken without shame.

Let your loving bondwoman
Salute your lips if you prefer;
This is your courtesy to her.
Yet still remember how she ran
From her grave, and running, leapt
To catch the arrows of your hurt,
To stretch her body in dust and dirt,
Flinging a causey where you stepped.

Remember how, asleep or waking,
The shallow pillow of her breast
Shook and shook to your heart's shaking,
In pity whereof her heart was split;
Love her now; forget the rest;
She has herself forgotten it.

'Twas of a lovely creature who dwelled by the seaside,
For her lovely form and features she was the village pride;
There was a young sea captain who Mary's heart would gain,
But she was true to Henry, was on the raging main.

'Twas in young Henry's absence this noble man he came
A-courting pretty Mary, but she refused the same.
She said, " I pray you begone, young man, your vows are all in vain,
Therefore begone, I love but one, he's on the raging main."

With mad desperation this noble man he said,

Twain that were foes, while Mary lived, are fled;
One laurel-crowned abides in heaven, and one
Beneath the earth has fared, a fallen sun,
A light of love among the loveless dead.
The first is chastity, that vanquished
The archer Love, that held joint empery
With the sweet beauty that made war on me,
When laughter of lips with laughing eyes was wed.

Their strife the Fates have closed, with stern control,
The earth holds her fair body, and her soul
An angel with glad angels triumpheth;

THE YOUNG GIRL

Even as a child that weeps,
Lulled by the love it keeps,
My grief lies back and sleeps.

Yes, it is Love bears up
My soul on his spread wings,
Which the days would else chafe out
With their infinite harassings.
To quicken it, he brings
The inward look and mild
That thy face wears, my child.

As in a gilded room
Shines 'mid the braveries

Why forms discuss, if that the soul is fled?
Is the communion in the wine and bread;
Or in the loving hearts, that would draw near
A dying Savior's last command to hear?
Ah, still have met again that little band,
And in their midst the Savior still doth stand:
Where Love doth break the bread and pour the wine,
And they are one in fellowship divine.
How few this fellowship of love profess!
How few a dying Savior's name confess!
For what are rites and forms? an empty show,
If we their meaning, life, have ceased to know.

I love the light, when first its beams
Steal o'er the earth and sky;
And gently wake the slumbering world,
And bid the shadows fly.

I love the light of noon-day sun,
Its full, effulgent ray;
That floods the earth, and sea, and sky,
And brings the perfect day.

I love the light of sunset hour,
Which lingers in the west;
Which soothes the weary heart and mind,
And gives the laborer rest.

I love the moon's soft, silvery light,
The light of stars, that keep
Their watches o'er a weary world,

Far off I see, like a dim cloud, the hills,
Which, in my youth, I climbed with daring feet;
Whose memory still my mind with grandeur fills,
And pleasant thoughts of love and friendship sweet.
But nearer do the humble hill-tops rise,
On which my childhood loved to sit and stray;
Gazing on pastures wide, on sea and skies,
Lit by the sun's bright beams, or moon's soft ray.
And many a merry voice and sunny face
Of early playmates round my happy home
Come back to me, as the green paths I trace,

Awake, he loved their voices,
And wove them into his rhyme;
And the music of their laughter
Was with him all the time.
Though he knew the tongues of nations,
And their meanings all were dear,
The prattle and lisp of a little child
Was the sweetest for him to hear.

In the heart of June, love,
You and I together,
On from dawn till noon, love,
Laughing with the weather;
Blending both our souls, love,
In the selfsame tune,
Drinking all life holds, love,
In the heart of June.

In the heart of June, love,
With its golden weather,
Underneath the moon, love,
You and I together.
Ah! how sweet to seem, love,
Drugged and half aswoon
With this luscious dream, love,
In the heart of June.