love poems

'Tis now since I sat down before
That foolish fort, a heart,
( Time strangely spent) a year, and more,
And still I did my part:

Made my approaches, from her hand
Unto her lip did rise,
And did already understand
The language of her eyes;

Proceeded on with no less art,
My tongue was engineer:
I thought to undermine the heart
By whispering in the ear.

When this did nothing, I brought down
Great canon-oaths, and shot
A thousand thousand to the town,
And still it yielded not.

'Tis not my ladies face that makes me love her,
Though beauty there doth rest,
Enough t' inflame the breast
On one, that never did discover
The glories of a face before;
But I that have seen thousands more
See nought in hers, but what in others are,
Only because I think she's fair , she's fair .

'T IS not her birth, her friends, nor yet her treasure,
Nor do I covet her for sensual pleasure,
Nor for that old morality
Do I love her, 'cause she loves me.

Sure he that loves his lady 'cause she's fair,
Delights his eye, so loves himself, not her.
Something there is moves me to love, and I
Do know I love, but know not how, nor why.

I

Thy nights moan into my days,
Through my dreams courses the blood of thy feet.
O I will drink thy tears away,
I will bear thee up under the crown of my leaves.

The crown of my leaves is cool and full of peace,
Bathed high in waters deep.
Down upon us shall drip the depths of the sky,
From seas eternal through the holy crown of leaves.

Slumber deep in my arms!
My eyes are steel-hard angels watching
Over thy peace.

II

Thy eyes with gloom are gleaming,

Through love to light! Oh wonderful the way
That leads from darkness to the perfect day!
From darkness and from sorrow of the night
To morning that comes singing o'er the sea.
Through love to light! Through light, O God, to thee,
Who art the love of love, the eternal light of light!

Thro bushes & briars when I took my way
Down by a chrystal riverside one morning in May
I hear[d] a pretty damsel her voice was so clear
Long time have I been waiting for the coming of my dear

I drew somthing near to a tree that was green
Where the leaves they so shaded me I scarce could be seen
& there I sat & nothing said till my poor heart did move
Long time Id this opinion of poor distressed love

Some says I lost my senses & crazily inclined
But first I go unto my love & tell to her my mind

Thou wert the morning star among the living
Ere thy fair light had fled;--
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendour to the dead.
Language has not the power to speak what love indites;
The Soul lies buried in the ink that writes.

WITH A COPY OF " MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN. "

This is the golden book spirit and sense,
The holy writ of beauty; he that wrought
Made it with dreams and faultless words and thought
That seeks and finds and loses in the dense
Dim air of life that beauty's excellence
Wherewith love makes one hour of life distraught,
And all hours after follow and find not aught.
Here is that height of all love's eminence

I ask not what the bud may be,
That hangs upon the green-sheathed stem;
But love with every leaf I see,
To lie unfolded there like them.

I ask not what the tree may bear,
When whitened by the hand of spring;
But with its blossoms on the air,
Would far around my perfume fling.

The infant's joy is mine, is mine,
I join its infant sports with glee;
And would not for a world resign,
The look of love it casts on me.

Leave not the bird upon the wing,
But with her seek her shaded nest,

Though I'm thinking of you ceaselessly,
I can't somehow remember your face.
I come to myself, and realize I'm humming over and over again
a tune of some music that caught my ear.
Though I think I'd like to see you
it's not so much a passion as a curiosity:
I'd like to make certain of what's what with myself,
in front of you, once again.
What comes after doesn't come to my mind.
I can't imagine holding you either.
Only, the world other than you is quite wearying,
and like an actor in a movie filmed at high speed