love poems

REFRAIN

Dancing in the dark,
Till the tune ends
We're dancing in the dark,
And it soon ends.
We're waltzing in the wonder
Of why we're here.
Time hurries by, we're here
And gone,
Looking for the light
Of a new love
To brighten up the night.
I have you, love,
And we can face the music together,
Dancing in the dark.

INTERLUDE

What though love is old?
What though song is old?
Through them we can be young!

Loving you less than life, a little less
Than bitter-sweet upon a broken wall
Or brush-wood smoke in autumn, I confess
I cannot swear I love you not at all.
For there is that about you in this light —
A yellow darkness, sinister of rain —
Which sturdily recalls my stubborn sight
To dwell on you, and dwell on you again.
And I am made aware of many a week
I shall consume, remembering in what way
Your brown hair grows about your brow and cheek,
And what divine absurdities you say:
Till all the world, and I, and surely you,

L OVE'S on the highroad,
Love's in the byroad —
— Love's on the meadow, and Love's in the mart!
And down every byway
Where I've taken my way
— I've met Love a-smiling — for Love's in my heart!

Love within the lover's breast
Burns like Hesper in the west,
O'er the ashes of the sun,
Till the day and night are done;
Then when dawn drives up her car—
Lo! it is the morning star.

Love! thy love pours down on mine
As the sunlight on the vine,
As the snow-rill on the vale,
As the salt breeze in the sail;
As the song unto the bird,
On my lips thy name is heard.

As a dewdrop on the rose
In thy heart my passion glows,
As a skylark to the sky,
Up into thy breast I fly;

Another Leonora once inspir'd
Tasso, with fatal love to phrenzy fir'd,
But how much happier, liv'd he now, were he,
Pierc'd with whatever pangs for love of thee!
Since could he hear that heavenly voice of thine,
With Adriana's lute of sound divine,
Fiercer than Pentheus' tho' his eye might roll,
Or idiot apathy benumb his soul,
You still, with medicinal sounds, might cheer
His senses wandering in a blind career;
And sweetly breathing thro' his wounded breast,
Charm, with soul-soothing song, his thoughts to rest.

Lovely lady, fairest of the time,
hiding away in an empty valley;
daughter of a good house, she said,
fallen now among grasses of the wood
“There was tumult and death within the passes then;
my brothers, old and young, were killed.
Office, position—what help were they?
I couldn't even gather up my brothers' bones!
The world despises you when your luck is down;
all I had went with the turn of the flame.
My husband was a fickle fellow,
his new girl as fair as jade.
Blossoms that close at dusk keep faith with the hour,

O Lord, seek us, O Lord, find us
In Thy patient care;
Be Thy Love before, behind us,
Round us, everywhere:
Lest the god of this world blind us,
Lest he speak us fair,
Lest he forge a chain to bind us,
Lest he bait a snare.
Turn not from us, call to mind us,
Find, embrace us, bear;
Be Thy Love before, behind us,
Round us, everywhere.

Love's memories haunt my footsteps still
Like ceaseless flowings of the river
Its mystic depths say what can fill?
Sad disappointment waits for ever.

Love on a day (wise poets tell)
Some time in wrangling spent,
Whether the violets should excel,
Or she, in sweetest scent.

But Venus having lost the day,
Poor girls, she fell on you
And beat you so, (as some dare say)
Her blows did make you blue.

Love brought me to a silent Grove,
And shew'd me there a Tree,
Where some had hang'd themselves for love,
And gave a Twist to me.

The Halter was of silk, and gold,
That he reacht forth unto me:
No otherwise, then if he would
By dainty things undo me.

He bade me then that Neck-lace use;
And told me too, he maketh
A glorious end by such a Noose,
His Death for Love that taketh.

'Twas but a dream; but had I been
There really alone;
My desp'rate feares, in love, had seen