love poems

I PRAY thee, Dante, shouldst thou meet with Love
In any place where Lapo then may be,
That there thou fail not to mark heedfully
If Love with lover's name that man approve;
If to our Master's will his lady move
Aright, and if himself show fealty:
For ofttimes, by ill custom, ye may see
This sort profess the semblance of true love.
Thou know'st that in the court where Love holds sway
A law subsists, that no man who is vile
Can service yield to a lost woman there.
If suffering aught avail the sufferer,

I love thee when thy swelling buds appear,
And one by one their tender leaves unfold,
As if they knew that warmer suns were near
Nor longer sought to hide from winter's cold;
And when with darker growth thy leaves are seen
To veil from view the early robin's nest,
I love to lie beneath thy waving skreen
With limbs by summer's heat and toil opprest;
And when the autumn winds have stript thee bare,
And round thee lies the smooth untrodden snow,
When nought is thine that made thee once so fair,

I lost the love of heaven above,
I spurned the lust of earth below,
I felt the sweets of fancied love,
And hell itself my only foe.

I lost earth's joys, but felt the glow
Of heaven's flame abound in me,
Till loveliness and I did grow
The bard of immortality.

I loved, but woman fell away;
I hid me from her faded fame.
I snatched the sun's eternal ray
And wrote till earth was but a name.

In every language upon earth,
On every shore, o'er every sea,
I gave my name immortal birth

I shall say what inordinat love is:
The furiosite and wodness of minde,
A instinguible brenning fawting blis,
A gret hungre, insaciat to finde,
A dowcet ille, a ivell swetness blinde,
A right wonderfulle, sugred, swete errour,
Withoute labour rest, contrary to kinde,
Or withoute quiete to have huge labour.

I send you here a wreath of blossoms blown,
And woven flowers at sunset gathered,
Another dawn had seen them ruined, and shed
Loose leaves upon the grass at random strown.
By this, their sure example, be it known,
That all your beauties, now in perfect flower,
Shall fade as these, and wither in an hour.
Flowerlike, and brief of days, as the flower sown.

Ah, time is flying, lady, — time is flying;
Nay, 'tis not time that flies but we that go,
Who in short space shall be in churchyard lying,

I saw a Vision yesternight
Enough to sate a Seeker's sight,
I wish'd my self a shaker there,
And her quick Pants my trembling Sphere.
It was a She so glittering bright,
You'd think her Soul an Adamite,
A Person of so rare a frame,
Her Body might be lin'd with th' same.
Beautie's chiefest Maid of Honour,
You may break Lent with looking on her.
Not the fair Abbess of the Skies
With all her Nunnery of Eyes
Can shew me such a glorious Prize.

I never thought that my love would leave me
Until one evening when he came in.
He sat him down and I sat beside him
And then our troubles did begin.

Oh love is teasing and love is pleasing,
And love's a pleasure when first it's new.
But as it grows older it waxes colder
And fades away like the morning dew.

There is a blackbird sits on yon tree,
Some say that he's blind and cannot see.
How I wish it had been the same by me
Before my false love I did see.

Oh I wish my father had never whistled,

I never saw youe madam laye aparte
Your cornet black, in colde nor yet in heate,
Sythe first ye knew of my desire so greate,
Which other fances chac'd cleane from my harte.
Whiles to my self I did the thought reserve
That so unware did wounde my wofull brest,
Pytie I saw within your hart dyd rest;
But since ye knew I did youe love and serve
Your golden treese was clad alway in blacke,
Your smilyng lokes that hid thus evermore,
All that withdrawne that I did crave so sore.
So doth this cornet governe me, a lacke,

I must possess you utterly
And utterly must you possess me;
So even if that dreamer's tale
Of heaven and hell be true
There shall be two spirits rived together
Either in whatever peace be heaven
Or in the icy whirlwind that is hell
For those who loved each other more than God —
So that the other spirits shall cry out:
" Ah! Look how the ancient love yet holds to them
That these two ghosts are never driven apart
But kiss with shadowy kisses and still take
Joy from the mingling of their misty limbs! "

I MET the Love-Talker one eve in the glen,
He was handsomer than any of our handsome young men,
His eyes were blacker than the sloe, his voice sweeter far
Than the crooning of old Kevin's pipes beyond in Coolnagar.

I was bound for the milking with a heart fair and free —
My grief! my grief! that bitter hour drained the life from me;
I thought him human lover, though his lips on mine were cold,
And the breath of death blew keen on me within his hold.

I know not what way he came, no shadow fell behind,