love poems

How should I love my best?
What though my love unto that height be grown,
That taking joy in you alone
I utterly this world detest,
Should I not love it yet as th'only place
Where Beauty hath his perfect grace,
And is possest?

But I beauties despise,
You, universal beauty seem to me,
Giving and shewing form and degree
To all the rest, in your fair eyes,
Yet should I not love them as parts whereon
Your beauty, their perfection
And top, doth rise?

But ev'n my self I hate,

Of course nostalgia Of course brooding

Give me the missing scattered through twelve states & three continents
Give me those scattered as ash

Give them their places at the table I have set
For them as much as for those gathered

How little it takes: a year ten years
A shiver fast passing & the eye clears

What was love once casts off disguises

— A cardinal's flare against forsythia simplified by snow —

What once was love spurns shallow guises & returns
startling as love

How ill doth he deserve a Lovers name,
Whose pale weak flame
Cannot retain
His heat in spight of absence or disdain;
But doth at once, like paper set on fire,
Burn and expire;
True love can never change his seat,
Nor did he ever love, that could retreat.

That noble flame, which my brest keeps alive,
Shall still survive,
When my soule 's fled;
Nor shall my love dye, when my bodye 's dead,
That shall wait on me to the lower shade,
And never fade:
My very ashes in their urn,

How do I love you?
— I do not know.
Only because of you
— Gladly I go.

Only because of you
— Labor is sweet,
And all the song of you
— Sings in my feet.

Only the thought of you
— Trembles and lies
Just where the world begins —
— Under my eyes.

How did it happen that we quarreled?
We two who loved each other so!
Only the moment before we were one,
Using the language that lovers know.
And then of a sudden, a word, a phrase
That struck at the heart like a poignard's blow.
And you went berserk, and I saw red,
And love lay between us, bleeding and dead!
Dead! When we'd loved each other so!

How could it happen that we quarreled!
Think of the things we used to say!
“What does it matter, dear, what you do?
Love such as ours has to last for aye!”

1. Holy Father, great creator, Source of mercy, love, and peace,
2. Holy Jesus, Lord of glory, Whom angelic hosts proclaim,
Look upon the Mediator, Clothe us with his righteousness;
While we hear thy wondrous story, Meet and worship in thy Name,
Heavenly Father, Heavenly Father, Through the Saviour hear and bless;
Dear Redeemer, dear Redeemer, In our hearts thy peace proclaim,
Heavenly Father, Heavenly Father, Through the Saviour hear and bless.
Dear Redeemer, dear Redeemer, In our hearts thy peace proclaim.

3. Holy Spirit, Sanctifier,

Hide not thy love and myne shal bee
Open and free;
No mask dooth well upon thy face.
Lett those that meane more hurt provide
Love of a guide,
Or of some close retyring place.
A harmles kisse would make us thinck
Love hath no Nectar else to drinck.

Our loves are not of age to will
Both good and ill,
For thine, alas, is but new borne,
And myne is yett to yonge to speake.
How can they breake
Or hold Loves civill Lawes in skorne?
Wee might go naked if some spie,
Apt to traduce us, stood not by.

He hears with gladdened heart the thunder
Peal, and loves the falling dew;
He knows the earth above and under —
Sits and is content to view.

He sits beside the dying ember,
God for hope and man for friend,
Content to see, glad to remember,
Expectant of the certain end.

Hear, O Self-Giver, infinite as good;
This faith, at least, my wavering heart should hold,
Nor find in dark regret its daily food,
But catch the gleam of glories yet untold.
Yea, even on earth, beloved, as love well knew,
Brief absence brought our fond returning kiss,
So let my soul to God's great world and you
Look onward with sweet pain of secret bliss; —
O sunset sky and lonely gleaming star,
Your beauty thrills me from the bound of space,
O Love, thy loveliness shows best afar,

Heare ye Virgins, and Ile teach,
What the times of old did preach.
Rosamond was in a Bower
Kept, as Danae in a Tower:
But yet Love (who subtile is)
Crept to that, and came to this.
Be ye lockt up like to these,
Or the rich Hesperides;
Or those Babies in your eyes,
In their Christall Nunneries;
Notwithstanding Love will win,
Or else force a passage in:
And as coy be, as you can,
Gifts will get ye, or the man.