love poems

My love is like a spring among the hills
Whose brimming waters may not be confined
But pour one torrent through the ways that wind
Down to a garden; there the rose distills
Its nectar; there a tall, white lily fills
Night with anointing of two lovers, blind,
Dumb, deaf, of body, spirit, and of mind
From breathless blending of far-sundered wills.

Long ere my love had reached you, hard I strove
To send its torrent through the barren fields;
I wanted you, the lilied treasure-trove
Of innocence, whose dear possession yields

When thou didst think I did not love,
Then thou didst dote on me;
Now, when thou find'st that I do prove
As kind as kind can be,
Love dies in thee.

What way to fire the mercury
Of thy inconstant mind?
Methinks it were good policy
For me to turn unkind,
To make thee kind.

Yet will I not good nature strain
To buy, at so great cost,
That which, before I do obtain,
I make account almost
That it is lost.

And though I might myself excuse
By imitating thee,

Whenas the watches of the night had grown
To that deep loneliness where dreams begin,
I saw how Love, with visage worn and thin,—
With wings close-bound, went through a town alone.
Death-pale he showed, and inly seemed to moan
With sore desire some dolorous place to win;
Sharp brambles passed had streaked his dazzling skin,—
His bright feet eke were gashed with many a stone.
And, as he went, I, sad for piteousness,
Might see how men from door and gate would move
To stay his steps; or womankind would press,

I built me a house, with a mountain above,
A stream and a willow, a bird and a love.

The mountain was high. The stream it was fleet.
The willow was gentle. The bird-song was sweet.

The love she was dark-eyed, and snowy her breast.
And she was my joy, and my dusk, and my rest.

Where did you borrow that last sigh,
—And that relenting groan?
For those that sigh, and not for love,
—Usurp what 's not their own.
Love's arrows sooner armour pierce
—Than your soft snowy skin;
Your eyes can only teach us love,
—But cannot take it in.

Where did you borrow that last sigh,
—And that relenting groan?
For those that sigh, and not for love,
—Usurp what 's not their own.
Love's arrows sooner armour pierce
—Than your soft snowy skin;
Your eyes can only teach us love,

Who dares to say I am untrue to Spain
Loving this barren land, loving this plain
Scarlet as blood or white as sun-bleached bones,
Loving these flat-roofed mountains and these stones
Round with spring waters where now the bed gapes dry,
Loving these rainbowed storms, this turquoise sky,
Yes, even these Indians in their high mud towns
For all their sacred meal and feathered crowns?
Some of you seek for souls and some for gold
And some for lands that you may seize and hold,
But all is mine on which I set my eyes,

When my little love at purple dusk,
Trips out upon the lawn among the flowers,
The blushing roses quiver in their musk,
Love-smitten through: the feathery, fragrant showers
Of snow-white blossoms drift upon the grass,
Kissing her whispering footsteps as they pass.

When my little love at evening's hush,
Goes dancing down the dell with laugh and song,
The slumbering echoes waken, and a gush
Of silvery voices greet her, and along
The dewy clusters of the trailing vines
In music mingles, murmurs, and repines.

How little seem the joys and fears
We shun or chase!
How foolish seem our fevered years
Of smiles and tears,
Beside the music of the spheres
And the high harmonies of Space!

Natheless the spinning dædal world,
Floats in the current of our veins;
Within our souls the stars are whirled;
We breed the planets in our brains.
From us all Being has its birth,
Of all things is our being spun;
In us are Heaven, and Hell, and Earth,
And every star, and every sun.

When hair of gold
Turns hair of grey;

High on the peak
of cloud-capped
Mount Fuji
the smoke is rising—
and no more
easy to hide
is the burning

Smoothing soft the nestling head
Of a maiden fancy-led,
Thus a grave-eyed woman said:

“Richest gifts are those we make,
Dearer than the love we take
That we give for love's own sake.

“Well I know the heart's unrest;
Mine has been the common quest,
To be loved and therefore blest.

“Favors undeserved were mine;
At my feet as on a shrine
Love has laid its gifts divine.

“Sweet the offerings seemed, and yet
With their sweetness came regret,
And a sense of unpaid debt.