love poems

When young, I loved. At that enchanting age,
So sweet, so short, love was my sole delight;
And when I reached the time for being sage,
Still I loved on, for reason gave me right.

Snows come at length, and livelier joys depart,
Yet gentle ones still kiss these eyelids dim;
For still I love, and love consoles my heart;
What could console me for the loss of Him?

O Love, that dost with goodness crown
The years through all the ages down,
Our highest faith, our deepest cheer,
Is that thy life is ever near!

From planets singing on their way
To flowers that fear the eye of day,
From rivers that rejoicing go
To brooks that murmur sweet and low,

Well know I that the pageant vast,
So beautiful from first to last,
Is but the smile upon thy face,
The sign of love's unmeasured grace.

The seasons roll at thy command;
'Tis in thy strength the mountains stand;

I sing of the woods where the languid mosses dwell,
Of the shimmering forests of May which the sun loves well,
Of the gleaming gold of the jonquil buds that sway
In the soft caress of the evening breeze at play.

I sing of the silver stars that shine in the sky,
Of the argent glow of the moonbeams fluttering by,
Of the rainbow surf that breaks on the pallid sand,
Of the purple sea embracing the blossom-land.

I sing of the meadows a-bright with flowery dew,
Of the scarlet starling that soars from the desert blue,—

You the one woman who could have me all
because you would, because it multiplied,
all that I said and did, your joy and pride
to have and hold me; you Love's gladsome thrall
and hence exactress that you must forestall
nor yet remit to all the world beside
love of that lover whom your love defied
to rate himself less than itself should call:

Death that is dire to all, most dreadful here
to you the smitten and this stricken man
you made and call'd your own, let him have done
that thing he can, the one, no more to fear

Shall I come, sweet Love, to thee,
When the ev'ning beams are set?
Shall I not excluded be?
Will you find no fained let?
Let me not, for pity, more,
Tell the long hours at your door.

Who can tell what thief or foe,
In the covert of the night,
For his prey, will work my woe,
Or through wicked foul despite:
So may I die unredress'd,
Ere my long love be possess'd.

But to let such dangers pass,
Which a lover's thoughts disdain,
'Tis enough in such a place
To attend love's joys in vain.

I have brought my pillow and am lying at the northern window,
So come to me and play with me awhile.
With so much quarrelling and so few kisses
How long do you think our love can last?

I heard my love was going to Yang-chou
And went with him as far as Ch'u-shan.
For a moment when you held me fast in your outstretched arms
I thought the river stood still and did not flow.

Come soon, my friends, poet and painter, both.
I need you always, and my eyes are loth
To miss your gentle faces.
With idle touches on the strings and quills,
My sad lyre traces you through plains and hills,
Towns and historic places.

My music is gone with you overseas.
Oh! lute and pencil, come and give me ease,
For you have stolen my art.
I thirst for thee, thou double stream most sweet,
Alpheus and Arethuse, whose waters fleet
Met, mingled in my heart.

I watch the painter and the poet linger

Inland, inland, inland, inland.
I am walking long inland, inland.
Nobody loves me, she is the greatest of all, I walk inland.
They love me only on account of the things I obtain for them.
They love me only on account of the food I obtain for them.

I LOVE a prayer-book;
I love a thorn-tree
That blows in the grass
As white as can be.

I love an old house
Set down in the sun,
And the windy old roads
That thereabout run.

I love blue, thin frocks;
Green stones one and all;
A sky full of stars,
A rose at the fall.

A lover I love;
Oh, had I but one,
I would give him all these,
Myself, and the sun!