love poems

I KNOW not, wherefore, dearest love,
Thou often art so strange and coy!
When 'mongst man's busy haunts we move,
Thy coldness puts to flight my joy.
But soon as night and silence round us reign,
I know thee by thy kisses sweet again!

How can one e'er be sure
If true love will endure?
My thoughts this morning are
As tangled as my hair.

Fie, fie on blind fancy,
It hinders youth's joy:
Fair virgins, learn by me,
To count love a toy.
When Love learned first the A B C of delight,
And knew no figures, nor conceited phrase,
He simply gave to due desert her right,
He led not lovers in dark winding ways,
He plainly willed to love, or flatly answered no;
But now who lists to prove, shall find it nothing so.
Fie, fie then on fancy,
It hinders youth's joy:
Fair virgins, learn by me,
To count love a toy.
For since he learned to use the poet's pen,

Homer, best of bards we're told,
Says that Love is all of gold;
So if we can pay Love's fee
Doors will open easily,
Porters hurry at your call,
Watch-dogs trouble not at all;
But if you've no gold to pay
Cerberus will bar your way;
Greed is money's rule, my boy,
To rob a poor man of his joy.

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings out friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds

Let not Love on me bestow
Soft Distress, and tender Woe;
I know none but substantial Blisses,
Eager Glances, solid Kisses;
I know not what the Lovers feign,
Of finer Pleasure mix'd with Pain;
Then prethee give me gentle Boy,
None of thy Grief but all thy Joy.

Sweet valley, say, where, pensive lying,
For me, our children, England, sighing,
The best of mortals leans his head.
Ye fountains, dimpled by my sorrow,
Ye brooks that my compainings borrow,
O lead me to his lonely bed:
Or if my lover,
Deep woods, you cover,
Ah whisper where your shadows o'er him spread.

'Tis not the loss of pomp and pleasure,
Of empire, or of tinsel treasure,
That drops this tear, that swells this groan:
No; from a nobler cause proceeding,
A heart with love and fondness bleeding,

O PEACE ! the fairest child of Heaven,
To whom the sylvan reign was given,
The vale, the fountain, and the grove,
With every softer scene of love;
Return, sweet Peace! and cheer the weeping swain,
Return, with Ease and Pleasure in thy train.

O PEACE ! the fairest child of Heaven,
To whom the sylvan reign was given,
The vale, the fountain, and the grove,
With every softer scene of love;
Return, sweet Peace! and cheer the weeping swain,
Return, with Ease and Pleasure in thy train.

From thy fair face I learn, O my loved lord,
that which no mortal tongue can rightly say;
the soul, imprisoned in her house of clay,
holpen by thee to God hath often soared:

and though the vulgar, vain, malignant horde
attribute what their grosser wills obey,
yet shall this fervent homage that I pay,
this love, this faith, pure joys for us afford.

Lo, all the lovely things we find on earth
resemble for the soul that rightly sees,
that source of bliss divine which gave us birth:

All in the lilac-rain,
—Tender and sweet,
Brushing the window-pane
—Sudden—and fleet!
Came the dear wraith of her
—Out of lost Mays—
(Ah, but the faith of her,
—True to old ways!)

Scarcely her face I knew
—Dim in the wet;
Only her eyes of blue
—Who could forget!
Hands full of lilacs too—
—Lilac crowned, yet!

These were the flowers she loved
—In the far years;
These were the showers she loved—
—Light as her tears!
These were the hours she loved—
—Hope chasing fears!