love poems

Full of wickedness, I—of many a smutch'd deed reminiscent—of worse deeds capable,
Yet I look composedly upon nature, drink day and night the joys of life, and await death with perfect equanimity,
Because of my tender and boundless love for him I love and because of his boundless love for me.

Thank God Who spared me what I feared!
Once more I gird myself to run.
Thy promise stands, Thou Faithful One.
Horror of darkness disappeared
At length; once more I see the sun,

And dare to wait in hope for Spring,
To face and bear the Winter's cold:
The dead cocoon shall yet unfold
And give to light the living wing;
There's hidden sap beneath the mould.

My God, how could my courage flag
So long as Thou art still the same?
For what were labour, failure, shame,
Whilst Thy sure promise doth not lag

Love came, and round about her played a sense
Of life and heaven, and sweet and sinless sleep,
And plains of golden corn a man might reap
For ever, for there is not any fence,
And powers of thought unresting and intense,
And powers of love majestic,—even as deep
As the blue dim Atlantic, and immense
And lofty and eternal as the steep
Of any Alpine summit crowned with snow;
And powers of passion resolute and wild,
Yet tender as the green and rosy glow
Wherewith the sun, deserting us, has smiled,

You shall not love me for what daily spends,
You shall not know me in the noisy street
Where I as others follow petty ends,
Nor when in fair saloons we chance to meet,
Nor when I'm jaded, sick, perplexed, or mean:
But love me then & only when you know
Me for the channel of the rivers of God,
From deep, ideal, fontal heavens that flow,
Making the shores, making their beauty broad,
Which birds & cattle drink, drink too the roots of the grove,
And animating all it feeds with love.

Love is a Leven, and a loving kisse
The Leven of a loving sweet-heart is.

Come, listen to my story, while
Your needle's task you ply;
At what I sing some maids will smile,
While some, perhaps, may sigh.
Though Love's the theme, and Wisdom blames
Such florid songs as ours,
Yet Truth, sometimes, like eastern dames,
Can speak her thoughts by flowers.
Then listen, maids, come listen, while
Your needle's task you ply;
At what I sing there's some may smile,
While some, perhaps, will sigh.

Young Cloe, bent on catching Loves,
Such nets had learn'd to frame,

To be able
and not to do it

Still as a flower

No flame,
a flower spent
with heat—

lovely flower
hanging
in the rain


Never!

Soberly

Whiter than day

Wait forever
shaken by the rain

To her, who, cast with me in trying days,
Stood in the place of health, and power, and praise;—
Who, when I thought all light was out, became
A lamp of hope that put my fears to shame;—
Who faced for love's sole sake the life austere
That waits upon the man of letters here;—
Who, unawares, her deep affection showed,
By many a touching little wifely mode;—
Whose spirit self-denying, dear, divine,
Its sorrows hid, so it might lessen mine,—
To her, my bright best friend, I dedicate
This book of songs. 'Twill help to compensate

Thy charms are all decaying, love,
The smile that once was playing, love,
So pure and bright,
It seemed but light
From day's clear fountain straying, love,—

That smile away is stealing, love,
Thy lip no more revealing, love,
The sweets of soul,
That Cupid stole
To fill his cup of feeling, love.

That lip will shed its sweetness, love,
Thy form will lose its fleetness, love,
Arrayed no more,
As when it wore
The snowy veil of neatness, love.

O, time is stealing by us, love,

If 't please you see how Love's might overcame,
How He attacked and how He conquered me,
How my heart burns and freezes for His glee,
How He doth make His Honor of my Shame;

If't please you see my youth running to claim
What brings it nought but pain and contumely,
Then come and read, and know the agony
Of which my Goddess and my God make game.

Then you shall know that Love is reasonless,
A sweet deceit, a dear imprisonment,
An empty hope that feeds us with the wind.