love poems

If I had never known
How far would I have wandered wistfully alone,
Hearing no echo of that wondrous song
Whose music lingers long.

Beside whose sweetness pale
Even the soft notes of the nightingale,
Whose theme is wrought of laughter and of tears
From all the deathless years.

Ah, better thus by far
To once have felt the barriers unbar,
And known the moment in a rapt surprise
The song of Paradise!

When twilight falls and all the land is still,
The purple shadows steal across the hill,
And one lone star above a pine-tree's crest
Shines ever brighter, while from out its nest
There breaks the low cry of the whip-poor-will.

And softly grows the ladened hush until
E'en winds list o'er the fields of daffodil
They all day wafted,--'tis so sweet to rest
When twilight falls.

Let not one drop of this rare nectar spill,
But with the beryl wine your goblet fill.
Drink with me, Love, the golden of the west,

I looked out of my window tall
And laughed to see the May,
For everything both great and small
Was on a holiday.

Then Love came by and laughed at me,
And I forgot the Spring--
Only I knew the ecstasy
Of madly listening.

And now the branches all again
Are red with vernal May,
But tears have dimmed the window-pane--
And no one comes my way.

Deem not this book a creed, 't is but the cry
Of one who fears not death, yet would not die;
Who at the table feigns with sorry jest.
To love the wine the Master's hand has pressed,
The while he loves the absent Master best,--
The bitter cry of Love for love's reply!

(The Highlands)


Mountains,
Veiled in shifting vapors,
Mountains,
Bleak, foreboding,
Mountains,
Stark and overpowering.
Torrents,
Tumbling, crashing,
Dragging boulders
In their rushing,
Lakes,
Forlorn and lonesome
Heather
In magenta patches,
Sheep, and cattle
Black and somber,
Winding roads
Through massive passes.
Rain,
Sun,
Flowers,
Mist,
Rain,--

(Locheven)


I love to tread a winding path
Through the woods,
And, world weary, pause upon it.
The trees bend and enclose me
In brooding calm;
I feel the presence of Deity.

I hear the cadence of the stillness--
A stillness so alive.
The whisper of the leaves,
The song of the brook over golden stone
The whir of a bird's wings;
And I know the presence of Deity.

Why do you prate to me
Of deeds unjust and just,
Moved by a story of good
Or a monstrous tale of crimes--
Me that can have no loves
But star-eyed queens long dust,
Me that can mourn no griefs
But the tears in poets' rhymes?

A pale wraith stood in the dim grey dawn
Beside his old love's bed
Wavering like a film of lawn
And wrang his hands and said,
"Oh! I have come to make my prayer
For I cannot take my rest
When I think of the red crown I called your hair
And the cold stone in your breast.

"Out of the eyeless hopeless dark
The nights that are black and grey
Never a moon or faint star-spark
Or a lonely glimmer of day.
Oh! my love, I have come, love,
From the ebony gates of death
For the sake of the red crown I called your hair

"Light of my life lie close
Oh! Love, I have found you at last;
Let me hear your low sweet voice
The knell of the aching past.
The lashes lie on your cheek
Oh! lift them and show me your eyes;
Twin stars in a mortal face,
They are soft, they are kind, they are wise."

"Heart of my hungry heart
My hero whose hand is in mine
If we fall let it be to the pit,
For to-day we have touched the divine.
Time has stood still to-day....
This day which has squandered its sun.
It has been all glory and gold

TWO DAYS
(February 15--September 28, 1894)


To V. G.

That day we brought our Beautiful One to lie
In the green peace within your gates, he came
To give us greeting, boyish and kind and shy,
And, stricken as we were, we blessed his name:
Yet, like the Creature of Light that had been ours,
Soon of the sweet Earth disinherited,
He too must join, even with the Year's old flowers,
The unanswering generations of the Dead.
So stand we friends for you, who stood our friend