love poems

[The author (if he can be so styled) awoke from a restless sleep,
with the first stanza of the following piece in his mind. He has
no memory of composing it, either awake or asleep. He had long
known the perhaps Pythagorean fable of the bean-juice, but
certainly never thought of applying it to an amorous
correspondence! The remaining verses are the contribution of his
Conscious Self!]

ELLE.

I cannot write, I may not write,
I dare not write to thee,
But look on the face of the moon by night,

From the brake the Nightingale
Sings exulting to the Rose;
Though he sees her waxing pale
In her passionate repose,
While she triumphs waxing frail,
Fading even while she glows;
Though he knows
How it goes -
Knows of last year's Nightingale
Dead with last year's Rose.

Wise the enamoured Nightingale,
Wise the well-beloved Rose!
Love and life shall still prevail,
Nor the silence at the close
Break the magic of the tale
In the telling, though it shows -
Who but knows
How it goes! -

If it should come to be,
This proof of you and me,
This type and sign
Of hours that smiled and shone,
And yet seemed dead and gone
As old-world wine:

Of Them Within the Gate
Ask we no richer fate,
No boon above,
For girl child or for boy,
My gift of life and joy,
Your gift of love.

Love blows as the wind blows,
Love blows into the heart.
- Nile Boat-Song


Life in her creaking shoes
Goes, and more formal grows,
A round of calls and cues:
Love blows as the wind blows.
Blows! . . . in the quiet close
As in the roaring mart,
By ways no mortal knows
Love blows into the heart.

The stars some cadence use,
Forthright the river flows,
In order fall the dews,
Love blows as the wind blows:
Blows! . . . and what reckoning shows
The courses of his chart?

Take, oh take those boots away,
That so nearly are outworn;
And those shoes remove, I pray--
Pumps that but induce the corn!
But my slippers bring again,
Bring again;
Works of love, but worked in vain,
Worked in vain!

The linnet had flown from its cage away,
And flitted and sang in the light of day--
Had flown from the lady who loved it well,
In Liberty's freer air to dwell.
Alas! poor bird, it was soon to prove,
Sweeter than Liberty is Love.

When night came on it had ceased to sing,
And had hidden its head beneath its wing.
It thought of the warm room left behind,
The shelter from cold and rain and wind;
It could not sleep, when to sleep it strove--
Liberty needeth the help of Love.

The night owls shrieked as they wheeled along,

I love the inoffensive frog,
'A little child, a limber elf,'
With health and spirits all agog,
He does the long jump in a bog
Or teaches men to swim and dive.
If he should be cut up alive,
Should I not be cut up myself?

So I intend to be straightway
An Anti-Vivisectionist;
I'll read Miss Cobbe five hours a day
And watch the little frogs at play,
With no desire to see their hearts
At work, or other inward parts,
If other inward parts exist.

As those who hear a sweet bird sing,
And love each song it sings the best,
Grieve when they see it taking wing
And flying to another nest:

We, who have heard your voice so oft,
And loved it more than we can tell,
Our hearts grow sad, our voices soft,
Our eyes grow dim, to say farewell.

It is not kind to leave us thus;
Yet we forgive you and combine,
Although you now bring grief to us,
To wish you joy, for auld lang syne.

You ask why I am lonely now,
In all this brilliant scene,
And why I look on beauty's charms,
With cold, unalter'd mien.

You say that, many a loving heart,
Would joy to be my own,
That none of all the human race,
Should ever live alone.

I'll tell you why I'm lonely now,
If grief will let me speak,
And why I glance on woman's charms
With cold, unalter'd cheek.

'Twas in my boyhood's happy days,
I loved a blue-eyed maid;
The light of heaven o'er that young cheek,

My heart is newly gushing,
With love for thee, with love for thee,
With thoughts as wild and wasteful,
As yonder sea, as yonder sea.

Oh yes! my soul is wretched
With longing pain, with longing pain,
It gives a ceaseless moaning,
Like yonder main, like yonder main.

Thy strange and matchless beauty,
Is like the sea, is like the sea;
Thy face in love or anger,
Is sweet to me, is sweet to me.

Thy maiden soul is precious
As yonder deep, as yonder deep,
Within its glassy clearness,