love poems

I cannot cease to love thee,
Coldest fair!
Though pleading cannot move thee,
And I despair.

Thy beauty was diviner,
Than the summer moon,
And thou didst outshine her,
At her noon.

Thy brow was like the silver
On the star-lit sea;
Thy bright eyes did bewilder
All, as me.

Thy motions were the motions
Of a charmed bird,
As, poised o'er dream-world oceans,
His sweet voice is heard.

Thou wast queenlier far
Than the queenliest flower,
More glorious than a star

Though thou wast passing fair,
And wondrous beauty crown'd thee,
And Fancy's robe most rare,
Forever brightly bound thee:

I could not teach my heart,
To bow in love before thee,
Nor bid the death depart,
Which now hangs darkly o'er thee.

I know a hectic flush
On thy sweet cheek is burning,
That thou dost stilly hush
Thy wrung heart's deepest yearning.

I know that in thy breast,
A serpent closely lurking,
Forbids thee e'er to rest,
Thy utter ruin working.

The flowers you gave, dear girl, will fade,
Nor shun the common lot, to die;
The thoughts they spoke, still undecayed,
Shall bloom immortal as the sky.

Beneath the sun's meridian ray,
They'll fade and leave no trace behind:
The love they woke shall ne'er decay,
But be immortal like the Mind.

I dreamed last night, my lady-love,
A dear, delicious dream;
'Twas not in bower or blooming grove,
Nor by the sylvan stream.

'Twas in thy father's noble hall,
In dreams I saw thee, lady love!
Yet 'twas no gorgeous festival,
No flowers beneath--no lights above.

It was a sacred, simple scene,
Thy smiling sisters gathered round,
With kindly air, and gentle mien,
And spoke--a magic, home-born sound!

Then thou and I, sweet lady-love!
Roved out amid the garden green,

'Twas evening's hour of magic power,
The sun went brightly down,
And shadows fell as with a spell,
Along the mountains brown.

On high the sky, with gorgeous dye,
Then glittered bright and wide,
And westward far, the evening star,
Came trembling like a bride.

The birds did chime their drowsy rhyme,
As day was getting o'er,
The rippling wave, did sweetly lave
The winding, pebbly shore.

There walked beside that crystal tide,
Fair Holston's lovely stream,
My lady bright, at soft twilight,

When Hesper shows his rosiate lamp of love,
High in yon lofty arch of dewy blue;
When gentle dews distilling from above,
Sparkle upon the spreading grass and groves of yew--
When sinks to rest the faintly murmuring breeze,
And dim and indistinct the landscape view--
Lonely I stray among the poplar trees
And muse, dear Eleanor, dear love, on you.

When Luna looks upon yon mountains brown,
And gilds the winding stream with silvery hue,
And Silence, like a fall of whitest down,

The fairest of our village maids,
Was blue-eyed Lilly May;
Her brow was decked with golden curls,
Her laugh was wild and gay:
And spotless as a ray of heaven,
Young love within her lay.

The rose which decked the fairy vale,
Near by our rural town,
Showed not a deeper tint of blood,
Than dyed her cheeks of down,
And innocence like that of heaven,
Her fair, young head did crown.

Oh Lilly May! Oh! Lilly May!
My heart was all thine own,
Earth ne'er gave me a sweeter sound,

The Summer's sunset throws a tender spell,
Along the hills, o'er ocean's softened swell;
The God of day goes flaming down the sky,
And zephyr floats on perfumed pinions by.
Oh! who can gaze upon this gorgeous sight,
Nor feel his bosom chain'd by deep delight,
This hour when beauty wears her richest dye,
And love o'erflows charmed ocean, earth and sky;
Till fancy, dreaming in her lovely bower,
Hears far off strains of deep, o'erwhelming power,
And, lifting up her pensive orbs above,
Spies Angels winging through yon vault of love,

Kate-a-Whimsies, John-a-Dreams,
Still debating, still delay,
And the world's a ghost that gleams -
Wavers--vanishes away!

We must live while live we can;
We should love while love we may.
Dread in women, doubt in man . . .
So the Infinite runs away.

The twilight fleeted away in pearl on the stream,
And night, like a diamond dome, stood still in our dream.
Your eyes like burnished stones or as stars were bright
With the sudden vision that made us one with the night.

We loved in infinite spaces, forgetting here
The breasts that were lit with life and the lips so near;
Till the wizard willows waved in the wind and drew
Me away from the fulness of love and down to you.

Our love was so vast that it filled the heavens up:
But the soft white form I held was an empty cup,