love poems

Fair Ellen Irwin, when she sate
Upon the braes of Kirtle,
Was lovely as a Grecian maid
Adorned with wreaths of myrtle;
Young Adam Bruce beside her lay,
And there did they beguile the day
With love and gentle speeches,
Beneath the budding beeches.
From many knights and many squires
The Bruce had been selected;
And Gordon, fairest of them all,
By Ellen was rejected.
Sad tidings to that noble Youth!
For it may be proclaimed with truth,
If Bruce hath loved sincerely,
That Gordon loves as dearly.

Gaze not on thy beauties pride,
Tender Maid, in the false tide
That from Lovers eyes doth slide.

Let thy faithful Chrystall show,
How thy colours come, and goe,
Beautie takes a foyle from woe.

Love, that in those smooth streames lyes,
Under pities faire disguise,
Will thy melting heart surprize.

Nets, of passions finest thred,
Snaring Poems, will be spred,
All, to catch thy maiden-head.

Then beware, for those that cure
Loves disease, themselves endure
For reward a Calenture.

The sacred body of my love,
Equal mate of an equal mate in perfect union blended,
So long so scorned by every trifling scoffer,
Beaten by whips of cords and whips of tongues,
The outcast wanderer banned by monkish gods and puritan men,
Givers so damned, so blushed about yet so hungered for,
At last sets up for itself the claim of noblest origin,
And calls upon the doubting world to hear.

O sacred body of my love!
Let me avow you in words that will be understood:

I loved thee beautiful and kind,
And plighted an eternal vow;
So altered are thy face and mind,
'Twere perjury to love thee now.

So sang I in the springtime of my years—
“There's nothing we can call our own but love;”
So let me murmur now that winter nears,
And even in death the deathless truth approve.
Oft have I seen the slow, the broadening river
Roll its glad waters to the parent sea;
Death is the call of love to love; the giver
Claims his own gift for some new mystery.
In boundless love divine the heavens are spread,
In wedded love is earth's divinest store,
And he that liveth to himself is dead,
And he that lives for love lives evermore;

When my dear Love is absent,
And in lonely grief I stand,
My bosom is an Egypt
With a famine in the land.

But when she cometh to me
With a tender, trusting smile,
My bosom is an Egypt
With an overflowing Nile.

If yet I have not all thy love,
Deare, I shall never have it all,
I cannot breath one other sigh, to move,
Nor can intreat one other teare to fall,
And all my treasure, which should purchase thee,
Sighs, teares, and oathes, and letters I have spent.
Yet no more can be due to mee,
Then at the bargaine made was ment,
If then thy gift of love were partiall,
That some to mee, some should to others fall,
Deare, I shall never have Thee All.

Or if then thou gavest mee all,
All was but All, which thou hadst then;

O Mind, drink deep of the wine of Hari's love.
Why follow after the wine of worldly pleasures? O fool, beware of these.

To the six draughts is due the bondage of desires: and these thou holdest good,

Beside the immortal wine of Hari's love, these are altogether tasteless.

The minds of sants are bees of Hari's nectar, ever inebriate with it.

Taste thou also of this nectar, filling thy vessel to the brim.
The one immortal draught is Hari's immortal love: all other immortalities are false.

What makes thee thus my hand to press,
With such an ardent fold;
What makes thee stop and sigh and blush,
Ere half thy tale be told?
Why do thy eyes, when fix'd on mine,
Such sweet sensations prove;
Then roll in softness, as they'd weep?—
It surely must be love.

Why does that wanton hand of thine,
Thus wander o'er my breast?
The little trembler that's within,
Thou marrest of its rest.
The silent language of thy sighs,
Me, too, to sigh doth move;
Yet still you press me to your breast,

Rouse to defend the land ye love,
Ye stalwart men and brave;
O'er all its breadth, from sea to sea,
Bid Freedom's banner wave.

They heard, they stood, in serried ranks
They marched at Freedom's call;
One hope beat high in every heart,
One thought inspired them all.

Deep in the furrow where it sank,
The plough, ungeared, stood still,
While broader plans and loftier aims,
Waited the freemen's will.

So Cincinnatus bravely led
His Roman soldiers, true;
So, fearless, trod through fields of blood