love poems

The fishing-boats are tossed about,
When stormy winds blow strong;
With rudder lost, how can they reach
The port for which they long?
So runs the old love-song.

What pearls, what rubies can
Seem so lovely fair to man,
As her lips whom he doth love,
When in sweet discourse they move,
Or her lovelier teeth, the while
She doth bless him with a smile?
Stars indeed fair creatures bee:
Yet amongst us where is hee
Joys not more the whilst he lies
Sunning in his mistress' eyes,
Than in all the glimmering light
Of a starrie winter's night?
Note the beautie of an eye—
And if aught you praise it bye
Leave such passion in your mind,
Let my reason's eye be blind.

Why should dull Art, which is wise Nature's ape,
If she produce a shape,
So far beyond all patterns that of old
Fell from her mould,
As thine, admired Lucinda, not bring forth
An equal wonder to express that worth
In some new way, that hath
Like her great work no print of vulgar path?
Is it because the rapes of Poetry,
Rifling the spacious sky
Of all his fires, light, beauty, influence,
Did those dispense
On airy creations, that surpass'd
The real works of Nature; she at last,
To prove their raptures vain,

Love sayeth: Sing of me!
What else is worth a song?
I had refrained
Lest I should do Love wrong.

“Clean hands, and a pure heart,”
I prayed, “and I will sing:”
But all I gained
Brought to my word no wing.

Stars, sunshine, seas and skies,
Earth's graves, the holy hills,
Were all in vain;
No breath the dumb pipe fills.

I dreamed of splendid praise,
And Beauty watching by
Gray shores of Pain:
My song turned to a sigh.

I saw in virgin eyes
The mother warmth that makes

I am in love with high far-seeing places
That look on plains half-sunlight and half-storm,—
In love with hours when from the circling faces
Veils pass, and laughing fellowship glows warm.
You who look on me with grave eyes where rapture
And April love of living burn confessed—
The gods are good! The world lies free to capture!
Life has no walls. O take me to your breast!
Take me,—be with me for a moment's span!—
I am in love with all unveilèd faces.
I seek the wonder at the heart of man;
I would go up to the far-seeing places.

But she is far away!—long envious miles,
That send me darkling from my Laura's smiles,
Sunder our Hearts that with a mutual flame
And Loves responsive glow: And their's the blame
That bade me not my Laura more to name!

So like a boundless, soundless sea
The miracle of love to me,
With all the world a rosy dream
Sailing upon a silver stream,
While I, a fairy in mid-air,
Am dancing, dancing everywhere.

Hark! do you hear the thunder peal?
I care not what it would reveal,
Tomorrow will be yesterday
When I am shivering and gray:

I will not heed the prompter's ring
Let others answer, I shall sing
And dance the merrier—away!
I'll live and live and live—today!

My love is sleeping; but her body seems
awake within itself, secure from ills
of consciousness; her veins are buried streams,
her flanks are ghostly vales, her breasts are hills
of some far planet finding its sure way
beyond the orbit of this night of fears,
beyond the burnished darkness of this day;
my love is sleeping out of reach of tears.
How can her limbs dance motionless, what makes
her lips curve smiling to a crescent moon,
what does her hand reach out for, what dawn breaks
beneath her eyelids, to her ears what tune?

“See'st thou o'er my shoulders falling,
Snake-like ringlets waving free?
Have no fear, for they are twisted
To allure thee unto me.”

Thus she spake, the gentle dove,
Listen to thy plighted love:—
“Ah, how long I wait, until
Sweetheart cometh back (she said)
Laying his caressing hand
Underneath my burning head.”

We've lived for forty years, dear wife,
And walked together side by side,
And you to-day are just as dear
As when you were my bride.
I've tried to make life glad for you,
One long, sweet honeymoon of joy,
A dream of marital content,
Without the least alloy.
I've smoothed all boulders from our path,
That we in peace might toil along,
By always hastening to admit
That I was right and you were wrong.

No mad diversity of creed
Has ever sundered me from thee;
For I permit you evermore