love poems

Still, as each year the lilies blow
And gardens grow
Divine with fragrance, as each year the sea
In centuries yet to be

With royal smile puts on anew
Its radiant robes of sunlit blue,
Through all the glory of Nature men will cry,
“Why must our loved ones die?”

This is a helpful thought—
That something wondrous waits
Behind the cloud-girt mystic gates
Of death,—a something each day nearer brought.

“Look forward,” thou didst say,
“To meeting those we love.” Ah! through the strife,
The toil, the cares, of every day,
Mother, the great hope shines, and hallows life.

If so the lesson must be learned,
If love be taken from the earth
That we may know love's utmost worth,
Will there be scope to use the knowledge earned?

Will there be given me power to show,
Mother, that while thou wast with me
I failed to grasp the God in thee,
Knowing not what now I know?

If we would value love aright,
Must love be taken away?
Can no man truly love the day
Save only for the contrast of the night?

O mother, was it just?
Did I not feel the blessing of thine hand
Upon my brow? Can I not understand,
Save when that hand is turning into dust?

For years beyond man's dream
That viewless host of death has held its own:
With trumpet-sound, or with no bugle blown,
No warning lance-point's gleam,

That dim veiled host has crept from town to town
Changing man's mirth to sighs—
Snatching from monarch's brow the lordliest crown,
Closing the fairest eyes.

And yet to those who weep
The shock seems ever new and ever strange:
Though all the world might change,
The form they loved they thought their love could keep.

Love is a circle that doth restless move
In the same sweet eternity of love.

Tranced in the glamour of a dream
Where banquet-lights and fancies gleam,
And ripest wit and wine abound,
And pledges hale go round and round,—
Lo, dazzled with enchanted rays—
As in the golden olden days
Sir Galahad—my eyes swim up
To greet your splendor, Loving Cup!

What is the secret of your art,
Linking together hand and heart
Your myriad votaries who do
Themselves most honor honoring you?
What gracious service have you done
To win the name that you have won?—
Kissing it back from tuneful lips

Matter,
with this look
I wed thee
and become
thy very
attribute.
I shall be
thy faithful
spouse,
true
to thy
nature,
for I love
thee
more than Durer
loved

If you love me, come and be
In my heart of hearts and see
How I think of naught but thee!

If you hate me, tell me so,
I should love you still, I know,—
Hate to love will sometimes grow.

If you neither love nor hate,
For your grace I ne'er will wait;
You will never be my fate!

Music has charms the savage breast to move,
And songs are Syrens that invite to love.