love poems

O DEARER to my thankful heart
Than all the circling sun surveys!
Thy presence only can impart
Light, peace, and gladness to my days.

Beneath thy soul-reviving ray,
Ev'n cold affliction's wintery gloom
Shall brighten into vernal day,
And hopes and joys immortal bloom.

Vain world, be gone with all thy toys;
I have no room for trifles here:
My heart aspires to nobler joys;
Thy fairest glories disappear.

Bright realms of bliss, where Jesus reigns,
My wish, my care, my hope invite:

On my account, to grief a ceaseless prey,
Dost thou a sympathetic anguish prove?
I would not wish to live another day,
If my recovery did not charm my love:
For what were life, and health, and bloom to me,
Were they displeasing, beauteous youth! to thee?

No seas again shall sever;
No desert intervene;
No deep and flowing river
Shall roll its tide between.

No bleak cliffs upward towering,
Shall bound our eager sight;
No tempest darkly lowering,
Shall wrap us in its night.

Love, and unsevered union
Of soul with those we love,
Nearness and glad communion
Shall be our joy above.

No dread of wasting sickness,
No thought of ache or pain,
No fretting hours of weakness,
Shall mar our peace again.

No death our homes o'ershading,

Yes, the gods are dumb and dead,
But the bobolink sings on!
And the bluebird, overhead,
Pipes his joy when Day has won
Fair Aurora's blushing face,
Hidden in a cloudy lace.
While the pipe of Pan is still,
Let the new world have its will!
Listen to the robin's playing,
On the maple's top a-swaying,
Ah, so proud of that one nest,—
Puffing out his scarlet vest,—
Piper of the dress parade
In sunrise glow or twilight shade.

Yes, the gods are dumb and dead;
Never naiad from the rushes

Must be God's warders hearken every sigh,
Draw close and lovingly around the old;
The glories on the going summer lie,
On the spent sun attend the hosts in gold.

We played at love and went our way,
Careless and free, that far-off winter day.
It seemed a brave adventure, or a dream.
How could we know that love was born that day!

How could we know that love hid in a game?
That through the lips of coquetry a flame
Would leap and burn, consuming all the dross
And welding us in Love's enduring flame?

To-day I hold thee close and search thy face
To see if I might find one mocking trace
Of that wild mood that toyed with destiny—
And in thine eyes I only see—my face!

Fond Lunatick forbeare. Why dost thou sue
For thy Affection's Pay ere it is due?
Love's Fruites are Legall use; and therfore may
Be only taken on the Marriage day.
Who for this Interest too early call,
By that Exaction loose the Principall.

Then gather not those immature delights,
Untill their riper Autumne thee invites.
He that Abortive Corne cutts off his Ground,
No Husband, but a Ravisher is found.
So those that reap their Love, before they Wed,
Do in effect but Cuckold their own Bed.

“Oh, I will put my ship in order,
And I will set her to the sea;
And I will sail to yonder harbour,
To see if my love will marry me.”

He sailed eastward; he sailed westward;
He sailed far, far by sea and land;
By France and Flanders, Spain and Dover,
He sail'd the world all round and round,

Till he came to his love's sweet bower,
It was to hear what she would say.
“Awake, awake, ye lovely sleeper,
The sun is spreading the break of day.”
“Oh, who is this at my bower window,
That speaks so lovingly to me?”

As each one knew and loved him best, so each one saw the figure of the Lord.
The great warrior kings have seen him as it were chivalry incarnate.
The demons who in guile assumed the royal guise: to them the Lord appeared as Death.
The dwellers in His city saw the two brothers: their eyes beholding the jewels of mankind were blessed.
The women's hearts were filled with joy, each seeing Him fashioned according to her own desire.
His loveliness, wearing the fairest of all fair forms, bewitched their minds.

O prairie mother, I am one of your boys.
I have loved the prairie as a man with a heart shot full of pain over love.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise, or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water.
I speak of new cities and new people.
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.
I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,
A sun dropped in the west.
I tell you there is nothing in the world
Only an ocean of tomorrows,
A sky of tomorrows.

I am a brother of the cornhuskers who say at sundown: