love poems

The streams of lovely Nancy
Divide in three parts,
Where young men and maidens
Do a-choose their sweethearts;
For a-drinking sweet liquors
Makes their hearts for to sing,
And the noise in the valley
Makes the rocks for to ring.

On yonder high mountain
A castle does stand;
It's a-builded of ivory
On yonder black strand,
It's a-builded of ivory
And diamonds so bright,
It's a pilot for sailors
On a dark wintry night.

On yonder high mountain
Where wild fowls they fly,

1. Oh answer me a question, love, I pray. . . . My heart for thee is pining day by
day; . . . Oh answer me, my dearest, answer true; . . . .
Hold me close as you were wont to do. . . . . Whisper once again the
story old, The dearest, sweetest story ever told; Whisper once again the story
old, . . . The dearest, sweetest story ever told. . . .
2. Oh tell me that your heart to me is true. . . . Repeat to me the story ever
new; . . . Oh take my hand in yours and tell me, dear, . . . .
Is it joy to thee when I am near? . . . . Whisper o'er and o'er the

Is it hard fare, or is it love
That makes the cat's goodwife so lean?

Rest, little Guest,
Beneath my breast.
Feed, sweet Seed,
At your need.
I took Love for my lord
And this is my reward,
My body is good earth,
That you, dear Plant, have birth.

Such stolid faces! Do folks sit and stare
Thus always, heavy-eyed?
These women have known love!
Have passed beyond the portals of love's house
And dwelt within, where many things are known,
Yet sit here prim and dull, with no least gleam
Of all the mysteries that love has taught
To give a little radiance to their eyes!

If I had passed that strange, sweet gate, and known
Love's intimate nights and days,
And all the sacred beauties of his house,
Would not my eyes be full of secret lights,

All things are best when first begun,
A love that 's guessed, a race unrun,
And those bright notes that in the brain
Fall brief, beginnings of the rain,
Just two or one
That splash, and to the dust belong,
And might have been a rush of song.

In a deep mountain lake there sailed a swan,
Far, far away from any human soul;
And daily swam with her a speckled trout,
Who only left her when deep thunder rolled—
Sinking far down where that swan could not dive,
So that she tasted bitterest pangs of love
And drooped upon the water like to die.
And when that trout came near with the blue sky
She brightened over the water like a sail
Set for the harbour after a winter gale.
No solitary ship sailing a land-locked sea
With her own shadow, and no lonely cloud

When Beauty fills the lover's eyes,
And lives like doubtful weather,
Her bosom seems to sleep with love;
They lie like birds together.

Love finds them angels ready made,
So beautiful and blooming;
But Time comes in, though half afraid,
And rudely calls them woman.

Time, like a robber, every year
Takes all the fame he gives;
While Beauty only goes away,
And Virtue only lives.

Love in a showre of Blossomes came
Down, and halfe drown'd me with the same:
The Blooms that fell were white and red;
But with such sweets commingled,
As whether (this) I cannot tell
My sight was pleas'd more, or my smell:
But true it was, as I rowl'd there,
Without a thought of hurt, or feare;
Love turn'd himselfe into a Bee,
And with his Javelin wounded me:
From which mishap this use I make,
Where most sweets are, there lyes a Snake.
Kisses and Favours are sweet things;
But Those have thorns, and These have stings.

Instead of Orient Pearls, of Jet,
I sent my Love a Karkanet:
About her spotlesse neck she knit
The lace, to honour me, or it:
Then think how wrapt was I to see
My Jet t'enthrall such Ivorie.