love poems

Love, thou has train'd me in a school severe.
‘This man,’ thou said'st, ‘knows somewhat of my lore,
But not enough; lo! I will teach him more.’
So Sorrow came, and sojourn'd with me here,
Wearing the form and face to me most dear.
Then learn'd I laws of thine, but guess'd before,
The hard, hard lesson conning o'er and o'er,
While on the page fell many a bitter tear.
Still Self within me feebly strove; but when
Death came and hid my angel from my sight—
Not from my soul—Self died, and rose again

How sweet the transient dream and reverie,
Like twilight's purple wing, sank on my heart
In that fair season when I sat by Thee,
List'ning thy song that shamed Apollo's art!
Love breathes upon my memory, and I see
The scene within my mind lost in time past,
The ceaseless sun descending in the sea,
The huge dark waves against the boulders cast,
The solitude of nature, if such be,
The momentary lull, broke by the roar
Of billows, or the sea-birds' noisy glee
Around the time-sapped crags and gullies hoar;

Were you to come,
With your clear, gray eyes
As calmly placid as, in summer's heat,
At noontide lie the sultry skies;
With your dark, brown hair
As smoothly quiet as the leaves
When stirs no cooling breath of air;
And shorn of smile, your full, red lips
Prest firmly close as the chaliced bud,
Before the nectar-quaffing bee ere sips;
I would not know you.
I would not love you.

But should you come,
With your love-bright eyes
Dancing gaily as, on summer's eve,
The stars adown the Western skies;

The furrows of life Time is plowing,
But we mourn not the Spring which departs,
For the husbandman Fate, in his sowing,
Scattered love in the soil of our hearts.

The sunshine of virtue and beauty
Shall wake the sweet seedlings to bloom;
The warm dews of mercy and duty
Shall moisten the tractable loam.

Oh, blow, grains of love to the binding!
Oh, blush, golden fruit on the hill!
'Tis a dreary, long day to the grinding,
But a short, pleasant way from the mill.

But fondness and faith will be growing,

O God of love, thy glory
Blazes in the gospel plan,
Abounding with the story
Of thy flowing love to man.

High love, beyond conceiving,
Gave thy sole-begotten son;
That the bliss of souls believing
Should through endless ages run.

Warm with divinest feeling,
Down the Filial Goodness came:
And, to mediate our healing,
Bore a vile delinquent's shame.

Who, Lord, thy name avowing
Shall his glorious title prove?
Are not all of thy allowing
Men of universal love.

Love's an headstrong wild desire
To possess what we admire:
Hurrying on without reflecting,
All that's just or wise neglecting.
Pain or pleasure it is neither,
But excess of both together;
Now, addressing, cringing, whining,
Vowing, fretting, weeping, pining,
Murm'ring, languishing and sighing,
Mad, despairing, raving, dying:
Now, caressing, laughing, toying,
Fondling, kissing and enjoying.
Always in extremes abiding,
Without measure, fond or chiding:
Either furious with possessing,
Or despairing of the blessing:

All ye gentle powers above,
Venus, and thou God of love;
All ye gentle souls below,
That can melt at others woe;
Lesbia's loss with tears deplore,
Lesbia's sparrow is no more;
Late she wont her bird to prize
Dearer than her own bright eyes.
Sweet it was, and lovely too,
And its mistress well it knew.
Nectar from her lips it sipt,
Here it hopt, and there it skipt:
Oft it wanton'd in the air,
Chirping only to the fair:
Oft it lull'd its head to rest
On the pillow of her breast.
Now, alas! it chirps no more;

Living , she loved the house of prayer;
Loving, she lived to plant it here,
And left what love could well afford,
A noble offering to her Lord.

No better monument could tell
What her heart loved, and loved so well,—
Such holy love breathed in her breath,
Lived in her life, survived her death.

Though marble piles in dust decay,
And human glory melts away,
Her gift abides in sins forgiven,
In souls redeemed, and heirs of heaven.

Blessings be on this favored spot,—
No act of love shall be forgot;

Friend, little weak fair Christine, see
What a wail came, your long sigh
To my dove's nest. O! but my nest is built high,
Here at Heaven's edge. In His love
On the warm snowy breast of His bride,
I well hidden, revelling in the sweets.
Christine, He called me, I was bidden;
Listen how He called—no, that was eternally,
How I heard. On one eve then—
You remember our room,
The little dear room in our world's home, where we
Oft by the lattice sat talking familiarly,
Now with one or another
Sweet word of our love each for other,

Mary, sister, Mary of angels,
Theodora,—no, let the old name die
That was yours, that is love's,
Lie still,—it's asleep dear, Mary—
And yet, do you think I forget,
Don't grudge you even a little to Heaven,
And you smiling, scoffing me,
Calling you chosen of Him for His bride?
But oh! shame, killing love with that name.
He was tender once; was He tender,

And is He cruel now?
Laying low the heart's beat of love,
“Will ye climb, will ye reach up to Heaven,” saying,
“Great Love and be God?