love poems

What is Love? Is Love in this,
That flies between us, in a kiss?
Nay, what is Love? Is Love the zest,
That wakes, when I unloose my breast?
But what is Love? Say now: who knows,
Or where he lurks, or how he shows? The Answer:

Dearest, Truth is stern, I fear:
Love, as yet, can scarce be here.

Love is poor; nay, Love is sorry;
Tears, not kisses, chiefly stay him:
His sad weeds best tell his story;
Vain delights befool, bewray him.

'Tis Nature's garden, that she made
For Love and noble Thought;
A wonder of green boughs and shade,
Through which a stream she brought,
With bubbling wells to cool the glade.

It were a place, if any were,
To tell the sacred sheaves
Of garnered joys, within this fair,
This quiet church of leaves,
Unto the calm, the patient air.

But Love, and Life, and holy Song,
Already fade, and lose
Their early zest; and soonest wrong
That, which we most would choose;
And mingle with the common throng.

Dearest, thy discourses steal
From my bosom's deep, my heart
How can I from thee conceal
My delight, my sorrow's smart?

Dearest, when I hear thy lyre
From its chains my soul is free.
To the holy angel quire
From the earth, O let us flee!

Dearest, how thy music's charms
Waft me dancing through the sky!
Let me round thee clasp my arms,
Lest in glory I should die!

Dearest, sunny wreaths I wear,
Twined around me by thy lay.
For thy garlands, rich and rare,

Alone! alone!
Forth out of the darkness,
Back into the darkness,
We come and we go alone.

O birth! O death!
Lone cry from the midnight,
Moan lost in the midnight,
A catch and a lapse of breath!

O youth! fleet dream!
We sleep out of heaven,
We dream down from heaven,
Then wake from the fleeting dream.

No more! no more!
Youth's gladness of living,
Love's madness of living,
Can come back to me no more.

Those glad, mad years!
How, dancing and singing,

1

She is all sweetness. Her long fingers seem
Pencils of silver, and so beautiful
Her presence, that she breathes of heaven and love.

2

Rudabeh smil'd; and all the scene was love.
Gracious their clasping hands together twine,
By love inflam'd, devoted to his shrine.
Now they descend, and to the palace move,
Attended by the slave who knew their love.
The gay illuminations gild the scene;
All was elysium, splendid, yet serene!
Zal more amaz'd, all glowing with desire,

G AZEL

He who poverty electeth, hall and fane desireth not;
Than the food of woe aught other bread to gain desireth not.
He who, king-like, on the throne of blest contentment sits aloft,
O'er the Seven Climes as Sultan high to reign desireth not.
He, who in his bosom strikes his nails, and opes the wound afresh,
On the garden looks not, sight of rosy lane desireth not.
He, who is of Love's true subjects, bideth in the fair one's ward,
Wand'ring there distracted, mountain lone or plain desireth not.

LOVE ILL-REQUITED .

Such love as woman never won
Was, Lesbia! mine for thee;
Such truth as never league had known
Thy love had found in me!

My heart, by falseness now repelled,
Yet vain with passion strives;
Turn honest, yet esteem were killed,
Be vile, yet love survives!

O wanderer heart! avoid that haunted grove,
The body of thy love;
Nor in her bosom stray, wild mountain fells
Where Love, the robber, dwells.

The landscape which the poet loves
is that of early May,
When budding greenness half concealed
enwraps each willow spray.
That beautiful embroidery
the days of summer yield,
Appeals to every bumpkin
who takes his walk afield.

THE LAST AGONY .

I love and hate. Ah, never ask why so!
I hate and love — and that is all I know.
I see 't is folly, but I feel 't is woe!