love poetry

See the chariot at hand here of Love,
Wherein my lady rideth!
Each that draws is a swan or a dove,
And well the car Love guideth.
As she goes, all hearts do duty
Unto her beauty;
And, enamoured, do wish, so they might
But enjoy such a sight,
That they still were to run by her side,
Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.

Do but look on her eyes, they do light
All that Love's world compriseth!
Do but look on her hair, it is bright
As Love's star when it riseth!

Smoothing soft the nestling head
Of a maiden fancy-led,
Thus a grave-eyed woman said:

'Richest gifts are those we make,
Dearer than the love we take
That we give for love's own sake.

'Well I know the heart's unrest;
Mine has been the common quest,
To be loved and therefore blest.

'Favors undeserved were mine;
At my feet as on a shrine
Love has laid its gifts divine.

'Sweet the offerings seemed, and yet
With their sweetness came regret,
And a sense of unpaid debt.

Ah! reign, wherever man is found!
My spouse, beloved and divine!
Then I am rich, and I abound,
When every human heart is thine.

A thousand sorrows pierce my soul,
To think that all are not thine own:
Ah! be adored from pole to pole;
Where is thy zeal? arise; be known!

All hearts are cold, in every place,
Yet earthly good with warmth pursue;
Dissolve them with a flash of grace,
Thaw these of ice, and give us new!

One 's the pictur' of his Pa,
And the other of her Ma--
Jes the bossest pair o' babies 'at a mortal ever saw!
And we love 'em as the bees
Loves the blossoms of the trees,
A-ridin' and a-rompin' in the breeze!

One's got her Mammy's eyes--
Soft and blue as Apurl-skies--
With the same sort of a smile, like--Yes,
and mouth about her size,--
Dimples, too, in cheek and chin,
'At my lips jes wallers in,
A-goin' to work, er gittin' home agin.

And the other--Well, they say

THE TWILIGHT fleeted away in pearl on the stream,
And night, like a diamond done, stood still in our dream.
Your eyes like burnished stones or as stars were bright
With the sudden vision that made us one with the night.

We loved in infinite spaces, forgetting here
The breasts that were lit with life and the lips so near;
Till the wizard willows waved in the wind and drew
Me away from the fulness of love and down to you.

Our love was so vast that it filled the heavens up:

I remember a marvellous instant,
Unto me bending down from above,
Thy radiant vision appearing
As an angel of beauty and love.
'Mid the torments of desperate sadness,
In the torture of bondage and sighs,
To me rang thy voice so beloved--
And I dreamed thy miraculous eyes.
But the years rolled along--and life's tempests
My illusions, my youth overcame,
I forgot that sweet voice full of music--
And thy glance like a heavenly flame.
In the covert and grief of my exile,

Man of virtue has need;-into life with boldness he plunges,
Entering with fortune more sure into the hazardous strife;
But to woman one virtue suffices; it is ever shining
Lovingly forth to the heart; so let it shine to the eye!

The wine of Love is music,
   And the feast of Love is song:
And when Love sits down to the banquet,
   Love sits long:

Sits long and arises drunken,
   But not with the feast and the wine;
He reeleth with his own heart,
   That great, rich Vine.

I
Tomorrow let loveless, let lover tomorrow make love :
O spring, singing spring, spring of the world renew!
In spring lovers consent and the birds marry
When the grove receives in her hair the nuptial dew.

Tomorrow may loveless, may lover tomorrow make love.

II
Tomorrow's the day when the prime Zeus made love:
Out of lightning foam shot deep in the heaving sea
(Witnessed by green crowds of finny horses)
Dione rising and falling, he made to be!

Tomorrow may loveless, may lover tomorrow make love.

Let those love now, who never lov'd before,
Let those who always lov'd, now love the more.

The Spring, the new, the warb'ling Spring appears,
The youthful Season of reviving Years;
In Spring the Loves enkindle mutual Heats,
The feather'd Nation chuse their tuneful Mates,
The Trees grow fruitful with descending Rain
And drest in diff'ring Greens adorn the Plain.
She comes; to morrow Beauty's Empress roves
Thro' Walks that winding run within the Groves;
She twines the shooting Myrtle into Bow'rs,