love poetry

'Oh! Jesus Christ! I'm hit,' he said; and died.
Whether he vainly cursed or prayed indeed,
The Bullets chirped-In vain, vain, vain!
Machine-guns chuckled,-Tut-tut! Tut-tut!
And the Big Gun guffawed.

Another sighed,-'O Mother, -Mother, - Dad!'
Then smiled at nothing, childlike, being dead.
And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud
Leisurely gestured,-Fool!
And the splinters spat, and tittered.

'My Love!' one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,
Till slowly lowered, his whole faced kissed the mud.

The wind blew out from Bergen from the dawning to the day,
There was a wreck of trees and fall of towers a score of miles away,
And drifted like a livid leaf I go before its tide,
Spewed out of house and stable, beggared of flag and bride.
The heavens are bowed about my head, shouting like seraph wars,
With rains that might put out the sun and clean the sky of stars,
Rains like the fall of ruined seas from secret worlds above,
The roaring of the rains of God none but the lonely love.

She said she'd come at evening's fall,
By yon streamlet gently rolling,
When darkness dim was spread o'er all.
And the vesper bell was tolling;
But long that bell hath ceased its tone,
And the moon has risen above me,
And I have waited long and lone
For the lass who vowed to love me!

The time is long, the hours are slow,
When the loving heart is waiting,
Ye sportive winds that round me blow,
Hie to her lattice grating.
Tell her 'tis past th'appointed hour,

Locate I
love you some-
where in


teeth and
eyes, bite
it but


take care not
to hurt, you
want so


much so
little. Words
say everything.


I
love you
again,


then what
is emptiness
for. To


fill, fill.
I heard words
and words full


of holes
aching. Speech
is a mouth.

Lips' language to lips' ears.
Two drinking each other's heart, it seems.
Two roving loves who have left home,
pilgrims to the confluence of lips.
Two waves rise by the law of love
to break and die on two sets of lips.
Two wild desires craving each other
meet at last at the body's limits.
Love's writing a song in dainty letters,
layers of kiss-calligraphy on lips.
Plucking flowers from two sets of lips
perhaps to thread them into a chain later.
This sweet union of lips

The new year coming to us with swift feet
Is the King's gift,
And all that in it lies
Will make our lives more rounded and complete.
It may be laughter,
May be tear-filled eyes;
It may be gain of love,
Or loss of love;
It may be thorns, or bloom and breath of flowers,
The full fruition of these hopes that move-
It may be what will break these hearts of ours,
What matter? 'Tis the great gift of the King-
We do not need to fear what it may bring.

'The Keeping'



By
Charles L. East






Unto my keeping
wert thou given me,
that I might love thee
with all my soul
to the end of my days…
and adore thee in the autumn of my years.

I have loved thee beyond life's measure,
beyond the treasures of the earth or sea
or the boundless reaches of the deepening sky.

If the sun should quietly rise
upon a dreaded day…
and thy final sleeping mercifully unburden
the hours from me,

Say of him what you please, but I know my child's failings.
I do not love him because he is good, but because he is my
little child.
How should you know how dear he can be when you try to weigh
his merits against his faults?
When I must punish him he becomes all the more a part of my
being.
When I cause his tears to come my heart weeps with him.
I alone have a right to blame and punish, for he only may
chastise who loves.

Down the dimpled green-sward dancing
Bursts a flaxen-headed bevy,
Bud-lipt boys and girls advancing
Love's irregular little levy.

Rows of liquid eyes in laughter,
How they glimmer, how they quiver!
Sparkling one another after,
Like bright ripples on a river.

Tipsy band of rubious faces,
Flushed with joy's etheral spirit,
Make your mocks and sly grimaces
At Love's self, and do not fear it!

THE LONDON SEASON

I still love London in the month of May,
By an old habit, spite of dust and din.
I love the fair adulterous world, whose way
Is by the pleasant banks of Serpentine.
I love the worshippers at fashion's shrine,
The flowers, the incense, and the pageantry
Of generations which still ask a sign
Of that dear god, whose votary am I.

I love the ``greetings in the market--place,''
The jargon of the clubs. I love to view
The ``gilded youth'' who at the window pass,