love poetry

I.
Honey from silkworms who can gather,
Or silk from the yellow bee?
The grass may grow in winter weather
As soon as hate in me.

II.
Hate men who cant, and men who pray,
And men who rail like thee;
An equal passion to repay
They are not coy like me.

III.
Or seek some slave of power and gold
To be thy dear heart's mate;
Thy love will move that bigot cold
Sooner than me, thy hate.

IV.
A passion like the one I prove
Cannot divided be;

Look, you have cast out Love! What Gods are these
You bid me please?
The Three in One, the One in Three? Not so!
To my own Gods I go.
It may be they shall give me greater ease
Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities.

LITTLE birds of the night
Aye, they have much to tell
Perching there in rows
Blinking at me with their serious eyes
Recounting of flowers they have seen and loved
Of meadows and groves of the distance
And pale sands at the foot of the sea
And breezes that fly in the leaves.
They are vast in experience
These little birds that come in the night

How well my heart remembers
Beside these camp-fire embers
The eyes that smiled so far away,
The joy that was November's.

Her voice to laughter moving,
So merrily reproving,
We wandered through the autumn woods
And neither thought of loving.

The hills with light were glowing,
The waves in joy were flowing,
It was not to the clouded sun
The day's delight was owing.

Though through the brown leaves straying,
Our lives seemed gone a-Maying;

The joy of God gets into us, and we
Hum with the intuition of His power;
Even as a linnet, like a thing inspired,
Throats his love-lyrics in the dewy leaves.

Grant me, I cried, some spell of art,
To turn with all a lover's care,
That spotless page, my Eva's heart,
And write my burning wishes there.

But Love, by faithless Laia taught
How frail is woman's holiest vow,
Look'd down, while grace attempered thought
Sate serious on his baby brow.

'Go! blot her album,' cried the sage,
'There none but bards a place may claim;
But woman's heart's a worthless page,
Where every fool may write his name.'

Until by time or fate decayed,

HERE rests the image of a friend,-
Thine, cherish'd BIBI , thine!
Oft to this spot our steps we'll bend,
And call it Friendship's shrine.

Through length'ning years' successive flight
Thy fondness still had power
To shed its narrow line of light
On life's domestic hour;

And while for pleasures sought amiss
Abroad we vainly roam,
How far more dear the slightest bliss
That adds one charm to home!

Let those who coldly scorn the tear
That soothes the grief we prove,

We love cold water as it flows from the fountain,
Which nature hath brewed alone in the mountain,
In the wild woods and in the rocky dell
Where man hath not been but the deer loves to dwell,
And away across the sea in far distant lands
In Asia's gloomy jungles and Africa's drifting sands,
Where to the thirsty traveller a charming spot of green
Is by far the rarest gem his eyes have ever seen.
And when he hath quenched his thirst at the cooling spring,
With many grateful songs he makes the air to ring.

(i)

De Amico ad Amicam

A Celuy que pluys eyme en mounde,
Of alle tho that I have founde

Carissima,

Saluz od treye amour,
With grace and joye and alle honoure,

Dulcissima.

Sachez bien, pleysant et beele,
That I am right in goode heele

Laus Christo!

Et moun amour done vous ay,
And also thine owene, night and day

In cisto.

Ma tres duce et tres ame,
Night and day for love of thee

Suspiro.

Soyez permanent et leal;

Oh, sunny Love!
Crowned with fresh flowering May,
Breath like the Indian clove,
Eyes like the dawn of day;
Oh, sunny Love!
Oh, fatal Love!
Thy wreath is nightshade all,
With gloomy cypress wove,
Thy kiss is bitter gall,
Oh, fatal Love!