love poetry

I - STARLIGHT

With two bright eyes, my star, my love,
Thou lookest on the stars above:
Ah, would that I the heaven might be
With a million eyes to look on thee.

Plato.


II - ROSELEAF

A little while the rose,
And after that the thorn;
An hour of dewy morn,
And then the glamour goes.
Ah, love in beauty born,
A little while the rose!

Unknown.


III - PHOSPHOR -- HESPER

O morning star, farewell!
My love I now must leave;

Of the dark past
A child is born;
With joy and grief
My heart is torn.

Calm in his cradle
The living lies.
May love and mercy
Unclose his eyes!

Young life is breathed
On the glass;
The world that was not
Comes to pass.

A child is sleeping:
An old man gone.
O, father forsaken,
Forgive your son!

I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.

MOST glorious Lord of Lyfe! that, on this day,
Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin;
And, having harrowd hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:
This joyous day, deare Lord, with joy begin;
And grant that we, for whom thou diddest dye,
Being with Thy deare blood clene washt from sin,
May live for ever in felicity!

And that Thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love Thee for the same againe;
And for Thy sake, that all lyke deare didst buy,

Hurled back, defeated, like a child I sought
The loving shelter of my native fields,
Where Fancy still her magic sceptre wields,
And still the miracles of youth are wrought. '
Twas here that first my eager spirit caught
The rapture that relentless conflict yields,
And, scorning peace and the content that shields,
Took life's wild way, unguarded and untaught.
Dear Mother Nature, not in vain we ask
Of thee for strength! The visioned victories
Revive my heart, and golden honors gleam':

God, in Thy Heaven hast Thou ever known
Toil, when the heart and hand were fused in one,
The sweet bruised scent of grasses newly mown,
The sharp delight to see each dawn the sun
Rising above the margent of the seas?
And hast Thou ever felt within Thy breast
That strange delight in dim uncertainties
With every day's apparellings unguessed?
Ah, hast Thou lain with wide entrancèd eyes
Wrapped in the purple veilings of the night
Beneath the fretted splendour of the skies
And seen them tressed with coronal of light,

SHE pass'd away like morning dew
   Before the sun was high;
So brief her time, she scarcely knew
   The meaning of a sigh.

As round the rose its soft perfume,
   Sweet love around her floated;
Admired she grew--while mortal doom
   Crept on, unfear'd, unnoted.

Love was her guardian Angel here,
   But Love to Death resign'd her;
Tho' Love was kind, why should we fear
   But holy Death is kinder?

I loved thee from the earliest dawn,
When first I saw thy beauty's ray;
And will until life's eve comes on,
And beauty's blossom fades away;
And when all things go well with thee,
With smiles or tears remember me.

I'll love thee when thy morn is past
And wheedling galantry is o'er,
When youth is lost in age's blast,
And beauty can ascend no more;
And when life's journey ends with thee,
O then look back and think of me.

I'll love thee with a smile or frown,

Pray, what can dreams avail
To make love or to mar?
The child within the cradle rail
Lies dreaming of the star.
But is the star by this beguiled
To leave its place and seek the child?

The poor plucked rose within its glass
Still dreameth of the bee;
But, tho' the lagging moments pass,
Her Love she may not see.
If dream of child and flower fail,
Why should a maiden's dreams prevail?

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.