Absence

When my love was away,
Full three days were not sped,
I caught my fancy astray
Thinking if she were dead,

And I alone, alone:
It seem'd in my misery
In all the world was none
Ever so lone as I.

I wept; but it did not shame
Nor comfort my heart: away
I rode as I might, and came
To my love at close of day.

The sight of her still'd my fears,
My fairest-hearted love:
And yet in her eyes were tears:
Which when I question'd of,


Absence

I have scarcely left you
When you go in me, crystalline,
Or trembling,
Or uneasy, wounded by me
Or overwhelmed with love, as
when your eyes
Close upon the gift of life
That without cease I give you.

My love,
We have found each other
Thirsty and we have
Drunk up all the water and the
Blood,
We found each other
Hungry
And we bit each other
As fire bites,
Leaving wounds in us.

But wait for me,
Keep for me your sweetness.
I will give you too


Absence

Ah, happy air that, rough or soft,
   May kiss that face and stay;
And happy beams that from above
   May choose to her their way;
And happy flowers that now and then
   Touch lips more sweet than they!

But it were not so blest to be
   Or light or air or rose;
Those dainty fingers tear and toss
   The bloom that in them glows;
And come or go, both wind and ray
   She heeds not, if she knows.

But if I come thy choice should be
   Either to love or not --


Absence

In this fair stranger’s eyes of grey
Thine eyes, my love, I see.
I shudder: for the passing day
Had borne me far from thee.

This is the curse of life: that not
A nobler calmer train
Of wiser thoughts and feelings blot
Our passions from our brain;

But each day brings its petty dust
Our soon-chok’d souls to fill,
And we forget because we must,
And not because we will.

I struggle towards the light; and ye,
Once-long’d-for storms of love!
If with the light ye cannot be,


A Yawning Gulf

A yawning gulf between
My vision-tree and my reality-plant.
A yawning gulf between
The place I love to live and the place I live.
I love to live under the vault of heaven.
Alas, my existence lives
In the valley of the shadow of death.
Peace has escaped my remembrance;
Delight, too.

But I know a swing of the pendulum
Will change my face and fate.
My surrender supreme
Shall marry my dream-boat
With my reality-shore.


A Wreath Of Sonnets 914

They were all fed on many a plaint and tear
The humble blooms on my Parnassus grown;
My tears of love flowed not for you alone,
But also for the land I hold so dear.

My soul was filled with bitterness and fear
At love so scant to a trusting Mother shown;
The thought that no more love from you I've known
Torments and tears me like a wound severe.

All the reward I wished for was that you
With me a poet's timeless fame might share
That native songs our poignant tale might bear;


A Wreath Of Sonnets 414

These tear-stained flowers of a poet's mind,
Culled from my bosom, lay it wholly bare;
My heart's a garden: Love is sowing there
Sad elegies each with my longing signed.

You are their sun whose radiance, purblind,
I seek in vain at home and everywhere,
In theatre, on promenade and square,
Midst revels where the chains of dancers wind.

How often through the town with watchful eyes
I wander, praying for a fate more kind,
Yet catch no glimpse of that elusive prize.


A Woman's Love

I cared not what they failings were
They faults I would not see.
I only knew I loved thee well
And thought thee true to me.

I shunned amid life's busy crowd
Those who would thee defame.
For oh, it pained a trusting heart
To hear men idly blame.

I would not heed when meddling friends
Would whisper aught of thee.
I thought not one so seeming true
Could e'er a traitor be.

And then they knew not of thy tone
Of love and fond caress
That would my soul responsive move


A Woman's Love

A sentinel angel sitting high in glory
Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory:
"Have mercy, mighty angel, hear my story!

"I loved, and, blind with passionate love, I fell.
Love brought me down to death, and death to Hell.
For God is just, and death for sin is well.

"I do not rage against his high decree,
Nor for myself do ask that grace shall be;
But for my love on earth who mourns for me.

"Great Spirit! Let me see my love again
And comfort him one hour, and I were fain


Pages

Subscribe to RSS - love poetry