love poetry

For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any
Who for thyself art so unprovident.
Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belov'd of many,
But that thou none lov'st is most evident;
For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate
That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire.
O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind:
Shall hate be fairer lodg'd than gentle love?
Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,

Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime:
So thou through windows of thine age shall see
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.

The king of all the Gods once burned with love
for Ganymede of Phrygia. He found
a shape more pleasing even than his own.
Jove would not take the form of any bird,
except the eagle's, able to sustain
the weight of his own thunderbolts. Without
delay, Jove on fictitious eagle wings,
stole and flew off with that loved Trojan boy:
who even to this day, against the will
of Juno, mingles nectar in the cups
of his protector, mighty Jupiter.

CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

Ah, let me look, let me watch, let me wait, unhurried, unprompted!
Bid me not venture on aught that could alter or end what is present!
Say not, Time flies, and Occasion, that never returns, is departing!
Drive me not you, ye ill angels with fiery swords, from my Eden,
Waiting, and watching, and looking! Let love be its own inspiration!
Shall not a voice, if a voice there must be, from the airs that environ,
Yea, from the conscious heavens, without our knowledge or effort,

CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

I am in love, meantime, you think; no doubt you would think so.
I am in love, you say; with those letters, of course, you would say so.
I am in love, you declare. I think not so; yet I grant you
It is a pleasure, indeed, to converse with this girl. Oh, rare gift,
Rare felicity, this! she can talk in a rational way, can
Speak upon subjects that really are matters of mind and of thinking,
Yet in perfection retain her simplicity; never, one moment,

O sovereign power of love! O grief! O balm!
All records, saving thine, come cool; and calm,
And shadowy, through the mist of passed years:
For others, good or bad, hatred and tears
Have become indolent; but touching thine,
One sigh doth echo, one poor sob doth pine,
One kiss brings honey-dew from buried days.
The woes of Troy, towers smothering o'er their blaze,
Stiff-holden shields, far-piercing spears, keen blades,
Struggling, and blood, and shrieks--all dimly fades
Into some backward corner of the brain;

These to His Memory—since he held them dear,
Perchance as finding there unconsciously
Some image of himself—I dedicate,
I dedicate, I consecrate with tears—
These Idylls.
And indeed He seems to me
Scarce other than my king's ideal knight,
‘Who reverenced his conscience as his king;
Whose glory was, redressing human wrong;
Who spake no slander, no, nor listened to it;
Who loved one only and who clave to her—’
Her—over all whose realms to their last isle,
Commingled with the gloom of imminent war,

Borrill an aged shepheard swaine ,
With reasons doth reproove,
Batte a foolish wanton boy ,
but lately falne in love.

Batte.

Borrill, why sit'st thou musing in thy coate?
like dreaming Merlyn in his drowsie Cell,
What may it be with learning thou doest doate,
or art inchanted with some Magick spell?
Or wilt thou now an Hermites life professe?
And bid thy beades heare like an Ancoresse?

38

Sitting Galone, Love bids me goe and write;
Reason plucks back, commanding me to stay,
Boasting, that she doth still direct the way,
Or else Love were unable to indite:
Love growing angry, vexed at the Spleene,
And scorning Reason's maymed Argument,
Straight taxeth Reason, wanting to invent,
Where she with Love conversing hath not beene;
Reason reproched with this coy Disdaine,
Despiteth Love, and laug heth at her Folly;
And Love contemning Reasons reason wholly,
Thought it in weight too light by many a Graine:

36

Thou purblind Boy, since thou hast beene so slacke,
To wound her Heart, whose Eyes have wounded me,
And suff'red her to glory in my Wracke,
Thus to my aid, I lastly conjure thee;
By Hellish Styx (by which the T HUND'RER sweares)
By thy faire Mothers unavoided Power,
By H ECAT'S Names, by P ROSERPINE'S sad Teares,
When she was rapt to the infernall Bower;
By thine owne loved Psyches , by the Fires
Spent on thine Altars, flaming up to Heav'n;
By all true Lovers Sighes, Vowes, and Desires,