love poetry

A bounding satyr, golden in the beard,
That leaps with goat-feet high into the air,
And crushes from the thyme an odour rare,
Keeps watch around the marble tomb revered
Of Sophocles, the poet loved and feared,
Whose sovereign voice once called out of her lair
The Dorian muse severe, with braided hair.
Who loved the thyrsus and wild dances weird.
Here all day long the pious bees can pour
Libations of their honey; round this tomb
The Dionysiac ivy loves to roam:
The satyr laughs; but He awakes no more,

The fairest pearls that Northern seas do breed,
For precious stones from Eastern coasts are sold;
Nought yields the earth that from exchange is freed,
Gold values all, and all things value gold:
Where goodness wants an equal change to make,
There greatness serves, or number place doth take.

No mortal thing can bear so high a price,
But that with mortal thing it may be bought;
The corn of Sicil buys the Western spice;
French wine of us, of them our cloth is sought:
No pearls, no gold, no stones, no corn, no spice,

My heart goes out to France, the Queen in war,
In carnival and love; the gay, the brave.
To that young blue-eyed Breton who would save
A dance for Death or for his Belle Aurore.
Who keeps so purely in his heart the lore
Of love and honor while the tyrant guns
Spume at his wisp of flesh their flaring tons,
White hot from maddened ages gone before.
The world's barometer is in that lad —
That Breton peasant against whom is hurled
The wild, down-leaping chariot of Mars.
When France is laughing all the Earth is glad.

The soldier worn with wars, delights in peace,
The pilgrim in his ease, when toils are past;
The ship to gain the port, when storms do cease;
And I rejoice discharged from Love at last,
Whom while I served, peace, rest, and land I lost,
With wars, with toils, with storms, worn, tired and tost.

Sweet liberty now gives me leave to sing,
What world it was, where Love the rule did bear;
How foolish chance by lots ruled ev'ry thing,
How error was main sail, each wave a tear,
The master Love himself, deep sighs were wind,

If Love had lost his shafts, and Jove down threw
His thunder-bolts, or spent his forked fire,
They only might recovered be anew
From out my heart, cross-wounded with desire.
Or if debate by Mars were lost a space,
It might be found within the self-same place.

If Neptune's waves were all dried up and gone,
My weeping eyes so many tears distill,
That greater seas might grow by them alone:
Or if no flame were yet remaining still
In Vulcan's forge, he might from out my breast
Make choice of such as should befit him best.

How can my love in equity be blamed,
Still to importune, though it ne'er obtain,
Since though her face and voice will me refrain,
Yet by her voice and face I am inflamed?
For when, alas! her face with frowns is framed,
To kill my love, but to revive my pain;
And when her voice commands, but all in vain,
That love both leave to be, and to be named:
Her siren voice doth such enchantment move,
And though she frown, ev'n frowns so lovely make her,
That I of force am forced still to love.

At her fair hands how have I grace entreated,
With prayers oft repeated!
Yet still my love is thwarted:
Heart, let her go, for she'll not be converted.
Say, shall she go?
Oh! no, no, no, no, no;
She is most fair, though she be marble-hearted.

How often have my sighs declared mine anguish,
Wherein I daily languish!
Yet doth she still procure it:
Heart, let her go, for I cannot endure it.
Say, shall she go?
Oh! no, no, no, no, no;
She gave the wound, and she alone must cure it.

Let not, sweet saint! let not these lines offend you;
Nor yet the message that these lines impart:
The message my unfeigned love doth send you,
Love, which yourself hath planted in my heart.
For being charmed by the bewitching art
Of those inveigling graces which attend you,
Love's holy fire makes me breathe out in part
The never-dying flames my breast doth lend you.
Then if my lines offend, let Love be blamed;
And if my love displease, accuse mine eyes:
If mine eyes sin, their sin's cause only lies

The Lord, the Judge, his churches warns;
Let hypocrites attend and fear,
Who place their hope in rites and forms,
But make not faith nor love their care.

Vile wretches dare rehearse his name,
With lips of falsehood and deceit;
A friend or brother they defame,
And sooth and flatter those they hate.

They watch to do their neighbors wrong,
Yet dare to seek their Maker's face;
They take his cov'nant on their tongue,
But break his laws, abuse his grace.

To heav'n they lift their hands unclean;

A stripling in my youthful pride
I heeded not the darts of Love,
The power of Venus I denied,
Against her mandates strove.

But now my locks are all but gray,
I feel the sting of mad desire,
I bend my neck beneath Love's sway
And burn with sudden fire.

Take then thy thrall, O Paphian queen,
And laugh elate with smiling eyes;
Pallas again has vanquished been,
The apple is thy prize.