love poetry

I

Love on tiptoe to the doorway of the mouldering hovel came,
Where Time sat within the shadow of the hearthstone by the flame:
He looked through, and saw the Anarch bent above the glowing brands,
Poring o'er the hour-glass lapsing through his brown and withered hands.

II

The red lights upon his leaden forehead their reflection threw,
Till the motionless and lifelike form to life and motion grew;
As on Egypt's sands the rising sun the giant statue crowned,

Sweetly she sleeps whom here we loved so truly:
She wakes no more,
Save where the angels round those spirits gather
Who reach the other shore.

Unclouded now for aye her mental vision,
She sees the Truth,
And shares the health of those fair fields Elysian
With an immortal youth.

Folded in arms of love, serene, paternal,
She now will rest
In the glad mansions of our home supernal,
Among the saved and blest.

No blight shall fall upon her sin-freed spirit,
No grief she shares:

She has passed away like the flowers of earth;
She has faded like a star,
When the autumn winds bow the forest-leaves,
When the day-god comes from far.

But her memory lives with loved ones left,
Like the fragrance of a flower;
And oft in the sky of each soul shall beam,
Like the star of the morning hour.

But not lost! oh, no! she but died to live;
She " passed on " to die no more;
And e'er to her loved ones must she prove
As a tie to a fairer shore.

Oh! then will the heart of her poet-son

We sit, with mourning hearts, beneath the shadow
Which darkens now our home,
And look with longing eyes to that bright region
Where shadows never come.

We think of her, now from our side departed,
In Christian hope and trust:
Gentle and lovely, pure and earnest-hearted,
She dwells among the just.

Through summer's long, bright days she lingered with us;
Then, with the falling leaf,
She faded from our sight, and heaven's garner
Received a ripened sheaf.

Love watched unceasingly beside her pillow;

They say that I love thee, that thou art to me
As the gods to the heathen, — a fair deity.
And they tell but the truth when they say thou art dear;
For, as blossoms so fair in the morn of the year,
Do I oft hail thy presence, — a star on my way;
And thy smile is as welcome as bright, sunny May.

Oh, yes, I do love thee! and welcome to me
Comes thy sweet, merry laugh, like a song o'er the sea.
Thou cheerest my pathway like music; thy smile
Doth oft from its sorrows my spirit beguile:

Might I lie at your feet some summer day,
Some summer day, when the sky is blue
And the air is soft,
Gazing aloft,
How should I dream that day away,
Being by you?

But no. No visions would come, my own,
For I could not dream with you so near
I should not dream,
But it would seem
That a perfect love is life alone,
In Heaven and here.

She sleeps, her fair cheek pillowed on some joy,
Some satisfaction pure, without alloy.

What shall awake her? whispered love so low
That the sweet words seem melting, soft and slow?

Nay! but the blood-red torch, the clangorous strife
Of armed men round her — Thus it is with life.

TO MISS

Come wed with me and we will write,
My Blue of Blues, from morn till night,
Chased from our classic souls shall be
All thoughts of vulgar progeny;
And thou shalt walk through smiling rows
Of chubby duodecimos,
While I, to match thy products nearly,
Shall lie-in of a quarto yearly.
'T is true, even books entail some trouble;
But live productions give one double.

Correcting children is such bother, —
While printers devils correct the other.
Just think, my own Malthusian dear,

A BALLAD .

Come , play me that simple air again,
I used so to love, in life's young day,
And bring, if thou canst, the dreams that then
Were wakened by that sweet lay,
The tender gloom its strain
Shed o'er the heart and brow,
Grief's shadow without its pain —

At night, when all is still around,
How sweet to hear the distant sound
Of footstep, coming soft and light!
What pleasure in the anxious beat,
With which the bosom flies to meet
That foot that comes so soft at night!

And then, at night, how sweet to say
" 'T is late, my love! " and chide delay,
Tho' still the western clouds are bright;
Oh! happy, too, the silent press,
The eloquence of mute caress,
With those we love exchanged at night!