love poetry

You shall have love — your share of it;
And honor, too, may be your own;
And gold perhaps, and care of it;
Yet shall you whisper, when alone:
Whatever heart may envy me,
I am as poor as I can be.

You shall have love — your share of it;
And honor, too, may be your own;
And gold perhaps, and care of it;
Yet shall you whisper, when alone:
Whatever heart may envy me,
I am as poor as I can be.

Love is a sword,
a million-bladed sword
slashing the petty pates
and sticking the smug
stomachs of the past
till the pink blood dribble,
and with a roar of ribald song,
flaunting the laughing boyish present
against the stare and whisper
of the doddering future!

Willow: Why do you bend so low
with your staring into the stream?
Only to see how deep it is!

Fool: Do you think you're beardless still
or meditating suicide?
Only to find if one might wade!

Lilies and cat-tails belong to the young,
and the water is cold this time of year?
Only to touch my love over there!

Your love? you love? and which is she?
That wrinkled gnarled old bandy-leg?
The one with the gay white limbs!

Dotard: What could she see in you?
She'd yank your beard and laugh away?

Before an Altar

I wish I were the little key
That locks Love's Captive in,
And lets Him out to go and free
A sinful heart from sin.

I wish I were the little bell
That tinkles for the Host,
When God comes down each day to dwell
With hearts He loves the most.

I wish I were the chalice fair,
That holds the Blood of Love,
When every flash lights holy prayer

He who wills life wills its condition sweet,
Having made love its mother, joy its quest,
That its perpetual sequence might not rest
On reason's dictum, cold and too discreet;

For reason moves with cautious, careful feet,
Debating whether life or death were best,
And why pale pain, not ruddy mirth, is guest
In many a heart which life hath set to beat.

But I will cast my fate with love, and trust
Her honeyed heart that guides the pollened bee
And sets the happy wing-seeds fluttering free;

There is a flower, whose modest eye
Is turn'd with looks of light and love,
Who breathes her softest, sweetest sigh.
Whene'er the sun is bright above.

Let clouds obscure, or darkness veil,
Her fond idolatry is fled,
Her sighs no more their sweets exhale.
The loving eye is cold — and dead.

Canst thou not trace a moral here,
False flatterer of the prosperous hour?
Let but an adverse cloud appear,
And Thou art faithless, as the Flower!

I saw a little burnished fly
Within my mistress' bodice lie,
Sipping lovely stolen sweets
From her ample rosy teats.

" Small adulterer," said I,
" Dost thou know where thou dost lie?
'Tis my lady's bosom fine!
And thou dost sip what is not thine"

Since thou came'st not at morn, come not at even;
Let night close peaceful where it hath begun.
Affrighten not the restful stars from heaven
With futile after-glimpses of the sun.
My heart inclines me, but my lands are wasted,
My treasure spent, and evening closes dim;
Spring's fair demesne the chilling frost hath tasted—
I have no house for Love to shelter him.

No raiment fair to clothe his limbs so tender;
No spicèd wines to cool his burning lip;
No garlands wherewithal to crown his splendor;

" Linger, " I cried, " O radiant Time! thy power
Has nothing more to give, life is complete:
Let but the perfect Present, hour by hour,
Itself remember and itself repeat.

" And Love, — the future can but mar its splendor,
Change can but dim the glory of its youth;
Time has no star more faithful or more tender
To crown its constancy or light its truth. "

But Time passed on in spite of prayer or pleading,
Through storm and peril; but that life might gain
A Peace through strife all other peace exceeding,

I.

A trinket made like a Heart, dear,
Of red gold, bright and fine,
Was given to me for a keepsake,
Given to me for mine.

And another heart, warm and tender,
As true as a heart could be;
And every throb that stirred it
Was always and all for me.

Sailing over the waters,
Watching the far blue land,
I dropped my golden heart, dear,
Dropped it out of my hand!

It lies in the cold, blue waters,
Fathoms and fathoms deep,
The golden heart which I promised
Promised to prize and keep.