love poetry

What a constant jealousy gnaws your heart!
It tires me out; day after day
Some little worry from nothing you start—
Something's hidden in what I say,
Something's hidden in what I do;
That heart of yours is never still,
It cannot be sure that I am true,
But spies and pries about for ill.

Frankly I speak the whole of my mind
Once for all—let it serve or not:
I am not one of that showy kind,
Fair outside with an inward rot.
I love you! will not that suffice?
No! I must say it again and again,

Once did I view a fragrant Flower
Till thro' the optick windows of mine
The sweet discoveries of its beauties
Did much affect & Charm my fant
To see how bright and sweetly it did shine
In Beauties that were purely Genuine.

But Lo, the dire Effects of baneful Pride;
A weed whose favour was Pestiferous
Did vie with this fair flower Qualify'd
With many Vertues Odoriferous.
This fragrant flower which to affect the eyes

That heavenly Sparke , from which th'immortall Soule
Had her first being , striveth to enroule
Her wondrous Guifts in characters of Brasse,
That when (dissolved from this earthie Masse)
Shee mounts aloft, her never-dying Glorie
May fill the Volumes of a learned Storie;
Which after-Ages, reading, may admire,
And (inly burning with the like desire)
To rare Atcheiuements (emulous of Fame
Striving t'immortalize their dying Name)
May bend their Practise, dedicate their Daies;
And, so excited, purchase datelesse Praise.

A fig for her story of shame and of pride!
She strayed in the night and her feet fell astray;
The great Mississippi was glad that day,
And that is the reason the poor girl died;
The great Mississippi was glad, I say,
And splendid with strength in his fierce, full pride—
And that is the reason the poor girl died.

And that was the reason, from first to last;
Down under the dark, still cypresses there.
The Father of Waters he held her fast.
He kissed her face, he fondled her hair,
No more, no more an unloved outcast,

MASTER WILLIAM; OR, LAD'S LOVE .

[ Farewell and Return ]

I.

I HAVE remembrance of a Boy , whose mind
Was weak: he seem'd not for the world design'd,
Seem'd not as one who in that world could strive,
And keep his spirits even and alive—
A feeling Boy , and happy, though the less,
From that fine feeling, form'd for happiness
His mother left him to his favourite ways,

I.

When the rough North forgets to howl,
And ocean's billows cease to roll;
When Lybian sands are bound in frost,
And cold to Nova-Zembla's lost;
When heav'nly bodies cease to move,
My blue-ey'd Ann I'll cease to love.

II.

No more shall flowers the meads adorn;
Nor sweetness deck the rosy thorn;
Nor swelling buds proclaim the spring;
Nor parching heats the dog-star bring;
Nor laughing lillies paint the grove,
When blue-ey'd Ann I cease to love.

III.

In the days when my mother, the Earth, was young,
And you all were not, nor the likeness of you,
She walk'd in her maidenly prime among
The moonlit stars in the boundless blue.

Then the great sun lifted his shining shield,
And he flash'd his sword as the soldiers do,
And he moved like a king full over the field,
And he looked, and he loved her brave and true.

And looking afar from the ultimate rim,
As he lay at rest in a reach of light,
He beheld her walking alone at night,

" No, not so lonely now — I love
A forest maiden; she is mine
And on Sierra's slopes of pine,
The vines below, the snows above,
A solitary lodge is set
Within a fringe of water'd firs;
And there my wigwam fires burn,
Fed by a round brown patient hand,
That small brown faithful hand of hers
That never rests till my return.
The yellow smoke is rising yet;
Tiptoe, and see it where you stand
Lift like a column from the land.

" There are no sea-gems in her hair,
No jewels fret her dimpled hands,

Oh, what shall lift the night,
The lightning or the moon?
There is no other light,
The day is gone too soon.

The lightning with his flash
An instant and no more,
Is as an angel's lash
Smiting the dusk-loved shore.

The moon with trembling light
From her pale shell of sleep
Shall kindlier break the night
Of yon thick clouds that weep.

D ESCEND , Thou mild, pacific D OVE
Thine Image on our Hearts impress;
Transform our Passions all to Love,
And sooth our Discords into Peace.

In Arms of warm Benevolence,
Teach us t' embrace all Human Kind;
And like the Sun, around dispense
The Wishes of a gen'rous Mind.

We are but Parts of one great Whole,
And may our Hearts, enlarg'd, exult
To scatter Bliss from Pole to Pole,
And still the Gen'ral Good consult!