love poetry

I TELL a tale o' burnin' love,
A love they seldom tine
Wha ance ha'e nursed it in their hearts:
It's no a love divine;
It's no a tale o' human love,
Whaur ane may lo'e anither;
It's no a mither's for a bairn,
A sister's for her brither:

Nae love o' science or o' art,
Or nature's bonny face;
It's no a love o' warl's gear,
Nor a love o' power and place;
It's no a love o' ocht that's gude,
Or ocht that's fine or fair;
It's no a love o' priest or kirk—
It's unco seldom there.

We gathered round the festive board,
The crackling faggot blazed,
But few would taste the wine that poured.
Or join the song we raised.
For there was now a glass unfilled —
A favored place to spare;
All eyes were dull, all hearts were chilled —
The loved one was not there.

No happy laugh was heard to ring,
No form would lead the dance;
A smothered sorrow seemed to fling
A gloom in every glance.
The grave had closed upon a brow,
The honest, bright, and fair;

Dear Kate, I do not swear and rave,
Or sigh sweet things as many can;
But though my lip ne'er plays the slave
My heart will not disgrace the man .
I prize thee — ay, my bonnie Kate,
So firmly fond this breast can be,
That I would brook the sternest fate
If it but left me health and thee.

I do not promise that our life
Shall know no shade on heart or brow;
For human lot and mortal strife

Dear child! a faithful mother's love
For thee will toil, and watch, and pray;
An angel hovering still above
Thy couch by night, thy steps by day.

Oh, think how oft thy lips have pressed
Her breast! how oft thine arms have clung
Around her neck, while to her heart
She clasped thee close, and sweetly sung!

When fever's burning flush suffused
Thy cheek, and heaved thy panting chest,
Thou rest or refuge all refused
Save mother's arms and mother's breast.

And she would sit with tangled hair,

Thou bid'st me take the axe, and rudely smite
Yon belt of trees that bounds thy searching eyes.
Thou hast a stranger's heart, an alien's sight,
For all those dear home objects which I prize;
I love the rooks, that drop the wearied wing
At eve so fondly on their native grove,
And to mine ear and eyesight daily bring
So many sounds and motions that I love;
And in that path beneath, ere day is done,
How oft I pace beside the setting sun;
How oft I watch the nightly orb arise
On the dark trees, my garden guest to be.

To the e , Echo, and thou to me agane
In the deserts among the wods and wells
Whair destinie hes bund thee to remane
But company within the firths and fells,
Let us complene, with wofull youts and yells
On shaft and shooter that our hairts hes slane:
To the e , Echo, and thou to me agane. . . .

Som thing, Echo, thou hes for to rejose
Suppose Narcissus somtyme the e forsook.
First he is dead syne changed in a Rose,
Whom thou nor nane hes pouer for to brook.
Bot be the contrair everie day I look

I rather far be fast nor frie
Albeit I micht my mynd remove;
My maistres hes a man of me
That lothis of every thing bot love.
What can a man desyre?
What can a man requyre?
Bot tym sall caus him tyre
And let it be, —
Except that fervent fyre
Of burning love impyre:
Hope heghts me sik a hyre
I rather far be fast nor frie.

But love — what wer bot sturt or stryfe?
But love — what kyndnes culd indure?
But love — hou lothsum war our lyfe!
But love — whar of suld we be sure?

Western wind, when wilt thou blow,
That the small rain down can rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!

Let the dull brutish world that know not love
Continue haeretiques, and disapprove
That noble flame; but the refined know
'Tis all the heaven we have here below.
Nature subsists by Love, and they ty
Things to their causes but by Sympathy
Love chaines the differing Elements in one
Great harmony, link'd to the heavenly throne;
And as on Earth, so the blest quire above
Of Saints and Angells are maintain'd by love;
That is their business and felicity,
And will be so to all eternity.
That is the Ocean, our affections here.

This love is crueller than the other love:
We had the Dreams for Tryst, we other pair;
But here there is no we; — not anywhere
Returning breaths of sighs about me move.
No wings, even of the stuff which fancy wove,
Perturb Sleep's air with a responsive flight
When mine sweep into dreams. My soul in fright
Circles as round its widowed nest a dove.

One shadow but usurps another's place: