love poetry

THE LOVELY LASS AND THE MIRROR .

A NYMPH with ilka beauty grac'd,
Ae morning by her toilet plac'd,
Where the leal-hearted Looking-glass
With truths addrest the lovely Lass.
“To do ye justice, heavenly fair,
“Amaist in charms ye may compare
“With Venus' sell; but mind amaist,
“For tho' you 're happily possest
“Of ilka grace which claims respect,
“Yet I see faults you should correct;
“I own they only trifles are,
“Yet of importance to the fair:
“What signifies that patch o'er braid,

I SAY not, regret me; you will not regret;
You will try to forget me, you cannot forget;
We shall hear of each other, ah, misery to hear
Those names from another which once were so dear!

But deep words shall sting thee that breathe of the past,
And many things bring thee thoughts fated to last;
The fond hopes that centered in thee are all dead,
The iron has entered the soul where they fed.

Of the chain that once bound me, the memory is mine,
But my words are around thee, their power is on thine;

I DO not ask to offer thee
A timid love like mine;
I lay it, as the rose is laid
On some immortal shrine.

I have no hope in loving thee,
I only ask to love;
I brood upon my silent heart,
As on its nest the dove.

But little have I been beloved,
Sad, silent, and alone:
And yet I feel, in loving thee,
The wide world is mine own.

Thine is the name I breathe to Heaven,
Thy face is on my sleep;
I only ask that love like this
May pray for thee and weep.

Is not the lark companion of the spring?
And should not Hope — that skylark of the heart —
Bear, with her sunny song, Youth company?
Still is its sweetest music poured for love;
And that is not for me; yet will I love,
And hope, though only for her praise and tears;
And they will make the laurel's cold bright leaves
Sweet as the tender myrtle.

He set the trumpet to his lips, and lo!
The clash of waves, the roar of winds that blow,
The strife and stress of Nature's warring things,
Rose like a storm-cloud, upon angry wings.

He set the reed-pipe to his lips, and lo!
The wreck of landscape took a rosy glow,
And Life, and Love, and gladness that Love brings
Laughed in the music, like a child that sings.

Master of each, Arch-Master! We that still
Wait in the verge and outskirt of the Hill
Look upward lonely — lonely to the height

O you there weeping alone so bitterly,
What is it you weep for, paying bitterly
The price in tears and darkened sunless eyes?
Only your youth? — yet always late or soon
Age scatters dust for gold and, late or soon,
Darkens and then calms the desiring eyes.

But I am weeping my age which was so fair.
Nothing, not even death, was quite so fair
Mine was that wisdom in which the seraphs love,
And in my age agelessly I had been
Rose in the cherubs' rose-flame love — have been
A golden mirror for the sun of love!

An alley of dark cypresses
Hides an enrondured pool of light;
And there the young musicians come
With instruments for her delight.
Silk-clad, their brown cropped locks are bowed
Over dim lutes that sigh aloud;
Or else with heads thrown back they tease
Reverberate echoes from the drum.

The stiff folds of her rich brocade
Crush with faint sound the first dead leaves,
As her page lets slips the lustrous train.
Her eyes are sad, and her bosom heaves;
For the poet walking with her lays bare

Ladies, I keep a Rhyme-shop; mine's a trade;
I sell to old and young, to man and maid:
All customers must be obliged; and no man
Wishes more universally to please.
I'd really crawl upon my knees,
I'oblige; particularly, lovely Woman.

Yet some (the Devil take such virtuous times!)

When innocent pastime our pleasure did crown,
Upon a green meadow, or under a tree,
Ere Annie became a fine lady in town,
How lovely, and loving, and bonny was she!
Rouze up thy reason my beautifu' Annie,
Let ne'er a new whim ding thy fancy a-jee;
O! as thou art bonny, be faithfu' and canny,
And favour thy Jamie, wha doats upon thee.

Does the death of a lintwhite give Annie the spleen?
Can tyning of trifles be uneasy to thee?
Can lap-dogs and monkies draw tears frae these een,

Love may be increased by fears,
May be fann'd with sighs,
Nurst by fancies, fed by doubts;
But without Hope it dies!
As in the far Indian isles
Dies the young cocoa-tree,
Unless within the pleasant shade
Of the parent plant it be:
So Love may spring up at first,
Lighted at Beauty's eyes; —
But Beauty is not all its life,
For without Hope it dies.