love poetry

Woman wants monogamy;
Man delights in novelty.
Love is woman's moon and sun;
Man has other forms of fun.
Woman lives but in her lord;
Count to ten, and man is bored.
With this the gist and sum of it,
What earthly good can come of it?

THE WOMAN I am
Hides deep in me
Beneath the woman
I seem to be.

She hides away
From the stranger's eye —
She is not known
To the passers-by.

She goes her way,
The woman I seem,
But the woman I am
Withdraws to dream!

The woman I seem
Goes carelessly —
When love goes by
Does not seem to see.

But the woman I am
Knows sudden fear . . .
And hides more deeply
When love draws near!

For love might look closely
Perhaps . . . and see

With joy all relics of the past I hail;
The heath-bell, lingering in our cultured moor,
Or the dull sound of the slip-shouldered flail,
Still busy on the poor man's threshing floor:
I love this unshorn hedgerow, which survives
Its stunted neighbors, in this farming age:
The thatch and houseleek, where old Alice lives
With her old herbal, trusting every page;
I love the spinning wheel, which hums far down
In yon lone valley, though, from day to day,
The boom of Science shakes it from the town.

With echoing step the worshippers
Departed one by one;
The organ's pealing voice was stilled,
The vesper hymn was done;
The shadows fell from roof and arch,
Dim was the incensed air,
One lamp alone with trembling ray,
Told of the Presence there!

In the dark church she knelt alone;
Her tears were falling fast;
" Help, Lord, " she cried, " the shades of death
Upon my soul are cast!
Have I not shunned the path of sin
And chosen the better part? "
What voice came through the sacred air?

THE winter is past,
And the summer's come at last
And the blackbirds sing in every tree;
The hearts of these are glad
But my poor heart is sad,
Since my true love is absent from me.

The rose upon the briar
By the water running clear
Gives joy to the linnet and the bee;
Their little hearts are blest
But mine is not at rest,
While my true love is absent from me.

A livery I'll wear
And I'll comb out my hair,
And in velvet so green I'll appear,
And straight I will repair

Why do we fear words?
They can be rose-petal hands,
Cool, fragrant hands stroking our faces,
And sometimes cups of refreshing drink
Sipped in summer by thirsty lips.

Why do we fear words?
Some words are secret bells, the echoes
of their tone announce the start of a magic
And abundant time
Steeped in feeling and life,
So why should we fear words?

We took to silence
We did not want our secrets to pass our lips
We thought that words amassed an unseen monster

" WHOM the gods love die young; " — if gods ye be,
Then generously might ye have spared to us
One from your vast unnumbered overplus,
One youth we loved as tenderly as ye.

—Who loves the rain
—And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes,
—Him will I follow through the storm;
—And at his hearth-fire keep me warm;
Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise,
—Who loves the rain,
—And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes.

White hands of languorous grace,
Fair feet of stately pace
And snowy-shining knees—
My love was made of these.

Stars glimmered in her hair,
Slim was she, satin-fair;
The straight line of her brows
Shadowed her cheek's fresh rose.

What words can match her ways,
That beauty past all praise,
That courteous, stately air,
Winsome and shy and fair.

To have known all this and be
Tortured with memory—
Curse on this waking breath—
Makes me in love with death.

Better to sleep than see

Where shall this lust open its mouth?
A big sea turtle is asleep like a mountain
and near the Paleozoic sea
the shell of a giant clam weighing about four tons in thickness is surveying it all.
What slow dark sunrays!
From behind the island at each cape misty with sprays
a mysterious hospital ship form emerges
and it is, you see, dragging the hawser of its sunken anchor.
Listen! my love
how long are we going to sit here, side by side on these sad rocks here
the sun is boundlessly distant