love poetry

Upon our eyelids, dear, the dew will lie,
And on the roughened meshes of our hair,
While little feet make bold to scurry by
And half-notes shrilly cut the quickened air.

Our clean, hard bodies, on the clean, hard ground
Will vaguely feel that they are full of power,
And they will stir, and stretch, and look around,
Loving the early, chill, half-lighted hour.

Loving the voices in the shadowed trees,
Loving the feet that stir the blossoming grass —
Oh, always we have known such things as these,

My love must be as free
As is the eagle's wing,
Hovering o'er land and sea
And everything.

I must not dim my eye
In thy saloon,
I must not leave my sky
And nightly moon.

Be not the fowler's net
Which stays my flight,
And craftily is set
T' allure the sight.

But be the favoring gale
That bears me on,
And still doth fill my sail
When thou art gone.

I cannot leave my sky
For thy caprice,
True love would soar as high
As heaven is.

Unhappy East (not in that awe
you pay your Lords, whose will is law)
but in your owne unmanly raigne
on the soft sex, and proud disdaine!
what state would bring the value downe
of treasure which is all their owne?
Their thoughts to worthlesse objects move
who thus suppresse the growth of Love,
Love that extends the high desire,
Love that improves the manly fire,
and makes the price of Beauty rise
and all our wishes multiplyes;
Such high content dwells not in sense,
nor can the captiv'd fayre dispense

I'm guided in the darkest night
By flashes of auroral light,
Which over dart thy eastern home
And teach me not in vain to roam.
Thy steady light on t'other side
Pales the sunset, makes day abide,
And after sunrise stays the dawn,
Forerunner of a brighter morn.

There is no being here to me
But staying here to be
When others laugh I am not glad,
When others cry I am not sad,
But be they grieved or be they merry
I'm supernumerary.
I am a miser without blame
Am conscience stricken without shame.

Let your loving bondwoman
Salute your lips if you prefer;
This is your courtesy to her.
Yet still remember how she ran
From her grave, and running, leapt
To catch the arrows of your hurt,
To stretch her body in dust and dirt,
Flinging a causey where you stepped.

Remember how, asleep or waking,
The shallow pillow of her breast
Shook and shook to your heart's shaking,
In pity whereof her heart was split;
Love her now; forget the rest;
She has herself forgotten it.

'Twas of a lovely creature who dwelled by the seaside,
For her lovely form and features she was the village pride;
There was a young sea captain who Mary's heart would gain,
But she was true to Henry, was on the raging main.

'Twas in young Henry's absence this noble man he came
A-courting pretty Mary, but she refused the same.
She said, " I pray you begone, young man, your vows are all in vain,
Therefore begone, I love but one, he's on the raging main."

With mad desperation this noble man he said,

Twain that were foes, while Mary lived, are fled;
One laurel-crowned abides in heaven, and one
Beneath the earth has fared, a fallen sun,
A light of love among the loveless dead.
The first is chastity, that vanquished
The archer Love, that held joint empery
With the sweet beauty that made war on me,
When laughter of lips with laughing eyes was wed.

Their strife the Fates have closed, with stern control,
The earth holds her fair body, and her soul
An angel with glad angels triumpheth;

THE YOUNG GIRL

Even as a child that weeps,
Lulled by the love it keeps,
My grief lies back and sleeps.

Yes, it is Love bears up
My soul on his spread wings,
Which the days would else chafe out
With their infinite harassings.
To quicken it, he brings
The inward look and mild
That thy face wears, my child.

As in a gilded room
Shines 'mid the braveries

Why forms discuss, if that the soul is fled?
Is the communion in the wine and bread;
Or in the loving hearts, that would draw near
A dying Savior's last command to hear?
Ah, still have met again that little band,
And in their midst the Savior still doth stand:
Where Love doth break the bread and pour the wine,
And they are one in fellowship divine.
How few this fellowship of love profess!
How few a dying Savior's name confess!
For what are rites and forms? an empty show,
If we their meaning, life, have ceased to know.

I love the light, when first its beams
Steal o'er the earth and sky;
And gently wake the slumbering world,
And bid the shadows fly.

I love the light of noon-day sun,
Its full, effulgent ray;
That floods the earth, and sea, and sky,
And brings the perfect day.

I love the light of sunset hour,
Which lingers in the west;
Which soothes the weary heart and mind,
And gives the laborer rest.

I love the moon's soft, silvery light,
The light of stars, that keep
Their watches o'er a weary world,