love poetry

My mind was like a rugged soil that lay
With thick and cloudy darkness overspread,
Which chilling skies and iron seasons made
A sterile waste, with their ungentle sway.
Warmed in the light of Beauty's genial ray,
Its icy bands were loosed, its rigour fled,
And many a budding flow'ret reared its head,
As blooms the meadow in the prime of May.
Then came Love's gentle summer breath, to form
Flowers into fruit: and soon his fostering care
Had to a golden Autumn led the way;—
But ah! fell Jealousy's untimely storm

The look that thy sweet eyes on mine impress,
The pledge thy lips to mine convey,—the kiss,—
He who, like me, hath knowledge sure of this,
Can he in aught beside find happiness?

Removed from thee, friend-sever'd, in distress,
These thoughts I vainly struggle to dismiss:
They still return to that one hour of bliss,
The only one; then tears my grief confess.

But unawares the tear makes haste to dry:
He loves, methinks, e'en to these glades so still,—
And shalt not thou to distant lands extend?

O love, round as the watermelon,
do not use words sweet as the melon.
What you have said, this and that,
was all wrong, and you mocked me.
Enough, your empty talk
is hollow, like a preserved melon.

Ah , who shall Praise receive
—And not profane her?
Fool were I to believe,
—Churl to disdain her!

Praise is the kindly love
—Of all a nation,
Lifting the man above
—His lower station.

Praise is a mortal hate;
—In blood, not money,
He pays who takes the bait,
—Swallows the honey.

Imperial renown,
—How may I win thee?
Praise me, and I shall own
—The strength of ten within me.

Praise me, and I shall sink
—In shallow water;
Folly upon the brink,

In Nature's pieces still I see
Some error that might mended be;
Something my wish could still remove,
Alter or add; but my fair love
Was framed by hands far more divine,
For she hath every beauteous line.
Yet I had been far happier
Had Nature, that made me, made her.
Then likeness might (that love creates)
Have made her love what now she hates;
Yet, I confess, I cannot spare
From her just shape the smallest hair;
Nor need I beg from all the store
Of heaven for her one beauty more.

Yes, I will love thee when the sun
Throws light upon a thousand flowers;
When winter's biting breath is gone,
And spring leads on the smiling hours.
And I will call thee beautiful—
More beautiful than May's bright wreaths—
Tho' all the air with sweets be full,
Tho' every bird his soft tone breathes.

And I will love thee when the earth
Is bright with summer's rich attire;
When morn to seas of gold gives birth,
And eve to brighter wreaths of fire;
When the broad moon and burning stars

We heard it calling, clear and low,
——That tender April morn; we stood
——And listened in the quiet wood,
We heard it, ay, long years ago.

It came, and with a strange, sweet cry,
——A friend, but from a far-off land;
——We stood and listened, hand in hand,
And heart to heart, my Love and I.

In dreamland then we found our joy,
——And so it seemed as 'twere the Bird
——That Helen in old times had heard
At noon beneath the oaks of Troy.

O time far off, and yet so near!

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome
Has many sonnets: so here now shall be
One sonnet more, a loving sonnet, from me
To her whose heart is my heart's quiet home,
To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee
I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome:
Whose service is my special dignity
And she my lodestar while I go and come.

And so because you love, and because
I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath
Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name:
In you not fourscore years can dim the flame

Love scorch'd my finger, but did spare
The burning of my heart:
To signifie, in Love my share
Sho'd be a little part.

Little I love; but if that he
Wo'd but that heat recall:
That joynt to ashes burnt sho'd be,
Ere I wo'd love at all.