love poetry

That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love;
It is enough, the freight should be
Proportioned to the groove.

Tie one end of a rope fast over a beam,
And make a slip-noose at the other extreme;
Then just underneath let a cricket be set,
On which let the lover most manfully get;
Then over his head let the snecket be got,
And under one ear be well settled the knot.
The cricket kicked down, let him take a fair swing;
And leave all the rest of the work to the string.

They that never had the use
Of the grape's surprising juice,
To the first delicious cup
All their reason render up;
Neither do, nor care to know,
Whether it be best or no.

So they that are to love inclined
Swayed by chance, not choice, or art,
To the first that's fair, or kind,
Make a present of their heart;
'Tis not she that first we love,
But whom dying we approve.

To man, that was in the evening made,
Stars gave the first delight,
Admiring, in the gloomy shade,
Those little drops of light;

They nailed my Saviour to the cross,
The cross on Calvary;
'Twas there in agony He died
For sinful souls like me.

They placed upon His brow a crown,
A cruel crown of thorn;
Placed it upon that gentle brow,
In bitter hate and scorn.

Despised, rejected, loving still,
My dear Lord suffered there;
“Forgive, they know not what they do,”
His tender dying prayer.

How can I show my love to Him
Who suffered thus for me?
All that I have—a humble gift
His evermore shall be.

There is no power to change
One act, one word.
We move in time: these range
Immortal. I have heard

Egypt and her Antony,
With their love first fulfilled,
Cry out, and again cry—
Nor ever are they stilled.

And Sheba I have seen
Bare for her love her breast.
The silken Lesbian queen
Leaves nothing unconfessed.

Though Helen's lips are dust
The kisses of her lips
Must burn the towers, and must
Still launch the thousand ships.

Unspaced, untimed, held fast

That Love,—whose power and sovranty we own,
And who before all time was did beget
The sun and moon and splendid stars, and set
All lovely things to speak of Him alone,—
Late looking earthward from his supreme throne
Saw that,—although the beauty lingered yet,—
The froward heart of man did quite forget
That all this beauty from His presence shone;
Wherefore, desiring to reclaim his eyes
To heaven by some unequalled new delight,
He gave the world a treasure from the skies,
My Lady's sacred beauty, pure and bright,

There are no stars to-night
But those of memory.
Yet how much room for memory there is
In the loose girdle of soft rain.

There is even room enough
For the letters of my mother's mother,
Elizabeth,
That have been pressed so long
Into a corner of the roof
That they are brown and soft,
And liable to melt as snow.

Over the greatness of such space
Steps must be gentle.
It is all hung by an invisible white hair.
It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air.

And I ask myself:

One day in a lonesome grove,
Lit o'er my head a little dove,
O little dove, you are not alone,
Like you I am constrained to mourn.
There is one thing that cheers my heart,
That my dear Mary's gone to rest,
And while tongue can move,
She prayed, she prayed her
Lord her pardoning love.

Do you see yon turtle-dove lamenting on yonder vine?
She's mourning for her own true love,
Why shouldn't I, too, mourn for mine?
My little dove, you're not alone,
For with you I'm constrained to mourn,

On the Occident she shed her light
who kindled in the Orient of beauty;
him to detain who hastened to his doom
the heaven of the West sought out the Sun.

I, in the Occident guitaring light,
in a love-distracted dying burned;
(the consummation of my little day
was Moon, because my life was up betimes).

Thou gainest from the Occident on the Sun;
fatal wounds he fugitive inflicts,
thou motionless inflictest wounds of healing.

In the Orient still he fans his pyres;

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O Light that flowest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine's blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be.