love poetry

If high excess of unrelenting smart
Enforce not words to fail and thoughts to faint;
My love would now convince both tongue and heart
To say farewell unto my sweetest saint.
But while affection would my woes reveal,
And say unto my dearest heart farewell,
My senses are so suffocate with care,
They sigh, they groan, then say nothing but “fair.”

Then fairest fair, read in my sighs and tears
The secret anguish of thy dying slave,
Who, for the love unto thy worth he bears,
Hath consecrate his soul unto the grave;

Flowers are for the earth
And children for the sky.
When once they've gone to look on God,
They love it best on high.
Then let the bells ring out and say:
“One angel more in heaven to-day.”

How much soever in this life's mutations
We seek our shattered idols to replace,
Not one, in all the myriads of the nations,
Can ever fill another's vacant place.

Each has his own, the smallest and most humble,
As well as he revered the wide world through;
At every death some loves and hopes must crumble,
Which never strive to build themselves anew.

If the fair race of violets should perish
Before another spring-time has its birth,
Could all the costly blooms which florists cherish

Not farther than a fledgling's weak first flight,
In a low dell, standeth an antique grove;
Dusky it is by day, but when 'tis night,
None may tread safely there, unlit by Love.
In lonelier days, it was my mood to rove
At all hours there—to hear what mirth I might
Of the passionate Lark, the brooding Dove,
And the strong Thrush—all breathers of delight.
When Night's drawn curtains darkened the deep vale,
And the rich music of the day was ended,
Out gushed a sudden song of saddest wail,

For th' Heaven-gifted still an earthly Gift have I!
Some kingly robe, belike? Some jewel priceless-fair?
A Gift no King's or Croesus' yellow heaps could buy:
True love from Woman's heart, this tress of Woman's hair!

In vain!—The punishment that I must bear,
The bitter price that I must always pay
Is that I cannot wash the stain away
Which I have made upon a love so fair.
I sometimes think, that, dark though the despair,
Which binds your being in relentless sway,
It does not your sad heart more fiercely slay
Than the remorse in mine beyond compare—
To give, and have the fulness of return,
To love as few have loved, and then to mar
That spotless love by a belittling scar
Which must a soul beloved forever burn.

I went to learned men and asked the way.
The learned men were lost among their books;
They bade me stand aside, for such as they
For such as me had neither words nor looks.

I went to churches, where beyond my sight
Priests and their servants served great mystery;
Their waves of incense filled the arches' height,
Their waves of music swelled in harmony.
But I stood all alone: and he and he
Who led the great procession had no care for me.

I left their church, and sought the street instead,

Love who will, for I 'll love none,
—There 's fools enough besides me:
Yet if each woman have not one,
—Come to me where I hide me,
And if she can the place attain,
For once I 'll be her fool again.

It is an easy place to find,
—And women sure should know it;
Yet thither serves not every wind,
—Nor many men can show it:
It is the storehouse, where doth lie
All women's truth and constancy.

If the journey be so long,
—No woman will adventer;
But dreading her weak vessel's wrong,

My dear and only Love, I pray
—This noble world of thee
Be governed by no other sway
—But purest monarchy;
For if confusion have a part,
—Which virtuous souls abhor,
And hold a synod in thy heart,
—I 'll never love thee more.

Like Alexander I will reign,
—And I will reign alone:
My thoughts shall evermore disdain
—A rival on my throne.
He either fears his fate too much,
—Or his deserts are small,
That puts it not unto the touch
—To win or lose it all.

But I must rule and govern still,

Silver-green lanterns tossing among windy branches:
So an old man thinks
Of the loves of his youth.