love poetry

I WOULD not have this perfect love of ours
Grow from a single root, a single stem,
Bearing no goodly fruit, but only flowers
That idly hide life's iron diadem:
It should grow alway like that Eastern tree
Whose limbs take root and spread forth constantly;
That love for one, from which there doth not spring
Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing
Not in another world, as poets prate,
Dwell we apart above the tide of things,
High floating o'er earth's clouds on faery wings;
But our pure love doth ever elevate

Away, sad voices, telling
Of old, forgotten pain!
My heart, at grief rebelling,
To joy returns again.
My life, at tears protesting,
To long delight returns,
Where, close of all my questing,
Her dear eyes love discerns.

Guard thee, my friend, from grimmest devils' jaws,
More dangerous yet are angels softly smiling;
One such I knew, and she my heart beguiling,
Proffered sweet kiss—right soon I felt sharp claws—
Guard thee, my friend, from black old pussy's paws;
More dangerous yet are white young kittens mewing—
One such I took for Love, to my undoing—
My heart was torn to rags—my Love the cause—
Oh sweet beguiler! wondrous lovely maiden!
How could thine eyes of clearest blue deceive me?
Could thy soft paw of my heart's flesh bereave me?

If for
even
one night
the grasses
of my passion
were cut and gathered,
ah, what
a pile
they would make—
a mountain reaching

If I entreat this lady that all grace
Seem not unto her heart an enemy,
Foolish and evil thou declarest me,
And desperate in idle stubbornness.
Whence is such cruel judgement thine, whose face,
To him that looks thereon, professeth thee
Faithful, and wise, and of all courtesy,
And made after the way of gentleness?
Alas! my soul within my heart doth find
Sighs, and its grief by weeping doth enhance,
That, drowned in bitter tears, those sighs depart:
And then there seems a presence in the mind,

"These Gothic windows, how they wear me out
With cusp and foil, and nothing straight or square,
Crude colours, leaden borders roundabout,
And fitting in Peter here, and Matthew there!

"What a vocation! Here do I draw now
The abnormal, loving the Hellenic norm;
Martha I paint, and dream of Hera's brow,
Mary, and think of Aphrodite's form."

O ye who love today,
Turn away
From Patience with her silver ray:
For Patience shows a twilight face,
Like a half-lighted moon
When daylight dies apace.

But ye who love tomorrow
Beg or borrow
Today some bitterness of sorrow:
For Patience shows a lustrous face,
In depth of night her noon;
Then to her sun gives place.

Lightsome as convey'd by sparrows,
Love and Beauty cross'd the plains,
Flights of little pointed arrows
Love dispatch'd among the swains:
But so much our shepherds dread him,
(Spoiler of their peace profound)
Swift as scudding fawns they fled him,
Frighted, though they felt no wound.

Now the wanton God grown slyer,
And for each fond mischief ripe,
Comes disguis'd in Pan's attire,
Tuning sweet an oaten pipe:
Echo, by the winding river,
Doubles his delusive strains;
While the boy conceals his quiver,

I am lying in the tomb, love,
Lying in the tomb,
Tho' I move within the gloom, love,
Breathe within the gloom!
Men deem life not fled, dear,
Deem my life not fled,
Tho' I with thee am dead, dear,
I with thee am dead,
O my little child!

What is the grey world, darling,
What is the grey world,
Where the worm lies curled, darling,
The death-worm lies curled?
They tell me of the spring, dear!
Do I want the spring?
Will she waft upon her wing, dear,
The joy-pulse of her wing,
Thy songs, thy blossoming,

I will not follow you, my bird,
I will not follow you.
I would not breathe a word, my bird,
To bring thee here anew.

I love the free in thee, my bird,
The lure of freedom drew;
The light you fly toward, my bird,
I fly with thee unto.

And there we yet will meet, my bird,
Though far I go from you
Where in the light outpoured, my bird,
Are love and freedom too.