love poetry

Love—what is love? A great and aching heart;
Wrung hands; and silence; and a long despair.
Life—what is life? Upon a moorland bare
To see love coming and see love depart.

“So careful of the Type she seems;”
She mends what Man so foully makes:
Searching for five minute misprints
In a forest of mistakes.

If I (in form) dictated this
You will agree, at any rate,
Some things are here which you believe
And I did not dictate.

As you were better than a friend
In more than friendship we agree—
Friendship at best may be a bond:
And Truth has made us free.

Who enters by that Door alone,
However, dubious or afraid
For that one hour is that one Mind

The wind blew out from Bergen from the dawning to the day,
There was a wreck of trees and fall of towers a score of miles away,
And drifted like a livid leaf I go before its tide,
Spewed out of house and stable, beggared of flag and bride.
The heavens are bowed about my head, shouting like seraph wars,
With rains that might put out the sun and clean the sky of stars,
Rains like the fall of ruined seas from secret worlds above,
The roaring of the rains of God none but the lonely love.
Feast in my hall, O foemen, and eat and drink and drain,

O hurry where by water among trees
The delicate-stepping stag and his lady sigh,
When they have but looked upon their images,—
O that none ever loved but you and I!

Or have you heard that sliding silver-shoed
Pale silver-proud queen-woman of the sky,
When the sun looked out of his golden hood?—
O that none ever loved but you and I!

O hurry to the ragged wood, for there
I'll hollo all those lovers out and cry—
O my share of the world, O yellow hair!
No one has ever loved but you and I.

Love laid his sleepless head
On a thorny rosy bed;
And his eyes with tears were red,
And pale his lips as the dead.

And fear and sorrow and scorn
Kept watch by his head forlorn,
Till the night was overworn,
And the world was merry with morn.

And Joy came up with the day,
And kissed Love's lips as he lay,
And the watchers ghostly and gray
Sped from his pillow away.

And his eyes as the dawn grew bright,
And his lips waxed ruddy as light:
Sorrow may reign for a night,
But day shall bring back delight.

Though I love their fragrance, their aspect,
having grown old, I can't bear the cold.
Well then: fetching the window lamp,
not the moon, I'll enjoy their inclines.

Can you love my dear lassie the hills o' wild thyme
Where I made a Ballad in true lovers rhyme
Do you love the wild Common that neer was in furrow
Where I courted you truly to wed you tomorrow.

Do ye love the win bushes my ain bonny Bessey
Where the rude scenes o' nature still keeps her ain dress
Do ye love the wild Common where first I loved thee
Then come bonny Bess and gae walking wi me.

Where the wheat-ear is building her nes[t] i' the gorse
Where the orchis is blooming over beds o' green moss

Let moderation on thy passions waite
Who loves too much, too much the lov'd will hate.

Did I love thee? I only did desire
To hold thy body unto mine,
And smite it with strange fire
Of kisses burning as wine,
And catch thy odorous hair, and twine
It through my fingers amorously.
Did I love thee?

Did I love thee? I only did desire
To drink the perfume of thy blood
In vision, and thy senses tire
Seeing them shift from ebb to flood
In constant sweet interlude,
And if love such a thing not be,
I loved not thee.

At brightest dawn I'll rise and take
Long, ruddy lances from the sun,
And search with them each shady brake
To see where Love hath gone.
Love, Love, where liest thou?
“Thou shalt not find me so.”

I'll filch the brightest star on high
And tie it to my pilgrim's staff;
And by its rays I'll onward hie
To see where Love doth laugh.
Love, Love, where dost thou lie?
“Oh, not in shadows by!”

I'll climb the rainbow's rosy bridge,
And peep the pearlèd clouds above;
I'll cling to Luna's diamond edge,