love poetry

In each man's heart that doth begin
To love, there's ever fram'd within
A little world, for so I found,
When first my passion reason drown'd.

Instead of earth unto this frame,
I had a faith was still the same;
For to be right it doth behoove
It be as that, fixt and not move;

Yet as the earth may sometime shake
(For winds shut up will cause a quake),
So, often jealousy and fear,
Stol'n into mine, cause tremblings there.

My Flora was my sun, for as
One sun, so but one Flora was:

Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why
Does that ecclipsing hand, so long, deny
The Sun-shine of thy soule-enliv'ning eye?

Without that Light, what light remaines in me?
Thou art my Life, my Way, my Light; in Thee
I live, I move, and by thy beames I see.

Thou art my Life; If thou but turne away,
My life's a thousand deaths: thou art my Way;
Without thee, Lord, I travell not, but stray.

My Light thou art; without thy glorious sight,
Mine eyes are darkned with perpetuall night.

My soul, thy love is dear; 'twas thought a good
And easy penn'worth of thy Saviour's blood;
But be not proud; all matters rightly scanned,
'Twas over-bought: 'twas sold at second hand.

I DO not ask it thee! That is not love
Which waits to be entreated. Love is free
As God's own life, and of itself doth move.
Should I say, Love me? Rather let me prove
Myself to be love-worthy: then let be!

And yet what wretched shams our sad eyes see!—
“I love my Love because my Love loves me;”—
Oh, pitiful! Hast thou no gauge above
Another's thought by which to rate thine own?
No worthier trust, no surer corner-stone
To build thy temple of sweet hopes upon?
God help thee at thy need and give thee strength

O love, thy hair! thy locks of night and musk!
The very wind therein doth lose his way,
While in the perfumed darkness he would stray;
And my heart, too, is lost in scented dusk.

Thy crescent brows irradiate the night;
Love, of thy lips and tresses give thou me—
Thy breast is like a restless, heaving sea;
Thine eyes are stars of sorrow and delight.

Yet grieve not that I grieve, Soul of the Sea—
What is my heart that thou shouldst comfort it
With wine or song, with smile or dance or wit?

I'd not speak nor
Utter the pulse
That lowly travels
Blindly its course.

Sad, and many years …
Can soul, the instinct,
With love and fears,
Prop its burdened link?

Let's say “Good-bye”
Nor wait Love's latest breath
Poised now so lightly on the wing of Death,
While yet within our eyes one fervent gleam
Remains to hallow this, a passing dream:
Yes, yes “Good-bye,”
For it is best to part
While Love's low light still burns
Within the heart!

The pale blue sky gleams through the opening leaves,
The shadows play across the ground and air,
The yellow sunlight round leaf-rims retrieves
Its vanquished splendor where the foliage fair
Shuts out the grass from its fierce pulse and care.

I hear the silence from my window seat,
And feel the summer entering my veins,
And know with what strange joys the hour-hearts beat,
The fervorous hours that dance the fleeting plains
Where Love has birth and sweetest Joy remains.

I see across the way the maid I love,

She whom I loved, who loves me now no more,
Hath two conflicting natures in her soul:
And one of these she gave me; gave it whole,
And with an innocent emphasis did pour
That self of hers, full-brimm'd and running o'er,
Into the heart I offer'd her—a bowl
Homely perhaps, yet neither slight nor foul,
And apt to hold the treasure that it bore.

But then, her other self arose and cried
Against my gift, against her plenitude
Of sweet acceptance; and in alter'd mood
Sudden she flung that lifted bowl aside:

And had you loved me then, my dear,
And had you loved me there,
When still the sun was in the east
And hope was in the air,—
When all the birds sang to the dawn
And I but sang to you,—
Oh, had you loved me then, my dear,
And had you then been true!

But ah! the day wore on, my dear,
And when the noon grew hot
The drowsy birds forgot to sing,
And you and I forgot
To talk of love, or live for faith,
Or build ourselves a nest;
And now our hearts are shelterless,
Our sun is in the west.