The Parting Kiss

We were waiting at the station,
Soon the cars would surely start,
Hearts beat high with love's emotion,
For we knew we soon must part.
On dark lashes seemed to glisten
Tiny crystal tear drops shine;
To the fond voice glad I listen,
While dear eyes look into mine.

And the last words quickly spoken,
Darling still to me be true,
Let your promise be unbroken,
For I will be true to you.
Once I felt the soft hand tremble,
And my heart throbbed with its bliss;
Lips that rose-buds did resemble,

Whom the Gods Love

My lad is ever gone from me.
The roads all beckon him away;
And all day long, and every day,
The wide world bids him come and see!
Unto my lad, the Spring we met
Was no more fair than any spring;—
A listless bud, a wayside thing
To strip of petals and forget
At some clear call from out a pine.
My lad, he is no lad of mine:
I think I shall not ever set
My eyes on his, again.—And yet,
My heart like some dull talking-bird
Learns not from sorrow, but must say
Over and over, one poor word

Will Ladislaw's Song

O me, O me, what frugal cheer
My love doth feed upon!
A touch, a ray, that is not here,
A shadow that is gone:

A dream of breath that might be near,
An inly-echoed tone,
The thought that one may think me dear,
The place where one was known,

The tremor of a banished fear,
An ill that was not done—
O me, O me, what frugal cheer
My love doth feed upon!

The Spirit of air

Coral and clear emerald,
And amber from the sea,
Lilac-coloured amethyst,
Chalcedony;
The lovely Spirit of Air
Floats on a cloud and doth ride,
Clad in the beauties of earth
Like a bride.

So doth she haunt me; and words
Tell but a tithe of the tale.
Sings all the sweetness of Spring
Even in the nightingale?
Nay, but with echoes she cries
Of the valley of love;
Dews on the thorns at her feet,
And darkness above.

Endymion

O Night divine, mother of all things fair,
Thou that dost know Love's revels—hear my prayer!
When Heliodora's arms that cozen sleep
In her warm couch their willing prisoner keep,
Do thou put out the light, while on her breast
Rocked like Endymion by a goddess' side I rest.

Tho' 't Is All But a Dream

Tho ' 't is all but a dream at the best,
And still, when happiest, soonest o'er,
Yet, even in a dream, to be blest
Is so sweet, that I ask for no more.
The bosom that opes
With earliesThopes,
The soonest finds those hopes untrue;
As flowers that first
In spring-time burst
The earliest wither too!
Ay—'t is all but a dream, etc.

Tho' by friendship we oft are deceived,
And find love's sunshine soon o'ercast,
Yet friendship will still be believed.
And love trusted on to the last.

Songs

When fair Amelia's artless smiles,
At first my youthful bosom fir'd;
I look'd and sigh'd from day to day,
But durst not say that I admir'd.

Yet what my tongue could not reveal,
True love's expressive looks betray'd,
Tir'd with restraint, at length I own'd
My passion to the lovely maid.

You should have told me this before,
'Tis now too late, she said, and sigh'd,
Last night arriv'd a lover gay,
My father means me for his bride.

When next my wand'ring heart was caught
By bright Eliza's sparkling eyes,

Pia dei Tolomei to Love and Death

The distant hills are blue as lips of death;
Between myself and them the hot swamps steam
In fetid curls, which, in the twilight, seem
Like gathering phantoms waiting for my breath;

While in the August heat with chattering teeth
I sit, and icy limbs, and let the stream
Of recollection flow in a dull dream;
Or weave, with marish blooms, my own death-wreath.

O Love that hast undone me, and through whom
I waste in this Maremma: King of Sighs,
Behold thy handmaid in her heavy doom!

Proffered Love Rejected

It is not four years ago,
I offered forty crowns
To lie with her a night or so:
She answer'd me in frowns.

Not two years since, she meeting me
Did whisper in my ear,
That she would at my service be,
If I contented were.

I told her I was cold as snow,
And had no great desire;
But should be well content to go
To twenty, but no higher.

Some three months since or thereabout,
She, that so coy had been,
Bethought herself and found me out,
And was content to sin.

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