love poetry

The stars stand up in the air,
The sun and the moon are gone,
The strand of its waters is bare.
And her sway is swept from the swan.

The cuckoo was calling all day,
Hid in the branches above,
How my stóirín is fled away,
'Tis my grief that I gave her my love.

Three things through love I see—
Sorrow and sin and death—
And my mind reminding me
That this doom I breathe with my breath.

But sweeter than violin or lute
Is my love—and she left me behind.
I wish that all music were mute,

Thou knowest, love, I know that thou dost know
that I am here more near to thee to be,
and knowest that I know thou knowest me:
what means it then that we are sundered so?

If they are true, these hopes that from thee flow,
if it is real, this sweet expectancy,
break down the wall that stands 'twixt me and thee;
for pain in prison pent hath double woe.

Because in thee I love, O my loved lord,
what thou best lovest, be not therefore stern:
souls burn for souls, spirits to spirits cry!

A moon rising white
Is the beauty of my lovely one.
Ah, the tenderness, the grace!
Heart's pain consumes me.

A moon rising bright
Is the fairness of my lovely one.
Ah, the gentle softness!
Heart's pain wounds me

A moon rising in splendor
Is the beauty of my lovely one
Ah, the delicate yielding!
Heart's pain torments me

Her whom I loved in early years
So well, so tenderly,—who filled
With a first passion's hopes and fears
A heart which time has not yet stilled,—
Can I forget her? Day by day I strive
Her well-loved image from my mind to drive;
To find new dreams my old dreams to efface,
And let another love my early love replace.
But all in vain. I strive and strive, and yet
Whate'er I do I never can forget.
When in the silent hours of night I sleep,
She comes in dreams; once more I see her stand
Beside my couch; once more her accents steep

Permit not, Lord, the hope of heaven to urge
To turn to thee the longing of thy child;
Nor to forsake offending, terror-filled,
The pains of hell become for me a scourge.

Suffer me, Saviour, to approach the verge
Of Life, see thee alive, and nailed, reviled,
Thy body torn and bloody and defiled;
In thy death torment grant my love to merge.

Suffer me, Lord, to love thee in such wise
That though I had not heaven I love thee still,
That though I had not hell I fear thy will.

Because I love thee hold me out no prize.

‘I loue the rose both red & white.’
‘Is that your pure perfite appetite?’
‘To here talke of them is my delite!’
‘Ioyed may we be,
oure prince to se,
&rosys thre!’

SLEEPING ! why now sleeping?
The moon herself looks gay,
While through thy lattice peeping;
Wilt not her call obey?
Wake, love, each star is keeping
For thee its brightest ray;
And languishes the gleaming
From fire-flies now streaming
Athwart the dewy spray.

Awake, the skies are weeping
Because thou art away,
But if of me thou'rt dreaming,
Sleep, loved one, while you may!
And music's wings shall hover
Softly thy sweet dreams over,
Fanning dark thoughts away,
While, dearest, 'tis thy lover

I WENT to dig a grave for Love,
But the earth was so stiff and cold
That, though I strove through the bitter night,
I could not break the mould.

And I said: “Must he lie in my house in state,
And stay in his wonted place?
Must I have him with me another day,
With that awful change in his face?”

If I could lay my head upon your knee
And let the world go by! Love, could it be?—
Could we shut out the poor world's muffled tread,
The cry at birth, the wailing for the dead,
All things that tell us of mortality
And love's short life?—Nay, love, how could it be?