love poetry

By the old strange seas loud-breaking
Lo! my love for ever stands,
And the waves the shingle shaking
Are not whiter than her hands;
And her breath is sweet as roses
That the dewy morn discloses
When June holds the laughing lands.

Never, though the swift years perish,
Shall she quit that ancient shore,
And the flowers her sweet hands cherish
Shall be sweet for evermore:
And the seas' eternal metre
For her sake shall echo sweeter
As their endless chant they pour.

Ever, young and pure and tender,

Scotland prides her in the “Bonnet Blue,”
That it brooks no stain in Love or War:
Be it, on Ottilie's head, a token true
Of my Scottish Love to kind Weimar!

A THOUSAND lilies, a thousand pinks,
I take in my arms and clasp them round
Close as the loving vine-branch links
The bough in its clinging tendrils wound.

For joy has taken abode with me,
And care no longer turns pale my face,
I love all life—and if these things be,
'Tis the gift, fair dream, of thy heaven-sent grace

I could climb the sky thy flight to follow …
But alas! my joy lives but a breath,
For the fleeting dream is a vision hollow,
Like clouds in the wind it vanisheth.

Ere I lose myself in the vastness and drowse myself with the peace,
While I gaze on the light and the beauty afar from the dim homes of men,
May I still feel the heart-pang and pity, love-ties that I would not release;
May the voices of sorrow appealing call me back to their succour again.

Ere I storm with the tempest of power the thrones and dominions of old,
Ere the ancient enchantment allure me to roam through the star-misty skies,
I would go forth as one who has reaped well what harvest the earth may unfold;

Sweet names, the rosary of my evening prayer,
Told on my lips like kisses of good-night
To friends who go a little from my sight,
And some through distant years shine clear and fair!—
So this dear burden that I daily bear
Mighty God taketh, and doth loose me quite;
And soft I sink in slumbers pure and light
With thoughts of human love and heavenly care;
But when I mark how into shadow slips
My manhood's prime, and weep fast-passing friends,
And heaven's riches making poor my lips,
And think how in the dust love's labor ends,

The broad magnolia's blooms are white;
Her blooms are large, as if the moon
Had lost her way some lazy night,
And lodged here till the afternoon.

Oh, vast white blossoms breathing love!
White bosom of my lady dead,
In your white heaven overhead
I look, and learn to look above.

He longs
He strokes with words the place of longing
keeps long vigils on the peaks of days that collapse in cold sand
Saida over Saida
and sea that tumbles into sea
I remember having loved. . . . . .

I loved until I became love
And who saw my soul over the trees of the place
And who saw my voice across the silence opposite the city?
In silence everything happens
the rose of the volcano
the wind's glory
the talk of the ocean
the neighing of the ages
songs
moans …

They do not hear
because

My heart is not mine any longer,
I confess it to you, dearest friends;
I love, and no love could be stronger,
For my loved One the whole world transcends—
My heart is not mine any longer.

'Tis useless to dwell on her beauty,
She has utterly conquered my heart;
To praise her I feel is my duty,
But her fairness excels all my art—
'Tis useless to dwell on her beauty.

I cannot endure life without her,
Nor the length of the night and the day;
'Tis life to be thinking about her,

A MUSTERED host of glances bright,
A sweet bouquet of smiles,
A crucible of melting words
Bewitched me with their wiles!

I wished to live retired, to love
The flowers and bosky glades,
The blue sky's lights, the dew of morn,
The evening's mists and shades;

To scan my destiny's dark page,
In thought my hours employ,
And dwell in meditation deep
And visionary joy.

Then near me stirred a breath that seemed
A waft of Eden's air,
The rustle of a maiden's robe,
A tress of shining hair.

O cool in the summer is salad,
?And warm in the winter is love;
And a poet shall sing you a ballad
?Delicious thereon and thereof.
A singer am I, if no sinner,
?My muse has a marvellous wing,
And I willingly worship at dinner
The Sirens of Spring.
Take endive—like love it is bitter,
?Take beet—for like love it is red;
Crisp leaf of the lettuce shall glitter,
?And cress from the rivulet's bed;
Anchovies, foam-born, like the lady
?Whose beauty has maddened this bard;
And olives, from groves that are shady;