love poetry

Come all you maids that live at a distance
Many a mile from off your swain,
Come and assist me this very moment
For to pass some time away,
Singing sweetly and completely
Songs of pleasure and of love.
My heart is with you altogether
Though I live not where I love.

Oh when I sleeps I dreams about you,
When I wake I take no rest,
For every instant thinking on you
My heart e'er fixed in your breast.
Oh this cold absence seems at a distance
And many a mile from my true love,
But my heart is with her altogether

Along Yew's banks
As the brush I clove,
Ah! where my lord?
Sad, hungered love!

Along Yew's banks
As the stumps I cut,
Lo! here my lord!
He forgets me not!

As the bream-tails flush
So Court passions fly,
Let them see the away!
Our saviour's nigh!

When the curtains of night
Are pinned back by the stars,
And the beautiful moon sweeps the sky,
I'll remember you,
Love,
In my prayers.

When the curtains of night
Are pinned back by the stars,
And the dew drops of heav'n kiss the rose,
I'll remember you,
Love,
In my prayers.

Around this naked brow of mine
No laurels in close chaplét lie,
Parnassus laughs with all his flow'rs
At such a tuneless Bard as I.
For me, no vagrant blossom dares
Slily to cheat the vigil Nine,
But jeer and flout my steps assail—
Yet will I sing of Love and Wine.

Come! let the plunder'd rose look pale,
Whil'st Halcyone's cheek its colour wears,
Fast let the brimming charger pour,
And stain my bowl with sanguine tears.
Thus whilst I drain the gold mouth'd cup,
And press its blazing lip to mine,

Love mistres is of many myndes,
Yet fewe know whome they serve;
They recken least how little love
Their service doth deserve.

The will she robbeth from the witt,
The sence from reason's lore;
She is delightfull in the ryne,
Corrupted in the core.

She shroudeth Vice in Vertue's veyle,
Pretendinge good in ill;
She offreth joy, affordeth greife,
A kisse, where she doth kill.

A honye-shoure raynes from her lippes,
Sweete lightes shyne in her face;
She hath the blushe of virgin mynde,

This my love for thee no whim is, That, from mem'ry flown, shall go;
Nor my passion such as hither, Thither, fancy-blown, shall go.

Thine affection in my bosom, In my heart the love of thee,
With my mother's milk did enter And with life alone shall go.

Love's chagrin is an affliction, Which howe'er thou seek to salve,
Still from worse to worse increasing, Ever sharper grown, shall go.

First of lovers in the city, Whose lament for love and dole
Nightly to the sky ascendeth, Still to heav'n my moan shall go.

B Y a lake below the mountain
—Hangs the birch, as if, in glee,
The lake had flung the moon a fountain,
—She had turned it to a tree.

Therefore do her dull leaves glimmer
—Like the waves that mothered them.
Therefore flits a moony shimmer
—Always round her curvèd stem.

B Y a lake below the mountain
—Hangs the birch, as if, in glee,
The lake had flung the moon a fountain,
—She had turned it to a tree.

Therefore do her dull leaves glimmer
—Like the waves that mothered them.

“Old woman, old woman, shall we go a-shearing?”
“Speak a little louder, sir, I'm very hard of hearing.”
“Old woman, old woman, shall I love you dearly?”
“Thank you very kindly, sir, I hear you very clearly.”

In the heart's fire my breast for love Of yonder fair consumeth;
Such fire is in this room the house All everywhere consumeth.

My body, for its severance From yonder charmer, melteth;
My soul, at that her cheek's sun-heat, For love-despair consumeth.

Whoever on the ringlet-chains Hath looked of Peri-faces,
His stricken heart for me, distraught With love and care, consumeth.

See my heart's burning! At the fire Of these my tears, for pity
And love of me, the candle's heart, Moth-like, o rare! consumeth.

The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves,
The brilliant moon and all the milky sky,
And all that famous harmony of leaves,
Had blotted out man's image and his cry.

A girl arose that had red mournful lips
And seemed the greatness of the world in tears,
Doomed like Odysseus and the labouring ships
And proud as Priam murdered with his peers.

Arose and on the instant clamorous eaves,
A climbing moon upon an empty sky,
And all that lamentation of the leaves,
Could but compose man's image and his cry.