love poetry

It is already Autumn, and not in my heart only,
The leaves are on the ground,
Green leaves untimely browned,
The leaves bereft of Summer, my heart of Love left lonely.

Swift, in the masque of seasons, the moment of each mummer,
And even so fugitive
Love's hour, Love's hour to live:
Yet, leaves, ye have had your rapture, and thou, poor heart, thy Summer!

As a most happy mother feels the stir
Of that new life which quickens with her life,
And knows that virtue has gone forth from her
To doubly sanctify the name of wife;
Yet, for her joy's sake, and because her pride
Is too unutterably sanctified,
And all the heaven of heavens within her breast
Too dearly and too intimately possessed,
Speaks not a word, but folds her new delight
With a rapt silence, comforting as night;
So, when I felt the quickening life that came
To bid my life's long-slumbering currents move,

Once I smiled when I saw you, when I saw you smile I was glad,
And the joy of my heart was as foam that the sea-wind shakes from the sea;
But the smile of your eyes grows strange, and the smile that my lips have had
Trembles back to my heart, and my heart trembles in me.

Once you laughed when you met me, when you met me your voice was gay
As the voice of a bird in the dawn of the day on a sun-shiny tree;
But the sound of your voice grows strange, and the words that you do not say
Thrill from your heart to mine, and my heart trembles in me.

Child, in those gravely-smiling eyes,
What memory sits apart and hears
A litany of low replies,
Love's music, in a lover's ears?

Love in your heart, a guest unsought,
Unfeared, and never known for Love,
Softer than music to the thought,
Sings in an unknown tongue of love.

Once wandering in Flora's bowers
To gather wreaths of fragrant flowers,
I found love's god asleep
Among the roses; in my wine
I plunged him—of the draught divine
I drank a potion deep.
Now in my limbs I feel the sting
Of his light pinions fluttering.

The gods said Love is blind. The earth was young
With foolish, youthful laughter when iTheard;
It caught and spoke the letter of the words,
And from that time till now hath said and sung,
“Oh, Love is blind! The falsest face and tongue
Can cheat him, once his passion's thrill is stirred:
He is so blind, poor Love!”
Strange none demurred
At this, nor saw how hollow false it rang,
When all men know that sightless men can tell
Unnumbered things which vision cannot find.
Powers of the air are leagued to guide them well;

What do I love him for? His lustrous eyes
Of mirrored sea-change, deep as yonder wave:
Or yet the wonder of his spirits rise
When laughter woos him from reflection grave.
Or is it for the tender suppliant way
He has in seeking me at close of day
To put his head upon my breast and say
A thousand times he loves me? Is it for
His ardent lips or gentle hand's caress,
Or yet his midnight locks that I adore?
Not for these charms I love him,—nor not less
Were he to lack them: nay, I worship more
The Inner-Being in its loveliness!

L OVE'S pleadings will be heard though lips be still,
In fluttering breaths that quicken into sighs,
In timid hands that touch and cling and thrill,
And in the dear confession of the eyes;
Yes, very silence has a voice of prayer
More sweet than any old Provençal air.

As when beside a viol lying mute,
Strong chords are struck until it seems to wake
And give an answering murmur to the lute,
So heart will throb to heart for love's sweet sake,
And chant in faint, delicious harmonies
The rapturous passion-song that never dies.

After the jostling on canal streets
and the orchids blowing in the window
I work in cut glass and majolica
and hear the plectrum of the angels.

My thoughts keep dwelling on the littoral
where china clocks tick in the cold shells
and the weeds slide in the equinox.

The night is cold for love,
a chamber for the chorus
and the antistrophe of the sealight.

Though Amaryllis dance in green
Like Fairy Queen,
And sing full clear;
Corinna can, with smiling, cheer.
Yet since their eyes make heart so sore,
Hey ho! chill love no more.

My sheep are lost for want of food,
And I so wood
That all the day
I sit and watch a herd-maid gay,
Who laughs to see me sigh so sore;
Hey ho! chill love no more.

Her loving looks, her beauty bright,
Is such delight
That all in vain
I love to like, and lose my gain
For her, that thanks me not therefore.