love poetry

Through life on journeying, by its thorny paths,
Or pleasant ways—its rank green hemlock wastes,
Or roseate bowers—in utter loneliness,
Or 'mid the din of busy multitudes—
Two babes of beauty linger near us still—
Twin Cherubim—that leave us not until
We've passed the threshold of that crowded inn
Which borders on Eternity! One doth point,
With gleaming eye and finger tremulous,
To clefts in azure, where the sunbeams slumber
On couch of vermeil dye and amethyst,
Bordered with flowers that never know decay;

O love! what art thou, Love? the ace of hearts,
Trumping earth's kings and queens, and all its suits;
A player, masquerading many parts
In life's odd carnival;—a boy that shoots,
From ladies' eyes, such mortal woundy darts;
A gardener, pulling heart's-ease up by the roots;
The Puck of Passion—partly false—part real—
A marriageable maiden's “beau ideal.”

O Love! what art thou, Love? a wicked thing,
Making green misses spoil their work at school;
A melancholy man, cross-gartering?
Grave ripe-faced wisdom made an April fool?

XXII

Love and Fortune and my mind, rememb'rer
Of that that is now with that that hath been,
Do torment me so that I very often
Envy them beyond all measure.
Love slayeth mine heart. Fortune is depriver
Of all my comfort. The foolish mind then
Burneth and plaineth as one that seldom
Liveth in rest, still in displeasure.
My pleasant days, they fleet away and pass,
But daily yet the ill doth change into the worse,
And more than the half is run of my course.
Alas, not of steel but of brickle glass

Forgetting God
To love a king
Hath been my rod
Or else nothing,

In this frail life,
Being a blast
Of care and strife
Till it be past.

Yet God did call
Me in my pride,
Lest I should fall
And from Him slide.

For whom loves He
And not correct,
That they may be
Of His elect?

Then, Death, haste thee.
Thou shalt me gain
Immortally
With Him to reign;

Who send the king
Like years as Noye
In governing
His realm in joy;

Dear, why do you say you love,
When indeed you careless prove,
Reason better can digest
Earnest hate, than love in rest.

Wherefore do your smiling eyes
Help your tongue to make sweet lies?
Leave to statesmen tricks of state,
Love doth politicians hate.

You perchance presume to find
Love of some chameleon kind;
But be not deceiv'd my fair,
Love will not be fed on air.

Love's a glutton of his food,
Surfeits make its stomach good,
Love whose diet grows precise,
Sick from some consumption dies.

Only a Flower! but, then, it grew
On the green mountains which en-ring
Kana-el-Jelîl; looking to
The village, and the little Spring!

The Love which did those bridals bless
Ever and ever on you shine!
Make happier all your happiness,
And turn its water into wine!

False Love, too long thou hast delayed,
Too late I make my choice;
Yet win for me that precious maid,
And bid my heart rejoice,
Then shall mine eyes shoot youthful fire,
My cheek with triumph glow,
And other maids that glance desire,
Which I on one bestow.

Make her with smile divinely bland
Beam sunshine o'er my face,
And Time shall touch with gentlest hand
What she hath deigned to grace;
O'er scanty locks full wreaths I'll wear;
No wrinkled brow to shade,
For joy will smooth the furrows there,

Honoured of all but yesterday,
Loved of his men and of Egypt's throng,
Now in a stranger land, the prey
Of death, for his coming we vainly long;
O'er that marble face we might not weep,
Not ours with perfume the pyre to steep;
But the traitor Nile cannot take away
The fame that lives in a deathless song.

A day of Freedom is each dawning day,
And day of Grace to sinful erring men;
While shines its sun they all may find their way
Back to the path of virtue truth again.
Its beauty all may love, its light all see,
Its noon-day glory fills the heaven and earth;
From night's dark bondage it the soul would free,
And make it heir of an immortal birth.
In it the Psalmist saw God's law made clear,
The law of freedom, purity, and right;
But Christ taught unto God all men were dear,
And called to be the children of the light;

My life as yet is but an infant's walk,
With tottering steps and words half-uttered slow;
But I shall soon in nobler accents talk,
And grown to manlier stature, firmer go;
I shall go out and in and pasture find
In him who leads me safe forever on;
The spirit's fetters then shall I unbind,
And sin from me forever shall be gone;
Eternal life will be the gift bestowed,
By him who loved us while yet dead in sin;
Such love forever from the Father flowed,
But we were not prepared the crown to win;