love poetry

If my harsh humble style, and rhymes ill dressed,
Arrive not to your worth and beauty glorious,
My Muse's shoulders are with weight oppressed,
And heavenly beams are o'er my fight victorious.
If these dim colours have your worth expressed,
Laid by love's hand, and not by art laborious,
Your sun-like rays have my wits' harvest blessed,
Enabling me to make your praise notorious.
But if, alas! alas! the heavens defend it!
My lines your eyes, my love your heart displeasing,
Breed hate in you, and kill my hope of easing;

In the old years that creep on us so fast,
When Time goes by us with a halting tread,
Shall we sit still and ponder at the last
The young swift years of love that will be dead?
Shall we look back upon the passionate years.
Where in a maze our younger figures move,
Instinct with half-forgotten hopes and fears,
And gaze anew on the mirage of love?

Yes, we two, like old actors at the play,
Watching the beating of a tinsel heart,
Will laugh and weep, and clap our hands, and say,
“How sadly that young lover played his part

The earth is waking at the voice of May,
The new grass brightens by the trodden way,
The woods wave welcome to the sweet spring day,
And the sea is growing summer blue;
But fairer, sweeter than the smiling sky,
Or bashful violet with tender eye,
Is she whose love for me will never die,—
I love you, darling, only you!

O, friendships falter when misfortunes frown,
The blossoms vanish when the leaves turn brown,
The shells lie stranded when the tide goes down,
But you, dear heart, are ever true.

O Elkhorn City, little town!
On which the Cumberland look down
Fond and protectingly.
Around your northern border grows
The spruce pines, and the Sandy flows
Among them tranquilly.

Your streets are ornamented well
With trees and cottages where dwell
Ever contentedly
A people, hospitable and kind,
To Life and Duty never blind
High minded proud and free.

O Elkhorn City! In my heart
I hold for you a goodly part
Of love's devotion true;
And this my wish: That He above

The space of the world is immense, before me and around me;
If I turn quickly, I am terrified, feeling space surround me;
Like a man in a boat on very clear, deep water, space frightens and confounds me.

I see myself isolated in the universe, and wonder
What effect I can have. My hands wave under
The heavens like specks of dust that are floating asunder.

I hold myself up, and feel a big wind blowing
Me like a gadfly into the dusk, without my knowing
Whither or why or even how I am going.

Another day of rest, and I sit here
Among the trees, green mounds, and leaves as sere
As my own blasted hopes. There was a time
When Love and perfect Happiness did chime
Like two sweet sounds upon this blessed day;
But one has flown forever, far away
From this poor Earth's unsatisfied desires
To love eternal, and the sacred fires
With which the other lighted up my mind
Have faded out and left no trace behind,
But dust and bitter ashes. Like a bark
Becalmed, I anchor through the midnight dark,

Can beauty that did prompt me first to write,
Now threaten, with those means she did invite?
Did her perfections call me on to gaze,
Then like, then love; and now would they amaze?
Or was she gracious afar off, but near
A terror? Or is all this but my fear?
That as the water makes things, put in't, straight,
Crookèd appear; so that doth my conceit:
I can help that with boldness; and love sware,
And fortune once, to assist the spirits that dare.
But which shall lead me on? Both these are blind:

There's mony a man loves land and life,
Loves life and land and fee;
And mony a man loves fair women,
But never a man loves me, my love,
But never a man loves me.

O weel and weel for a' lovers,
I wot weel may they be;
And weel and weel for a' fair maidens,
But aye mair woe for me, my love,
But aye mair woe for me.

O weel be wi' you, ye sma' flowers,
Ye flowers and every tree;
And weel be wi' you, a' birdies,
But teen and tears wi' me, my love,
But teen and tears wi' me.

Loves first warm gushes still their charms reveal
& that bright day when mary first was met
Whose smiles are with me & I almost feel
With thee as bending oer her bosom yet
Heaving confusd its palpitations wild.

Twin stars, aloft in ether clear,
Around each other roll alway,
Within one common atmosphere
Of their own mutual light and day.

And myriad happy eyes are bent
Upon their changeless love alway;
As, strengthened by their one intent,
They pour the flood of life and day.

So we through this world's waning night
May, hand in hand, pursue our way;
Shed round us order, love, and light,
And shine unto the perfect day.