love poetry

There never yet was honest man
That ever drove the trade of love;
It is impossible, nor can
Integrity our ends promove:
For Kings and Lovers are alike in this
That their chief art in reigne dissembling is.

Here we are lov'd, and there we love,
Good nature now and passion strive
Which of the two should be above,
And laws unto the other give.
So we false fire with art sometime discover,
And the true fire with the same art do cover.

What Rack can Fancy find so high?
Here we must Court, and here ingage,

Sought by the world, and hath the world disdained,
Is she, my heart, for whom thou dost endure;
Unto whose grace sith kings have not obtained,
Sweet is thy choice, though loss of life be sour;
Yet to the man, whose youth such pains must prove,
No better end than that which comes by love.

Steer then thy course unto the port of death,
(Sith thy hard hap no better hap may find,)
Where, when thou shalt unlade thy latest breath,
Envy herself shall swim, to save thy mind;
Whose body sunk in search to gain that shore

My thoughts are winged with hopes, my hopes with love.
Mount, love, unto the moon in clearest night,
And say, as she doth in the heavens move,
In earth so wanes and waxeth my delight.
And whisper this but softly in her ears:
Hope oft doth hang the head, and Trust shed tears.

And you, my thoughts, that some mistrust do carry,
If for mistrust my mistress do you blame,
Say, though you alter, yet you do not vary,
As she doth change and yet remain the same.
Distrust doth enter hearts but not infect,

NO man love's fiery passion can approve
As either yielding profit or promotion,
I like, a calm and lukewarm zeal in love,
Although I do not like it in devotion.
Besides, man needs not love unless he please;
No destiny can force his disposition.
How then can any die of that disease
Whereof himself may turn his own physician?
Some one, perhaps, in long consumption dried,
And after falling into love, may die;
But I dare pawn my life he ne'er had died
Had been healthy at the heart as I.
Some others, rather than incur the slander

None loves me, Father, with thy love,
None else can meet such needs as mine;
O grant me, as thou shalt approve,
All that befits a child of thine;
From every doubt and fear release,
And give me confidence and peace!

Give me a faith shall never fail,
Faith that shall always work by love;
And then, whatever foes assail,
They shall but higher courage move
More boldly for the truth to strive,
And more by faith in thee to live.

A heart that, when my days are glad,
May never from thy way decline,

O Love, Love, Love!
Whether it rain or shine,
Whether the clouds frown or the sky is clear,
Whether the thunder fill the air with fear,
Whether the winter rage or peace is here,
If only thou art near,
Then are all days divine.

O Love, Love, Love!
Where thou art not, the place
Is sad to me as death. It would be cold
In heaven without thee, if I might not hold
Thy hand in mine, if I might not behold
The beauty manifold,
The wonder of thy face.

She who mocked at my despair,
Tossed the ringlets of her hair,
See her now that beauty's fled,
All her pride discomfited.

Hanging breast, and sunken eye,
Lips that babble foolishly,
Drooping eyebrows, all confess
Age and wrinkled ugliness.

Love a righteous vengeance claims
On the heads of haughty dames,
Gray hairs not to be denied
Are his nemesis for pride.

That farewell voice of love is never heard again
Yet I remember it and think on it with pain
I see the place she spoke when passing by
The flowers were blooming as her form drew nigh
That voice is gone with every pleasing tone
Loved but one moment and the next alone
Farewell the winds repeated as she went
Walking in silence through the grassy bent
The wild flowers they ne'er look'd so sweet before
Bowed in far[e] wells to her they'll see no more
In this same spot the wild flowers bloom the same

“D EAR as remembered kisses after death”—
We read and pause, toying the pliant page
With absent fingers while we question slow,
By whom remembered? Not by those that live,
And love again, and wed, and know fresh joys,
Forgetting the pale past. Ah, no! for them,
The sudden stirring of such long-whelmed thought
Means shock and pain, and swift reburial.
But it may be, that with the dreaming dead,
Who sank away quick piercèd by despair,
It may be that their stillness is aglow
Through soft recalling of each loved caress;

An ancient tome came to my hands:
A tale of love in other lands:
Writ by a Master so divine,
The Love seems ever mine and thine.
The volume opened at the place
That sings of sweet Francesca's grace:
How reading of Fair Guinevere
And Launcelot that long gone year,
Her eyes into her lover's fell
And—there was nothing more to tell.
That day they op'ed that book no more:
Thenceforth they read a deeper lore.

Beneath the passage so divine,
Some woman's hand had traced a line,
And reverently upon the spot