love poetry

Swear to me, said my love, that you are mine:
Bring yourself to me outside my door and wait:
My lovers have come in numbers but they go,
I call for love that asks for nothing and gives all.
I am tired of the debits and credits of love,
I am tired of the vows of lovers,
I leave you as free as I ask to be myself.
Swear to me, said my love, that love is not a bond:
Love's body is for love's body, that is all,
Love's soul is for love's soul, that is all.
I give all for all, I bargain for nothing less,

I have found that love comes forth from customs issuing a challenge,
And love's challenge turns love loose upon you in vehement plenty,
And you go to your root and find love there before you,
And you go to your finished boughs and you find love there already arrived,
And you follow love out of all law and habit,
And you follow love out of all luxury and laxity,
And you go where love is free and pure, and you track love to the scene of its newday consummations
Once you thought love was only safe with the police at its door:

When Spring in sunny woodland lay,
And gilded buds were sparely set
On oak tree and the thorny may,
I gave my love a violet.
“O Love,” she said, and kissed my mouth
With one light, tender maiden kiss,
“There are no rich blooms in the south
So fair to me as this!”

When Summer reared her haughty crest,
We paused beneath the ruddy stars;
I placed a rose upon her breast,
Plucked from the modest casement bars.
“O Love,” she said, and kissed my mouth—
Heart, heart, rememb'rest thou the bliss?—

What art thou, Love? whence are those charms?
—That thus thou bear'st an universal rule:
For thee the soldier quits his arms,
—The king turns slave, the wise man fool.

In vain we chase thee from the field,
—And with cool thoughts resist thy yoke:
Next tide of blood, alas! we yield,
—And all those high resolves are broke.

Can we e'er hope thou shouldst be true,
—Whom we have found so often base?
Cozened and cheated, still we view
—And fawn upon the treacherous face.

In vain our nature we accuse;

I LOVE her for her charming face,
And those fond eyes that gaze on me,
And roguish lips that hold the place
Where other lips most long to be,
The rosy cheek, the dimpled chin,
That would less ardent lover win.

I love her just because I do,
Because 'tis such a pleasure, too,
And were such wooing
My undoing
Just as tenderly I 'd woo,
I could n't help it, nor could you.

I love her for her dimpled hand,
And hold it just to see her frown,
And disobey her sweet command

I LOVE to watch these rugged hills,
By Hudson's rolling wave,
When angry clouds sweep o'er the sky,
And loud the tempests rave.

I love to watch the foaming surge
That heaves its sparkling crest,
But my home, the dearest spot to me,
Is in the far, far West.

I love to climb the rocky steep,
Or in the silent glade
To wander forth in pensive thought,
When twilight shadows fade.

But the rolling prairie's wide expanse
I love—I love the best—
My home,—the dearest spot to me,

Were love but true, no frost would mar the flowers,
No fatal frost that down the garden bowers
Steals hideously from bloom to blissful bloom,
The shimmering weft of summer's golden loom,
And mocks with blight their radiant, dreamful hours.

Nor would the waste and wreck of orient towers,
Slow-sunken from the reach of sun and showers,
Tax the unfeatured sands for burial room,
Were love but true.

For love is lord of earth's phantasmal powers,
And all that seems with his own fact he dowers.

We have walked in Love's land a little way,
We have learnt his lesson a little while,
And shall we not part at the end of day,
With a sigh, a smile?

A little while in the shine of the sun,
We were twined together, joined lips, forgot
How the shadows fall when the day is done,
And when Love is not.

We have made no vows—there will none be broke,
Our love was free as the wind on the hill,
There was no word said we need wish unspoke,
We have wrought no ill.

So shall we not part at the end of day,

Come, Sadhus, sing Hari's praises; come, let us sing Hari's praise.
Sanctify the mind with meditation, the ear with the heavenly waters of love.
Sanctify the tongue with singing praises. Let us sing praises and be joyful.
To sing Hari's praise is a stream of nectar: to praise His love's immortal wine is sweet.
By tasting it we find salvation, by drinking thereof become immortal.
Brother of the poor, the poor's defender, Lord of the helpless, destroyer of their pains.
His Form is truth, is life, is bliss, at His feet lay down your cares.

If it shine or if it rain,
Little will I care or know.
Days, like drops upon a pane,
Slip, and join, and go.

At my door's another lad;
Here's his flower in my hair.
If he see me pale and sad,
Will he see me fair?

I sit looking at the floor.
Little will I think or say
If he seek another door;
Even if he stay.