love poetry

I

O mother, I am sick of love,
I cannot laugh nor lift my head,
My bitter dreams have broken me,
I would my love were dead.

"Drink of the draught I brew for thee,
Thou shalt have quiet in its stead."

II

Where is the silver in the rain,
Where is the music in the sea,
Where is the bird that sang all day
To break my heart with melody?

"The night thou badst Love fly away,
He hid them all from thee."

I was the Widow McFarlane,
Weaver of carpets for all the village.
And I pity you still at the loom of life,
You who are singing to the shuttle
And lovingly watching the work of your hands,
If you reach the day of hate, of terrible truth.
For the cloth of life is woven, you know,
To a pattern hidden under the loom --
A pattern you never see!
And you weave high-hearted, singing, singing,
You guard the threads of love and friendship
For noble figures in gold and purple.
And long after other eyes can see

Why should I pine? when there in Spain
Are eyes to woo, and not in vain;
Dark eyes, and dreamily divine:
And lips, as red as sunlit wine;

Sweet lips, that never know disdain:
And hearts, for passion over fain;
Fond, trusting hearts that know no stain
Of scorn for hearts that love like mine.-
Why should I pine?

Because all dreams I entertain
Of beauty wear thy form, Elain;
And e'en their lips and eyes are thine:
So though I gladly would resign
All love, I love, and still complain,

ONE blossoming rose-tree, like a beautiful thought
Nursed in a broken mind, that waits and schemes,
Survives, though shattered, and about it caught,
The strangling dodder streams.
Gaunt weeds: and here a bayonet or pouch,
Rusty and rotting where men fought and slew:
Bald, trampled paths that seem with fear to crouch,
Feeling a bloody dew.
Here nothing that was beauty's once remains.
War left the garden to its dead alone:
And Life and Love, who toiled here, for their pains
Have nothing once their own.

When love is lost, the day sets towards the night,
Albeit the morning sun may still be bright,
And not one cloud-ship sails across the sky.
Yet from the places where it used to lie
Gone is the lustrous glory of the light.


No splendour rests in any mountain height,
No scene spreads fair and beauteous to the sight;
All, all seems dull and dreary to the eye
When love is lost.


Love lends to life its grandeur and its might;
Love goes, and leaves behind it gloom and blight;

I saw her crop a rose
Right early in the day,
And I went to kiss the place
Where she broke the rose away
And I saw the patten rings
Where she o'er the stile had gone,
And I love all other things
Her bright eyes look upon.
If she looks upon the hedge or up the leafing tree,
The whitethorn or the brown oak are made dearer things to me.

I have a pleasant hill
Which I sit upon for hours,
Where she cropt some sprigs of thyme
And other little flowers;
And she muttered as she did it

"Why do I love" You, Sir?
Because—
The Wind does not require the Grass
To answer—Wherefore when He pass
She cannot keep Her place.

Because He knows—and
Do not You—
And We know not—
Enough for Us
The Wisdom it be so—

The Lightning—never asked an Eye
Wherefore it shut—when He was by—
Because He knows it cannot speak—
And reasons not contained—
—Of Talk—
There be—preferred by Daintier Folk—

The Sunrise—Sire—compelleth Me—
Because He's Sunrise—and I see—

Behold, the grave of a wicked man,
And near it, a stern spirit.

There came a drooping maid with violets,
But the spirit grasped her arm.
'No flowers for him,' he said.
The maid wept:
'Ah, I loved him.'
But the spirit, grim and frowning:
'No flowers for him.'

Now, this is it -
If the spirit was just,
Why did the maid weep?

Why, my heart, do we love her so?
(Geraldine, Geraldine!)
Why does the great sea ebb and flow? -
Why does the round world spin?
Geraldine, Geraldine,
Bid me my life renew:
What is it worth unless I win,
Love--love and you?

Why, my heart, when we speak her name
(Geraldine, Geraldine!)
Throbs the word like a flinging flame? -
Why does the Spring begin?
Geraldine, Geraldine,
Bid me indeed to be:
Open your heart, and take us in,
Love--love and me.

YOU ask me why I love her,
As I love nought on earth?
Why I'll put none above her
For sorrow or for mirth?
Though there be others fairer;
In spirit, richer, rarer;
With none will I compare her,
Who is to me all worth!
I love her for her beauty,
Her force, her fire, her youth,
For kisses cold as duty
Bespeak not love, but ruth.
I love her for the treasure
Of all the rapturous pleasure
Her love gives without measure
Of passion and of truth!
I love her firm possession