poems about love

I WONDER not men fabled as they did,
In that old rapture of Hellenic days,
Of Venus as the daughter of the Sea,
From its white foam upspringing, full of grace.

For I have watched thy beauty hour by hour,
Lying at thy dear side all hushed and still,
Bidding thee work on me thy secret spells,
And with thy fulness all my being fill.

" Ay, sea-born beauty, but how sea-born love? "
I hear the doubter question and confess.
But who, still young, has wandered by thy side,
The old Hellenic riddle well may guess.

To W. P. P.

The dear little nest up under the eaves
Out of the wind's cold reach,
The dear little home up on the cliff
Above the pebbly beach!
The rain may beat on the window-pane,
The snow pile around the door,
But at our fireside love-lights glow,
What more has life in store?

We sit and talk in the hearth's warm light,
While dying embers glow,

The unregenerate righteous
Who only love the few,
The profligate and prodigal
Who know not what they do —

The anarchist and socialist
Who are so worldly wise,
The laborer and capitalist
Who mingle all their cries —

All circle in a giddy whirl,
Bereft and blinded by
The mote of hate, which magnifies
The beam in the other's eye.

" Lift up your heads! " The light of love
Dispelling mote and beam —
Reveals to man a brother man —
To trust, help or redeem.

Through wondrous love, the heart of God
Conceived a glorious plan: —
A struggling world to be shown the Way
By the Son of God made man.

God chose a maid with a snow-white soul
To be the Virgin-Mother;
In poverty, her pathway lay,
The poorest man, her brother.

Her life of labor, prayer, and pain,
Reflects the life of her Son —
Shows womankind the only Way
A heavenly crown is won.

She brought the Light into the world
To shine for you and me,
And following the love-lit Way,

" WE see now, through a glass darkly, "
Because we are of the Earth;
We shall see with the eyes of the spirit
In the land of our re-birth.

Because God loves us dearly,
He sent to us the Light,
Which " Shineth in the darkness, "
To guide our souls aright.

See these two little Brooks that slowly creep
In Snaky windings through the Plains,
I knew them once one River, swift and deep,
Blessing and blest with Poets strains.

Then touch'd by Aw, we thought some God did powr
Those flouds from out his sacred Jar,
Transforming every Weed into a Flow'r
And every Flower into a Star.

But since it broke it self, and double glides,
The Naked Banks no dress have worn.

Lydia, fickle and fair,
Lyce, the faded of hue,
Lalage, Pholoi...there!
Hark how the l's ripple through.
These were the beauties that drew,
These lilting and lyrical dames!
Leuconoi, Glycera ... Pooh!
Why, Horace, they're nothing but names!

Pyrrha, the golden of hair,
Lyde the lyrist, the shrew
Myrtale ... well, I declare!

Brag not a Golden Rain O Jove ; we see
Cupid descends in Showers as well as thee.

I sent a Sigh unto my Blest ones Eare,
Which lost it's way, and never did come there;
I hastned after, lest some other Fair
Should mildly entertain this travelling Aire:
Each flowry Garden I did search, for fear
It might mistake a Lilly for her Eare;
And having there took lodging, might still dwell
Hous'd in the Concave of a Christall Bell.
At last, one frosty morning I did spy
This subtile Wand'rer journeying in the Sky;
At sight of me it trembled, then drew neer,
Then grieving fell, and dropt into a Tear:

Who can hide fire? If't be uncover'd, Light,
If cover'd, Smoake betraies it to the sight:
Love is that fire, which still some sign affords,
If hid, the are Sighs; If open, they are Words.