poems about love

To the Right Honourable

Mr. Dodington .

Long, Dodington, in debt, I long have sought
To ease the burden of my grateful thought;
And now a poet's gratitude you see,
Grant him two favours, and he'll ask for three ;
For whose the present glory, or the gain?
You give protection, I a worthless strain.
You love, and feel the poet's sacred flame,
And know the basis of a solid fame;
Tho' prone to like, yet cautious to commend,
You read with all the malice of a friend ;
Nor favour my attempts that way alone,

My Muse, proceed, and reach thy destin'd end;
Tho' toil , and danger the bold task attend.
Heroes , and Gods make other poems fine,
Plain Satire calls for sense in ev'ry line;
Then, to what swarms thy faults I dare expose?
All friends to vice and folly , are thy foes;
When such the Foe, a war eternal wage,
'Tis most Ill-nature to repress thy rage;
And if these strains some nobler Muse excite,
I'll glory in the Verse I did not write.

So weak are human kind by nature made,

To His Grace the

DUKE of Dorset .

M Y Verse is Satire; D ORSET , lend your ear,
And patronize a Muse you cannot fear ;
To Poets sacred is a D ORSET 's name,
Their wonted passport thro' the gates of Fame;
It bribes the partial reader into praise,
And throws a Glory round the shelter'd lays;
The dazzled Judgment fewer faults can fee,
And gives applause to B — e , or to Me.
But you decline the mistress we pursue;
Others are fond of Fame , but Fame of You.

Rosy as a waking bride
By her royal lover's side,
Flows the Sorgia's haunted tide
Through the laurel grove, —
Through the grove which Petrarch gave,
All that can escape the grave —
Fame, and song, and love.

He had left a feverish bed
For the wild flowers at his head,
And the dews the green leaves shed
O'er his charmed sleep:
From his hand had dropp'd the scroll
To which Virgil left his soul
Through long years to keep.

Passion on that cheek had wrought,

What more? 'Twas Rupert's fate to wed the maiden:
The weary wanderer, from his trouble free,
Bore her, upon his manly breast love-laden,
To pass their honeymoon beside the sea.
O sweet young girl, fit raiment white arrayed in!
O mystic hours of love! Untouched by me
Those days delicious of the early bridal,
Too delicate for song or sweetest idyl.

A night for love. Sir Rupert of the Sword
Saw a young maiden trip the terrace over,
Who saw not him. Whom once he had adored
Now held no empire o'er the war-stained rover.
The merry girl with joyous fancies stored
Danced gaily by: to watch her was to love her.
Grim Rupert to discern it was not slow:
He kissed her eyes and mouth, and let her go.

He kissed her in those woodland haunts, and she
Clung to his lip with that which love resembled.
O the sweet hours they spent beside the sea!
O on his breast how the sweet lady trembled
With love's divine delirium! Can it be
That she, so stately and so calm, dissembled?
" No," thought young Rupert — yet the diamond ring
Shone on his finger, an unaltered thing.

Miss Plumpness did not faint — she only tittered:
Where was the girl who would not like a kiss
From Vandyke-bearded Rupert, whose eyes glittered
With most mysterious meaning? But there is
In love's own sweet lip-contact an embittered
Ecstasy, making laughter all amiss.
Girl, trust no love, however strangely sweet,
If you can laugh, or he, when your lips meet.

Then — if she loves you — at the touch of lips,
The white light of the diamond has fled,
Not as a star which suffers strange eclipse
When in the wild blue sky its life is dead,
But with a marvellous apocalypse —
The virgin diamond blushes passionate red;
Sudden its icy pureness must depart;
It reddens like a rose's amorous heart.

Well—as I said—my love, my bride, my wife,
Is here, and gazes on me piteously.
It seems that reason and passion are at strife
As she comes in with strange humility.
‘O love and lord!’ she cries, ‘O love and life!
O author of my maiden agony!
Am I forgotten utterly? Am I
Left in the cold dark chancel vault to die?’