poems about love

(Catullus, XLV)

Septimius thus his [ ] love addressed,
His darling Acme in his arms sustained,
" My Acme, may I perish if my breast
Burns not for thee with love to madness strained,
And more — if I am not prepared to give
To thee such earnest love unchanged by time
As any human heart can feel and live,
Then may I roam through Lybia's burning clime
And meet alone the ravenous lion's roar."
He spoke and at the word the God of love,
The God of love, as from the right before,

My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love,
And though the sager sort our deeds reprove,
Let us not weigh them. Heaven's great lamps do dive
Into their west, and straight again revive,
But soon as once set is our little light,
Then must we sleep one ever-during night.

If all would lead their lives in love like me,
Then bloody swords and armor should not be;
No drum nor trumpet peaceful sleeps should move,
Unless alarm came from the camp of love.
But fools do live, and waste their little light,

The gown you wear is curiously like sound —
Tangles of dahlia-murmurs taking shape
In shrinking, mellow sprays.
The ever-lasting journey of your heart
Is like a fragile traveller of sound —
A murmur seeking the love that gave it birth.

F EDERIGO . You say she passed this way?
L EONIDO . Footing like dawn over the meadow, flecking the soft carpet with light; nor should devotion detain her long, for the priest has the wit to be brief.
F EDERIGO . Shall I accost her?
L EONIDO . Being her cousin, you cannot very well refrain.

I. Bird OF THE M OUNTAIN .

Bird of the mountain, sweetly thou singest, —
O, sweet thy song!
Over the fountain, high in the branches,
Thou sitt'st alone.
There oft, at evening, I linger to hear thee:
Bird of the mountain, sweetly thou singest, —
O, sweet thy song!

Bird of the mountain, why art thou ever
So sad and lone?
Only I hear thee breaking the silence
So deep around.
Art thou the spirit of heart-broken maiden?

A LONG the field as we came by
A year ago, my love and I,
The aspen over stile and stone
Was talking to itself alone.
" Oh who are these that kiss and pass?
A country lover and his lass;
Two lovers looking to be wed;
And time shall put them both to bed,
But she shall lie with earth above,
And he beside another love. "

And sure enough beneath the tree
There walks another love with me,
And overhead the aspen heaves
Its rainy-sounding silver leaves;
And I spell nothing in their stir,

Oh, when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.

And now the fancy passes by,
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they'll say that I
Am quite myself again.

The Earth with thunder torn, with fire blasted,
With waters drowned, with windy palsy shaken
Cannot for this with heaven be distasted,
Since thunder, rain and winds from earth are taken:
Man torn with Love, with inward furies blasted,
Drowned with despair, with fleshly lustings shaken,
Cannot for this with heaven be distasted,
Love, fury, lustings out of man are taken.
Then Man, endure thy self, those clouds will vanish;
Life is a Top which whipping Sorrow driveth;
Wisdom must bear what our flesh cannot banish,

In the window of a grange,
Whence men's prospects cannot range
Over groves and flowers growing,
Nature's wealth and pleasure showing,
But on graves where shepherds lie,
That by love or sickness die;
In that window saw I sit
Caelica adorning it,
Sadly clad for sorrow's glory,
Making joy glad to be sorry,
Showing sorrow in such fashion,
As truth seemed in love with passion;
Such a sweet enamel giveth
Love restrained that constant liveth.
Absence, that bred all this pain,
Presence healed not straight again;

The nurse-life wheat within his green husk growing,
Flatters our hope and tickles our desire,
Nature's true riches in sweet beauties showing,
Which set all hearts, with labour's love, on fire.
No less fair is the wheat when golden ear
Shows unto hope the joys of near enjoying:
Fair and sweet is the bud, more sweet and fair
The rose, which proves that time is not destroying.
Caelica, your youth, the morning of delight,
Enamelled o'er with beauties white and red,
All sense and thoughts did to belief invite,