poems about love

I did not deem it half so sweet
To feel thy gentle hand,
As in a dream thy soul to greet
Across wide leagues of land.

Untouched more near to draw to you
Where, amid radiant skies,
Glimmered thy plumes of iris hue,
My Bird of Paradise.

Let me dream only with my heart,
Love first, and after see:
Know thy diviner counterpart
Before I kneel to thee.

So in thy motions all expressed
Thy angel I may view:
I shall not on thy beauty rest,
But beauty's self in you.

Tell me, Lydia, why you ruin
Sybaris with your burning love?
Once he was a discus bruin;
Once he loved the sun above.

Soft the sinew, gone the fibre
Of his green, athletic youth;
Now he fears the yellow Tiber —
He who might have rivalled Ruth!

Sulks he as the son of Thetis
At the Trojan falling did;
This the burden of my treatise:
Why don't you lay off him, Lyd?

Tell me, Lydia, why you ruin
Sybaris with your burning love?
Once he was a discus bruin;
Once he loved the sun above.

I cannot see you in the light
Or find you in the day,
For when the sun springs up at dawn
I think you slip away.

I wait until the night is come
To pass beyond the veil,
And then I find you in the land
Of the unuttered tale.

Then gazing out across the night
I see with glad surmise
The shadows of your loosened hair,
The depth of your grave eyes.

She dressed her well in her bodice brown
And well in her gown of gray.
" Off am I to my own love's town
A hundred miles away —
And will not tire by brough or brae
And will walk on the soft-floored sea:
For my love is his from day to day —
But, oh! does my love love me?

Has his strong arm a place for my head?
Will his strong hand feel my breast?
Fine soft linen and a bridal bed,
For that's what a girl loves best!

Word or warning not mine to send
Of the journey so soon to be:

There in her old-world garden smiles
A symbol of the world's desire,
Striving with quaint and lovely wiles
To bind to earth the soul of fire.

And while I sit and listen there,
The robe of Beauty falls away
From universal things to where
Its image dazzles for a day.

Away! the great life calls; I leave
For Beauty, Beauty's rarest flower;
For Truth, the lips that ne'er deceive;
For Love, I leave Love's haunted bower.

I have seen the harlot decked for death,
I have seen the fruitful woman scorned for ugliness.
I will not embrace Beauty but Order,
Scorning this body which must grow old.

I have heard the loveless laughter of fools,
I have seen the wanton and the pander drunk with mirth.
Laughter is a sacrament which should be shared for Love's sake.
Let us then be merry when mirth is no sacrilege.

I have seen the eyes of a smirched man turn from his paramour's lapdog
To find refreshment in a child's look.

How did she abdicate?
Was it with soft sighs
And pretty feignings of a lover's state,
Or was it solemn-wise,
With altar offerings and rapt vows?
O no! when Love himself was there,
Most housewifely she bound her hair
And went off across the field to milk the cows.

He who thinks a perfect melody,
Lives, for that time in harmony,
Walks for that time in liberty,
Loves for that time in purity.

Ah! when shall I, my glory,
Discern thy light in radiance shining,
Thy presence illusory,
To bring me sweet release from grief and pining?
When shall I see thine eyes, enchanting rapture,
And yield thee mine, as tender capture?

When will thy voice awaken
Mine ears with thrilling accents from their sadness,
And I, enthralled, o'ertaken
By the floods of its ineffable gladness,
Be swept away in ecstasy, and after
The marvel wanes, hasten to thee with laughter?

When will thy light effulgent

Not for an hour shall your dear thought escape me.
I keep it fast to cheer, to guide, to shape me.
As an old pilot held in sight a star,
As a wrecked man clings frantic to a spar,
So I maintain your love in memory,
My hope of haven, my security.