poems about love

If the Desires love you, Philocles, and myrrh-breathing Persuasion and the lovely flower-gathering Graces, you will hold Diodorus in your arms, lovely Dorotheus shall sing before you, Callicrates shall sit at your knee, Dion shall warm your drinking-cup holding it carefully in his hand, Uliades shall remove its cover, Philo shall kiss you, Thero shall chatter to you and you shall touch the breast of Eudemos.
If the gods give you these joys, O fortunate one, you will add a spice to the Roman feast!

The leaves, my love, are gold and red,
As are your lovely eyes;
And the deep azure of your head
Is fairer than the skies.

Your lips are like the driven snow;
Your cheeks are like the sea.
But oh, my love, you cannot know
The way you look to me.

I must no longer now admire
The coldnesse which possest
Thy snowy Breast,
That can by other Flames be set on Fire;
Poor Love to harsh Disdain betray'd
Is by Ambition thus out-weigh'd.

Hadst thou but known the vast extent
Of Constant Faith, how farre
'Bove all that are
Born slaves to Wealth, or Honours vain ascent;
No richer Treasure couldst thou finde
Than hearts with mutual Chains combin'd.

But Love is too despis'd a name,
And must not hope to rise
Above these ties.

Unhappy lovers, drinkers of mingled wine, you who know the flame of love, I call upon you to pour on my heart cold water, water cooled with snow — I dared to look at Dionysius!
Fellow-slaves, put out the fire before it reaches my heart.

Be drunk, unhappy lover, and let Bromius, giver of forgetfulness, lull your burning love!
Be drunk, fill your cup with wine and drive hateful grief from your heart!

To-day mankind our Lord are glorifying
Who came long centuries ago
That by his freely sacrificial dying
He might his holy purpose show.
A dark cloud veiled him in that crucifying,
And in his heart was utter woe,
That heart where love of man was ever trying
To win man's victory here below.
But all in vain — fields still in fight are trodden
And with red blood the furrows still are sodden
In war's abomination.
In my still heart the gloomy thought I cherish:
How many Saviours must be born and perish

Young Love, playing on his mother's breast in the early morning, hazarded my life upon the die.

There are three Graces and three Hours, beautiful maidens; and I am pierced with the shafts of desire for three women.
Love drew three arrows against me to wound in me not one heart but three.

I give tears, poor tears, all that is left my love, to you, Heliodora, in Hades under the earth. On your tear-wet grave I lay the memory of our passion, the memory of our affection.
Bitterly, ah bitterly, Meleager mourns his dear one among the dead, her loveliness useless in Acheron.
Ah! where is my beloved olive-shoot? Broken, broken by death! Dust stains the lovely flower.
Earth, Mother of all, I beseech you as a mother, hold gently to your bosom one so bitterly wept.

I cherish Love, the ball-player; he throws to you, Heliodora, the heart which trembles in me.
Let Desire come too as a player; but if you place me away from you I will not endure this breach of the rules of the palaestra!