poems about love

What are the unions of the present? — poor
And pallid, mere forlorn sick shades of love.
When Beatrice kissed Dante from above
Then first their joy shone, glorious to endure.
The love that death can shorten or obscure
Is not love, — love alone which hath no ending,
For ever towards God's throne on sweet wings tending,
Is love that touching, touches to secure.

The lips of love may touch, the breasts may meet,
And yet there shall be separation after;
God's scorn and all heaven's high tempestuous laughter

I.

A Year of love, and not one quarrel yet!
Most strange it seems to some that this should be.
Nothing to pain us! nothing to regret!
Bright sunlight in the eyes that gaze at me!

II.

Yet this is as it should be. Life is short:
Not long enough to make a loved one weep.
We love in sober earnest, not in sport;
Where quiet waters flow, the stream runs deep.

III.

Love, who hast aided where so many failed
And given me rest and solace for awhile,

To thee far-off on sunlit land,
'Mid fragrant meads, 'neath blossomy tree,
I send this gift to heart and hand,
This song, O love, to thee.

Here, where the green waves curve and curl
And where the wide-winged winds are free,
I think of one far-off, a girl
Whose eyes are as the sea.

The sea's strange light within them shines,
The light whose gleam may never be
'Mid forests green, 'mid oaks or pines,
But only on the sea.

Here, where the sun's gold arrows dart
On waves to windward and to lee,

I.

“Leave him to me, ye roses which he sought,
And all ye hills and vales,—
And all ye green-robed dales
Made lovelier now for ever by his thought.

II.

“Leave this dead poet unto me,” God said:
“And all ye women fair
Whose sweet breath and whose hair
Round him for passion's aureole was shed.

III.

“Ye understood him not: the waves he sang
Were deaf and mute and blind
And soulless, and mankind

I.

I claim the eternal right to love, — without conditions.
To crown thee with my love, and crown thee with love's visions,
Though all men stand i' the way.
Oh, is not Love enough? If in a golden carriage,
Sweet, thou wast drawn along, towards a golden marriage,
Could Love have more triumphant words to say?

II.

I love thee with my soul. Heaven knows I love thee truly.
Each time I see thy face, the tide of love flows newly
Round laughing happier shores.

After Metaphysic's dreary song
Back to thee I turn,
Finding much of love's pure lore I long
Yet to learn.

After all the feasts of learning spread
Grand before my gaze,
Love's sweet mandate thrills my heart instead
At a glance of May's.

After all the lengthy windy words
Spun from mankind's tongue,
Strange relief to hear a girl's, or bird's,
Said or sung.

After wandering through the weary days,
Sad, alone,

Each rain-shower is an evidence to the air
Of the relief of heaven, and each storm
Of sobs the pressure of God's bosom warm,—
A token sent our spirits to prepare
For a closer tenderness, a joy more rare,
A weeping purer and more clear and sweet,
Deliverance after yet more fervent heat,
A trouble greater than our souls could bear.

Just as a husband weeps upon the breast
Of his wife, and in that holy shower of rain
The thunder-clouds and copper skies of pain
Expand, and sob their terror into rest,

The loves of men as yet are icy floes,
Imperfect, shapeless, in tumultuous motion,
Rolled aimlessly about the mad mid-ocean:
With shocks that shatter and with blinding blows,
Heart-pangs of agony, convulsive throes,
Abandonment of being, death-devotion,
A death that strangles every previous notion,
Harmoniously the glittering ice-berg rose.

I stand beyond the future, and I see
Rise passion-pinnacled the crystal palace,
Awful with unimagined purity;
A frozen rainbow, an inverted chalice,

If Love should faint, and half decline
Below the fit meridian sign,
And shorn of all his golden dress,
His royal state and loveliness,
Be no more worth a heart like thine,
Let not thy nobler passion pine,
But, with a charity divine,
Let Memory ply her soft address
If Love should faint;
And oh! this laggard heart of mine,
Like some halt pilgrim stirred with wine,
Shall ache in pity's dear distress,
Until the balms of thy caress
To work the finished cure combine,
If Love should faint.

A BALLAD,

ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND KILLED AT THE BATTLE OF SARATOGA .

When many hearts were gay,
Careless of aught but play,
Poor Flora slipt away
Sadd'ning to Mora.
Loose flowed her coal-black hair,
Quick heaved her bosom bare,
As thus to the troubled air
She vented her sorrow:

Loud howls the stormy west,
Cold, cold is winter's blast:—
Haste then, O Donald, haste!
Haste to thy Flora!