poems about love

May my love become an alder tree
of Kumsong in Hoeyang, and
I an arrowroot vine in
the third month or fourth:
Like a spider's web around a butterfly,
the vine goes around the tree,
tightly this way, tightly that,
wrongly loosened, properly wound,
bound, then loosened from down below
all the way to the top,
tightly winding round and round
without a single gap, and
unchanging, day and night,
it's coiled around, twisting.
Though, in the heart of winter,

I send you, my love,
select branches of the willow.
Plant them to be admired
outside your bedroom window.
If a night rain makes them bud,
think that it is I.

ON LOVE OF PRAISE

I.

Of all the springs within the mind
Which prompt her steps in Fortune's maze,
From none more pleasing aid we find,
Than from the genuine love of praise.

II.

Nor any partial, private end
Such reverence to the public bears;
Nor any passion, Virtue's friend,
So like to Virtue's self appears.

III.

For who in glory can delight,
Without delight in glorious deeds?
What man a charming voice can slight,
Who courts the echo that succeeds?

IV.

The king is father,
And his ministers are loving mothers.
His subjects are foolish children;
They only receive what love brings.

Schooled in saving the masses,
The king feeds and guides them.
Then no one will desert this land —
This is the way to govern a country.

Peace and prosperity will prevail if each —
King, minister, and subject — lives as he should.

I

N OW I who oft have carolled of the Spring,
Must chant of Autumn and the dirgeful days;
Of windless dawns enveiled in dewy haze,
Of cloistered evenings when no sweet birds sing,
But every note of joy hath trooped and taken wing.

II

But when I saw Her first, you scarce could say
If it were Summer still, or Autumn yet.

I

I HEARD the voice of my own true love
Ripple the sunny weather.
Then away, as a dove that follows a dove,
We flitted through woods together.

II

There was not a bush nor branch nor spray
But with song was swaying and ringing.
" Let us ask of the birds what means their lay,
And what is it prompts their singing. "

III

We paused where the stichwort and speedwell grew

Since to be loved endures,
— To love is wise:
Earth hath no good but yours,
— Brave, joyful eyes:

Earth hath no sin but thine,
— Dull eye of scorn:
O'er thee the sun doth pine
— And angels mourn.

To my love I whisper, and say
Knowest thou why I love thee? — Nay:
Nay, she saith; O tell me again. —

When in her ear the secret I tell,
She smileth with joy incredible —

Ha! she is vain — O nay —
Then tell us! Nay, O nay.

But this is in my heart,
That Love is Nature's perfect art,
And man hath got his fancy hence,
To clothe his thought in forms of sense.

Fair are thy works, O man, and fair
Thy dreams of soul in garments rare,
Beautiful past compare,

What need of wit? What need of wile?
— I know your eyes are killing;
But oh! he isn't worth a smile
— Who isn't worth a shilling!
And yet, by all the gods of rhyme,
— And by your lips I swear,
Though all my love is loss of time
— And all my hope despair,
The glittering stream shall cease to stray,
— The wind refuse to rove,
All solid things shall melt away,
— Before I cease to love!

Fair Freedom shall be found in Quod,
— Stern Justice in the Quorum,
Carlile shall praise the grace of God,

As one who loving beyond words will bring
The hue and perfumes of a common rose
And trust a meadow's language to disclose
The true simplicity of offering;
Then, as he mutely gives his little, spring
Obscure slow tears that she who studies knows,
Till in some deeper knowledge both repose
And the old flower is now a useless thing.