poems about love

Fair lovely Maid, or if that Title be
Too weak, too Feminine for Nobler thee,
Permit a Name that more Approaches Truth:
And let me call thee, Lovely Charming Youth.
This last will justifie my soft complaint,
While that may serve to lessen my constraint;
And without Blushes I the Youth persue,
When so much beauteous Woman is in view,
Against thy Charms we struggle but in vain
With thy deluding Form thou giv'st us pain,
While the bright Nymph betrays us to the Swain.
In pity to our Sex sure thou wer't sent,

Fair as the night — when all the astral fires
Of heaven are burning in the clear expanse,
My love is; and her eyes like star-depths glance
Lustrous with glowing thoughts and pure desires,
And that mysterious pathos which inspires
All moods divine in mortal passion's trance —
All that its earthly music doth enhance
As with the rapture of seraphic lyres!
I gaze upon her till the atmosphere
Sweetens intensely, and to my charmed sight
All fair associated forms appear
Swimming in joy, as swim yon orbs in light —

The faint-flushed buds awake within the cup
Of myriad folded roses yet to be;
Ere Life can drink its utmost sweetness up,
Love flutters, wakens, O how sweet to see!

 The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn.
Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.

 Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.
Now they are rising together in calm swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

 Now they are flying in place, conveying

A LADY in whom love is manifest —
That love which perfect honour doth adorn —
Hath ta'en the living heart out of thy breast,
Which in her keeping to new life is born:
For there by such sweet power it is possest
As even is felt of Indian unicorn:
And all its virtue now, with fierce unrest,
Unto thy soul makes difficult return.
For this thy lady is virtue's minister
In suchwise that no fault there is to show,
Save that God made her mortal on this ground.
And even herein His wisdom shall be found:

Through this my strong and new misaventure,
All now is lost to me
Which most was sweet in Love's supremacy.

So much of life is dead in its control,
That she, my pleasant lady of all grace,
Is gone out of the devastated soul:
I see her not, nor do I know her place;
Nor even enough of virtue with me stays
To understand, ah me!
The flower of her exceeding purity.

Because there comes — to kill that gentle thought
With saying that I shall not see her more —
This constant pain wherewith I am distraught,

Even as the day when it is yet at dawning
Seems mild and kind, being fair to look upon,
While the birds carol underneath their awning
Of leaves, as if they never would have done;
Which on a sudden changes, just at noon,
And the broad light is broken into rain
That stops and comes again;
Even as the traveller, who had held his way
Hopeful and glad because of the bright weather,
Forgetteth then his gladness altogether;
Even so am I, through Love, alas the day!

It plainly is through Love that I am so.

Lady , with all the pains that I can take,
I'll sing my love renewed, if I may, well,
And only in your praise.
The stag in his old age seeks out a snake
And eats it, and then drinks, (I have heard tell)
Fearing the hidden ways
Of the snake's poison, and renews his youth.
Even such a draught, in truth,
Was your sweet welcome, which cast out of me,
With whole cure instantly,
Whatever pain I felt, for my own good,
When first we met that I might be renew'd.

A thing that has its proper essence changed

Now with the moon the day-star Lucifer
Departs, and night is gone at last, and day
Brings, making all men's spirits strong and gay,
A gentle wind to gladden the new air.
Lo! this is Monday, the week's harbinger;
Let music breathe her softest matin-lay,
And let the loving damsels sing to-day,
And the sun wound with heat at noontide here.
And thou, young lord, arise and do not sleep,
For now the amorous day inviteth thee
The harvest of thy lady's youth to reap.
Let coursers round the door, and palfreys, be,

Love taking leave, my heart then leaveth me,
And is enamour'd even while it would shun;
For I have looked so long upon the sun
That the sun's glory is now in all I see.
To its first will unwilling may not be
This heart (though by its will its death be won),
Having remembrance of the joy forerun:
Yea, all life else seems dying constantly.
Ay and alas! in love is no relief,
For any man who loveth in full heart,
That is not rather grief than gratefulness.
Whoso desires it, the beginning is grief;