poems about love

Not what I am, O Lord, but what thou art!
That, that alone can be my soul's true rest;
Thy love, not mine, bids fear and doubt depart,
And stills the tempest of my tossing breast.

It is thy perfect love that casts out fear;
I know the voice that speaks the “It is I;”
And in these well-known words of heavenly cheer,
I hear the joy that bids each sorrow fly.

Thy name is Love! I hear it from yon cross;
Thy name is Love! I read it in yon tomb;
All meaner love is perishable dross,

Afloat!—
Ah Love, on the mirror of waters
All the world seems with us afloat,—
All the wide, bright world of the night;
But the mad world of men is remote,
And the prating of tongues is afar.
We have fled from the crowd in our flight,
And beyond the gray rim of the waters
All the turmoil has sunk from our sight.
Turn your head, Love, a little, and note
Low down in the south a pale star.
The mists of the horizon-line drench it,
The beams of the moon all but quench it,
Yet it shines thro' this flood-tide of light.

I DO not care for kisses. 'Tis a debt
We paid for the first privilege of love.
These are the rains of April which have wet
Our fallow hearts and forced their germs to move.
Now the green corn has sprouted. Each new day
Brings better pleasures, a more dear surprise,
The blade, the ear, the harvest—and our way
Leads through a region wealthy grown and wise.
We now compare our fortunes. Each his store
Displays to kindred eyes of garnered grain,
Two happy farmers, learned in love's lore,
Who weigh and touch and argue and complain—

We'll walk the woods no more,
But stay beside the fire,
To weep for old desire
And things that are no more.
The woods are spoiled and hoar,
The ways are full of mire;
We'll walk the woods no more,
But stay beside the fire.
We loved, in days of yore,
Love, laughter, and the lyre.
Ah God, but death is dire,
And death is at the door—
We'll walk the woods no more.

My son, you loved telling the story of Prince Nata
who stripped off his own flesh, returned it to his mother,
and gave his father his bones!
Now your flesh has gone to the Ninefold Springs
—does your mother understand?
and your father must gather your bones
and bring them home.

Ah, child, thou art but half thy darling mother's;
Hers couldst thou wholly be,
My light in thee would outglow all in others;
She would relive to me.
But niggard Nature's trick of birth
Bars, lest she overjoy,
Renewal of the loved on earth
Save with alloy.

The Dame has no regard, alas, my maiden,
For love and loss like mine--
No sympathy with mind-sight memory-laden;
Only with fickle eyne.
To her mechanic artistry
My dreams are all unknown,
And why I wish that thou couldst be
But One's alone!

The sea hath its pearls,
The heaven hath its stars;
But my heart, my heart,
My heart hath its love

Great are the sea and the heaven,
Yet greater is my heart;
And fairer than pearls and stars
Flashes and beams my love

Thou little, youthful maiden,
Come unto my great heart;
My heart, and the sea, and the heaven
Are melting away with love!

It was not thus in days gone bye
When we as children courted
When with the birds & flowers of spring
Our artless pleasures sported
No pride did cloud thy sunny brow
In ignorant love we doated
The world was strange with me & thou
With pride had near resorted

—I WAS a wandering sheep,
—I did not love the fold;
I did not love my Shepherd's voice,
—I would not be controlled.
—I was a wayward child,
—I did not love my home,
I did not love my Father's voice,
—I loved afar to roam.

—The Shepherd sought his sheep;
—The Father sought his child;
They followed me o'er vale and hill,
—O'er deserts waste and wild.
—They found me night to death,
—Famished, and faint, and lone;
They bound me with the bands of love;
—They saved the wandering one.

Come, he said, I love you; I do not know why I love but I love;
Something from you to me, something I feel but do not see,
Prevails on my older self, lifting me clear of the earth,
Not severing the dead from the living,
But making the dead and the living one.

Shall I tell you, O my brother?—shall I offer what today you could not take?
No—no: for the hour, for the day, past this sundown—only silence and love:
Only the hand that reaches, only the hand that takes.

But tomorrow: O the morrow!