poems about love

Ah, let me forget!
For now my thoughts are as thick
as once
was my hair—
black then, but
now frosty
as Isonokami's sands.

Fear, Faith, and Hope have sent their hearts above:
Prudence, Obedience, and Humility
Climb at their call, all scaling heaven toward Love.
Fear hath least grace but great expediency;
Faith and Humility show grave and strong;
Prudence and Hope mount balanced equally.
Obedience marches marshalling their throng,
Goes first, goes last, to left hand or to right;
And all the six uplift a pilgrim's song.
By day they rest not, nor they rest by night:
While Love within them, with them, over them,

The loves of later life are many and bold
And press their cause with overweening hands;
They smile upon us now from sundry lands,
And some bring pleasures in a cup of gold.
Passion, superb and lustrous, crowns the old
Not seldom; wreathes their foreheads in bright bands
Of flowers, and, smiling, waiteth their commands;
Not all desires at Autumn's touch wax cold.

Yet one word we reserve with holy zeal
For youth alone and first love—even “sweetness:”
This only young joy wins in its completeness;

Six months to six years added he remained
Upon this sinful earth, by sin unstained:
O blessèd Lord! whose mercy then removed
A Child whom every eye that looked on loved;
Support us, teach us calmly to resign
What we possessed, and now is wholly thine!

Among the Mirtles, as I walkt,
Love and my sighs thus intertalkt:
Tell me, said I, in deep distresse,
Where I may find my Shepardesse.
Thou foole, said Love, know'st thou not this?
In every thing that's sweet, she is.
In yond' Carnation goe and seek,
There thou shalt find her lip and cheek:
In that ennamel'd Pansie by,
There thou shalt have her curious eye:
In bloome of Peach, and Roses bud,
There waves the Streamer of her blood.
'Tis true, said I, and thereupon
I went to pluck them one by one,

If you had not been here
Or I had not chanced by—
Oh, let's not think of that, my dear,
And let's not even try;

For Spring fills all the year
And Love lights all the sky,
Since you—thank God!—are you, my dear,
And here, thank God! am I!

I love it, I love it, and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old bike there?
I've treasured it long as a sainted prize,
And its battered old frame brings the tears to my eyes;
'Tis bound with a thousand bands to my heart,
Though the sprocket's bent and the links are apart.
Would you know the spell? My grandma sat there,
Upon that old saddle, and zipped through the air.
In childhood's hour I lingered near
That old machine, with listening ear,
For grandma's shrieks through the house would ring

A VOICE in the scented night,—
A step where the rose-trees blow,—
O Love, and O Love's delight!

Cold star at the blue vault's height,
What is it that shakes you so?
A voice in the scented night!

She comes in her beauty bright,—
She comes in her young love's glow,—
O Love, and O Love's delight!

She bends from her casement white,
And she hears it, hushed and low,
A voice in the scented night.

And he climbs by that stairway slight,—
Her passionate R OMEO :—
O Love, and O Love's delight!

The ships are lying in the bay,
The gulls are swinging round their spars;
My soul as eagerly as they
Desires the margin of the stars.

So much do I love wandering,
So much I love the sea and sky,
That it will be a piteous thing
In one small grave to lie.

Ah, brief is Life,
Love's short, sweet way,
With dreamings rife,
And then—Good-day!

And Life is vain—
Hope's vague delight,
Grief's transient pain,
And then—Good-night!