poems about love

Methought my Love was dead. O, 'twas a night
Of dreary weeping, and of bitter woe!
Methought I saw her lovely spirit go
With lingering looks into yon star so bright,
Which then assumed such a beauteous light,
That all the fires in heaven compared with this
Were scarce perceptible to my weak sight.
There seemed henceforth the haven of my bliss;
To that I turn'd with fervency of soul,
And pray'd that morn might never break again,
But o'er me that pure planet still remain.
Alas! o'er it my vows had no controul.

I LOVE your face: but more
I love the light behind it.
The radiance doth outpour
Like firelight through a door,
And eagerly I find it.

I love your words; and yet
Your silences I cherish.
For words may bring regret
When Love's last sun has set—
Too soon, too soon they perish.

But light and silence live
Within the heart's hushed portal.
They are not fugitive,
And Love can never grieve
For that which is immortal!

1. Is there no balm in Christian lands, No kind physician there,
3. Must vile oppression's reckless form Still beat upon my soul,
To heal a broken heart and save A brother from despair?
No sun of freedom ever dawn, To make my spirit whole?
2. Is there no love in Christian hearts, To pity griefs like mine,
4. Just God, behold the Negro's woe; The white man's sins forgive;
No tender sympathetic art Sweet mercy to enshrine?
Open his heart thy love to know, And bid his brother live.

This little vault, this narrow room,
Of love and beauty is the tomb;
The dawning beam that gan to clear
Our clouded sky lies darkened here,
For ever set to us, by death
Sent to inflame the world beneath;
'Twas but a bud, yet did contain
More sweetness than shall spring again,
A budding star that might have grown
Into a sun, when it had blown.
This hopeful beauty did create
New life in Love's declining state;
But now his empire ends, and we
From fire and wounding darts are free:
His brand, his bow, let no man fear;

Things that are lovely
Can tear my heart in two—
Moonlight on still pools,
You.

Things that are tender
Can fill me with delight—
Old songs remembered,
Night.

Things that are lonely
Can make me catch my breath—
The hunger for lost arms . . .

A LAS , how bitter are the wrongs of love!
Life has no other sorrow so acute:
For love is made of every fine emotion,
Of generous impulses, and noble thoughts;
It looketh to the stars, and dreams of Heaven;
It nestles 'mid the flowers, and sweetens earth.
Love is aspiring, yet is humble, too:
It doth exalt another o'er itself,
With sweet heart-homage, which delights to raise
That which it worships; yet is fain to win
The idol to its lone and lowly home
Of deep affection. 'Tis an utter wreck

The few sere leaves that to the branches cling,
Fall not to-day, so light the zephyr's breath;
O'er Autumn's sleep now plays the breeze of Spring,
Like love's warm kiss upon the brow of death:
Serene the firmament, save where a haze
Of dreamy softness floats upon the air,
Or a bright cloud of amber seems to gaze
In mild surprise upon the meadows bare:
Summer revives, and, like a tender strain
Borne on the night-breeze to the wondering ear,
With tender sighs melts Winter's frosty chain,
And smiles once more upon the dying year:

I love her with the seasons, with the winds,
As the stars worship, as anemones
Shudder in secret for the sun, as bees
Buzz round an open flower: in all kinds
My love is perfect, and in each she finds
Herself the goal: then why, intent to teaze
And rob her delicate spirit of its ease,
Hastes she to range me with inconstant minds?
If she should die, if I were left at large
On earth without her—I, on earth, the same
Quick mortal with a thousand cries, her spell
She fears would break. And I confront the charge

My love he built me a bonny bower,
And clad it a wi lilye flower.
A brawer bower ye ne'er did see
Than my true love he built for me.

There came a man by middle day,
He spied his sport and went away,
And brought the king that very night,
Who brake my bower, and slew by knight.

He slew my knight to me sae dear.
He slew my knight and poind his gear.
My servants all for life did flee
And left me in extremitie.

I sew'd his sheet, making my mane,
I watched the corpse myself alane,

Come home to me, are you come home to me,
O heart of mine—but in what dolorous guise!
And the great hour, O 'twas otherwise
Love had imagined it in days to be!
These pleading hands—these lips—How dreadfully,
At what strange lips and in what alien eyes
Have you sought mine? Beneath what darkening skies
Come home to me at last, come home to me?

I would not know the reason: here upon
This breast of sorrows loose your aching breast;
Tell me again and yet again, and say
Still the eternal word, still babble on