poems about love

Love came, and round about her played a sense
Of life and heaven, and sweet and sinless sleep,
And plains of golden corn a man might reap
For ever, for there is not any fence,
And powers of thought unresting and intense,
And powers of love majestic,—even as deep
As the blue dim Atlantic, and immense
And lofty and eternal as the steep
Of any Alpine summit crowned with snow;
And powers of passion resolute and wild,
Yet tender as the green and rosy glow
Wherewith the sun, deserting us, has smiled,

You shall not love me for what daily spends,
You shall not know me in the noisy street
Where I as others follow petty ends,
Nor when in fair saloons we chance to meet,
Nor when I'm jaded, sick, perplexed, or mean:
But love me then & only when you know
Me for the channel of the rivers of God,
From deep, ideal, fontal heavens that flow,
Making the shores, making their beauty broad,
Which birds & cattle drink, drink too the roots of the grove,
And animating all it feeds with love.

Love is a Leven, and a loving kisse
The Leven of a loving sweet-heart is.

Come, listen to my story, while
Your needle's task you ply;
At what I sing some maids will smile,
While some, perhaps, may sigh.
Though Love's the theme, and Wisdom blames
Such florid songs as ours,
Yet Truth, sometimes, like eastern dames,
Can speak her thoughts by flowers.
Then listen, maids, come listen, while
Your needle's task you ply;
At what I sing there's some may smile,
While some, perhaps, will sigh.

Young Cloe, bent on catching Loves,
Such nets had learn'd to frame,

To be able
and not to do it

Still as a flower

No flame,
a flower spent
with heat—

lovely flower
hanging
in the rain


Never!

Soberly

Whiter than day

Wait forever
shaken by the rain

To her, who, cast with me in trying days,
Stood in the place of health, and power, and praise;—
Who, when I thought all light was out, became
A lamp of hope that put my fears to shame;—
Who faced for love's sole sake the life austere
That waits upon the man of letters here;—
Who, unawares, her deep affection showed,
By many a touching little wifely mode;—
Whose spirit self-denying, dear, divine,
Its sorrows hid, so it might lessen mine,—
To her, my bright best friend, I dedicate
This book of songs. 'Twill help to compensate

Thy charms are all decaying, love,
The smile that once was playing, love,
So pure and bright,
It seemed but light
From day's clear fountain straying, love,—

That smile away is stealing, love,
Thy lip no more revealing, love,
The sweets of soul,
That Cupid stole
To fill his cup of feeling, love.

That lip will shed its sweetness, love,
Thy form will lose its fleetness, love,
Arrayed no more,
As when it wore
The snowy veil of neatness, love.

O, time is stealing by us, love,

If 't please you see how Love's might overcame,
How He attacked and how He conquered me,
How my heart burns and freezes for His glee,
How He doth make His Honor of my Shame;

If't please you see my youth running to claim
What brings it nought but pain and contumely,
Then come and read, and know the agony
Of which my Goddess and my God make game.

Then you shall know that Love is reasonless,
A sweet deceit, a dear imprisonment,
An empty hope that feeds us with the wind.

Why am I wakeful thinking of you in the night,
You whom I no longer love,
You who love me no more?
Yet if you would turn the handle of my door
And stand before me white,
Like a young dove,
For just a little while
I think I would look up and smile.

What are these thoughts of you that strangle me
In this silent midnight hour?
Memories, dreams that cloud my eyes
And with strange torture rise,
Mocking my misery.
Somehow I wonder if the flower
Of old-time joy would burst to flame
If, dear, you came.

Yes, thought the sullen east-wind storm,
And sunless skies the Spring deform,
The lovely Nina's graceful hand
Can, like a fairy's lily wand,
Bid every vernal sweet appear,
And bloom with early fragrance here!
Yes here, even here, they breathe perfume,
Though walls of melancholy gloom,
With northern aspect frowning rude,
Each brighter beam of Heaven exclude
Behold! at Nina's soft command,
The flowers their velvet leaves expand,
And sweet, and blue like her own eye,
(That loves in languid peace to lie,