poems about love

Make way, make way, give leave to rove
Under your orchard as above;
A yearly welcome if ye love!
And all who loved us alway[s] throve.

Love for love. For ever we
When some unfriended man we see
Lifeless under forest-eaves,
Cover him with buds and leaves;
And charge the chipmunk, mouse, and mole—
Molest not this poor human soul!

Then let us never on green floor
Where your paths wind round about,
Keep to the middle in misdoubt,
Shy and aloof, unsure of ye;
But come like grass to stones on moor,

I had forgotten—
as I
kept on forgetting
to remind
myself
that those who vow to forget
are the ones who can't forget.

This book of Dante's, very sooth to say,
Is just a poet's lovely heresy,
Which by a lure as sweet as sweet can be
Draws other men's concerns beneath its sway;
While, among stars' and comets' dazzling play,
It beats the right down, lets the wrong go free,
Shows some abased, and others in great glee,
Much as with lovers is Love's ancient way.
Therefore his vain decrees, wherein he lied,
Fixing folks' nearness to the Fiend their foe,
Must be like empty nutshells flung aside.
Yet through the rash false witness set to grow,

O say, thou best and brightest,
My first love and my last,
When he, whom now thou slightest,
From life's dark scene hath past,
Will kinder thoughts then move thee?
Will pity wake one thrill
For him who lived to love thee,
And dying loved thee still?

If when, that hour recalling
From which he dates his woes,
Thou feel'st a tear-drop falling,
Ah, blush not while it flows:
But, all the past forgiving,
Bend gently o'er his shrine,
And say, “This heart, when living,
“With all its faults, was mine.”

Speak the truth to the people
Talk sense to the people
Free them with reason
Free them with honesty
Free the people with Love and Courage and Care for their Being.

Poets make pets of pretty, docile words:
I love smooth words, like gold-enameled fish
Which circle slowly with a silken swish,
And tender ones, like downy-feathered birds:
Words shy and dappled, deep-eyed deer in herds,
Come to my hand, and playful if I wish,
Or purring softly at a silver dish,
Blue Persian kittens, fed on cream and curds.
I love bright words, words up and singing early;
Words that are luminous in the dark, and sing;
Warm lazy words, white cattle under trees;
I love words opalescent, cool, and pearly,

Surely and swiftly cometh the dawn;
We cannot lie
Mothered by darkness and loved by the night,
For long, for long;
For strong, strong,
Uprises from shadowy caverns of slumber the morn.
Take the smile laid by
And wear it in daylight's garish sight;
Go on with the song,
And sing it till fades the evening light;
The night is the time to rest and sigh.

While he to whom her vexing thoughts still clung
Went wearily philandering on his way:
He tried them slightly worn, he tried them young,
He tried them sorrowful, he tried them gay.
He said, and thought, he had not loved before;
He shrined a picture on his memory-shelf;
And as each loved one left his closing door
He took grave counsel with his puzzled self:
“There is no love. We for a moment stand
And hold at bay inevitable pain,
Aghast and passionate, hand in eager hand,
Before we face our loneliness again.”

Come, for thy day, thy wasted day is closing,
With all its joy and sun:
Bright, loving hours have pass'd thee by unheeded;
Thy work on earth undone,
And all thy race unrun.

Folly and pleasure hast thou still been chasing
With the world's giddy throng,
Beauty and love have been thy golden idols;
And thou hast rush'd along,
Still list'ning to their song!

Sorrow and weeping thou hast cast behind thee,
For what were tears to thee?
Life was not life without the smile and sunshine
Only in revelry

On stillness came a chord,
While I, the instrument,
Knew long-withheld reward:
Gradual the glory went;
Vibrating, on and on,
Toward harmony unheard,
Till dark where sanctus shone;
Lost, once a living word.

But in me yet abode
The given grace though gone;
The love, the lifted load,
The answered orison.