romantic poems

"La noche buena se viene,
La noche buena se va,
Y nosotros nos iremos
Y no volveremos mas."
-- Old Villancico.

Sweet evenings come and go, love,
They came and went of yore:
This evening of our life, love,
Shall go and come no more.

When we have passed away, love,
All things will keep their name;
But yet no life on earth, love,
With ours will be the same.

The daisies will be there, love,

"La noche buena se viene,
La noche buena se va,
Y nosotros nos iremos
Y no volveremos mas."
-- Old Villancico.

Sweet evenings come and go, love,
They came and went of yore:
This evening of our life, love,
Shall go and come no more.

When we have passed away, love,
All things will keep their name;
But yet no life on earth, love,
With ours will be the same.

The daisies will be there, love,
The stars in heaven will shine:
I shall not feel thy wish, love,

sway with me, everything sad -
madmen in stone houses
without doors,
lepers steaming love and song
frogs trying to figure
the sky;
sway with me, sad things -
fingers split on a forge
old age like breakfast shell
used books, used people
used flowers, used love
I need you
I need you
I need you:
it has run away
like a horse or a dog,
dead or lost
or unforgiving.

O LITTLE hearts, beat home, beat home,
Here is no place to rest.
Night darkens on the falling foam
And on the fading west.
O little wings, beat home, beat home.
Love may no longer roam.

O, Love has touched the fields of wheat
And Love has crowned the corn,
And we must follow Love's white feet
Through all the ways of morn.
Through all the silver roads of air
We pass and have no care.

The silver roads of Love are wide,
O winds that turn, O stars that guide.

1.
My love plays piano and his foot hovers above the pedal.
Sustain, they call it when the note floats
like a basketball player suspended in air,
or a question whose purpose is to remain unanswered.
Theres only this low keening urgency,
the sound of mourning doves,
drone and descant, murmur and coo.
I am learning to rest inside the word enough
its rough leathery consonants, its f of finitude.

2.
To bear up under
pain, or the memory of pain
repeating itself, like scales, as if we were practicing

'Murmuring, 'twixt a murmur and moan,
Many a tune in a single tone,
For every ear with a secret true-
The sea-shell wants to whisper to you.'

'Yes-I hear it-far and faint,
Like thin-drawn prayer of drowsy saint;
Like the muffled sounds of a summer rain;
Like the wash of dreams in a weary brain.'

'By smiling lip and fixed eye,
You are hearing a song within the sigh:
The murmurer has many a lovely phrase-
Tell me, darling, the words it says.'

'I hear a wind on a boatless main

Oh, the nights were dark and cold,
When my love was gone.
And life was hard to hold
When my love was gone.
I was wise, I never gave
What they teach a girl to save,
But I wished myself his slave
When my love was gone.

I was all alone at night
When my love came home.
Oh, what thought of wrong or right
When my love came home?
I flung the door back wide
And I pulled my love inside;
There was no more shame or pride
When my love came home.

As the Moon with starry Chitra dwells in azure skies above,
In his lonesome leafy cottage Rama dwelt in Sita's love,

And with Lakshman strong and valiant, quick to labour and obey,
Tales of bygone times recounting Rama passed the livelong day.

And it so befell, a maiden, dweller of the darksome wood,
Led by wand'ring thought or fancy once before the cottage stood,

Surpa-nakha, Raksha maiden, sister of the Raksha lord,
Came and looked with eager longing till her soul was passion-stirred!

WHO is the girl I love the best ?

She with the pillared neck of snow?
She with hands that never rest

And never labor? Ah! no, no !
The girl I love lifts up her hands
And in the kitchen door she stands,
And o'er the meadows and the fields
Her rich and splendid anthem peals
' Supper 's ready !'

The horses halt and slack their traces,
The weary workers lift their heads,

Light is on the hired men's faces

As through the fields the anthem spreads ;

WHAT of all the will to do?
It has vanished long ago,
For a dream-shaft pierced it through
From the Unknown Archer’s bow.

What of all the soul to think?
Some one offered it a cup
Filled with a diviner drink,
And the flame has burned it up.

What of all the hope to climb?
Only in the self we grope
To the misty end of time:
Truth has put an end to hope.

What of all the heart to love?
Sadder than for will or soul,