romantic poems

I've been in love for long
With what I cannot tell
And will contrive a song
For the intangible
That has no mould or shape,
From which there's no escape.

It is not even a name,
Yet is all constancy;
Tried or untried, the same,
It cannot part from me;
A breath, yet as still
As the established hill.

It is not any thing,
And yet all being is;
Being, being, being,
Its burden and its bliss.
How can I ever prove
What it is I love?

This happy happy love

To make even one single person happy,
To love her completely, to give her without restraint
All that you could if your were God himself;
Or to love, even a plant, an animal,
Any piece of life; to nurture it,
To care, to have tenderness for someone else;
Even to do this just once, fully and entirely,
Is to fulfill one's life and find heaven afterwards.

[From The Serene Flame]

O what does the burning mouth
Of sun, burning in today's,
Sky, remind me….oh, yes, his
Mouth, and….his limbs like pale and
Carnivorous plants reaching
out for me, and the sad lie
of my unending lust.
Where is room, excuse or even
Need for love, for, isn't each
Embrace a complete thing a finished
Jigsaw, when mouth on mouth, i lie,
Ignoring my poor moody mind
While pleasure, with deliberate gaeity
Trumpets harshly into the silence of
the room… At noon
I watch the sleek crows flying

In love, aside from sipping the wine of timelessness,
nothing else exists.
There is no reason for living except for giving one's life.
I said, 'First I know you, then I die.'
He said, 'For the one who knows Me, there is no dying.'

In heavenly love abiding, no change my heart shall fear.
And safe in such confiding, for nothing changes here.
The storm may roar without me, my heart may low be laid,
But God is round about me, and can I be dismayed?

Wherever He may guide me, no want shall turn me back.
My Shepherd is beside me, and nothing can I lack.
His wisdom ever waking, His sight is never dim.
He knows the way He’s taking, and I will walk with Him

Green pastures are before me, which yet I have not seen.

The fountain murmuring of sleep,
A drowsy tune;
The flickering green of leaves that keep
The light of June;
Peace, through a slumbering afternoon,
The peace of June.

A waiting ghost, in the blue sky,
The white curved moon;
June, hushed and breathless, waits, and I
Wait too, with June;
Come, through the lingering afternoon,
Soon, love, come soon.

I would have loved: there are no mates in heaven;
I would be great: there is no pride in heaven;
I would have sung, as doth the nightingale
The summer's night beneath the moone pale,
But Saintes hymnes alone in heaven prevail.
My love, my song, my skill, my high intent,
Have I within this seely book y-pent:
And all that beauty which from every part
I treasured still alway within mine heart,
Whether of form or face angelical,
Or herb or flower, or lofty cathedral,
Upon these sheets below doth lie y-spred,

LOVE is dying. Why then, let it die.
Trample it down, that it die more fast.
What is a rose that has lost its bloom?
What is a fruit with its freshness past?
And where is the worth of the twilight gloom?
Let the night come when the day has gone by:
Let the dying die.

Leave your useless smiles and your tears,
Weepings and wooings are, oh, so vain!
Sunlights and rains bid the blossoms blow,
But waken no waning blossom again.
Nay, but say 'It was always so;
Love was not love in the other years,

Thus to be chain'd for ever, can I bear?
A very torment that, in truth, would be.
This very day my new resolve shall see.--
I'll not go near the lately-worshipp'd Fair.
Yet what excuse, my heart, can I prepare
In such a case, for not consulting thee?
But courage! while our sorrows utter we
In tones where love, grief, gladness have a share.
But see! the minstrel's bidding to obey,
Its melody pours forth the sounding lyre,
Yearning a sacrifice of love to bring.
Scarce wouldst thou think it--ready is the lay;

If we had met when leaves were green,
And fate to us less hard had proved,
And naught had been of what has been,
We might have loved as none have loved.

If we had met as girl and boy,
The world of pleasure at our feet,
Our joy had been a perfect joy;
We might have met, but did not meet.

Nor less in youth's full passionate day,
A woman you and I a man,
We might have loved and found a way
No laws could check, no vows could ban.

Too late! Too sad! A year ago,