romantic poems

IF I had loved you more God would have had pity;
He would never have left me here in this desolate place,
Left me to go on my knees to the door of Heaven
Crying in vain for a little sight of your face.

How could I know that the earth would be dark without you?
For you were always the lover and I the friend.
Now if there were any hope that I might find you
I would go seeking you to the world's end.

'God is a jealous God. You have loved too wildly,
You have loved too well!' one said.

If I forget you, Love,
no dove
will sing songs more in the forests;
all the sparrows leaving their nests
will fly in sky
and die
crying;
no spring
will come more on this earth;
all cows will stop giving new birth
to calves; civilization will come to an end;
and God will send
all happiness to hell for good;
it should
be so because, o Love, if I
forget you, every thing will be meaningless, wrong and lie.

If I could write words
Like leaves on an autumn forest floor,
What a bonfire my letters would make.

If I could speak words of water,
You would drown when I said
'I love you.'

(Sappho LXXIV)
If death be good,
Why do the gods not die?
If life be ill,
Why do the gods still live?
If love be naught,
Why do the gods still love?
If love be all,
What should men do but love?

Calling to mind since first my love begun,
Th' incertain times oft varying in their course,
How things still unexpectedly have run,
As t' please the fates by their resistless force:
Lastly, mine eyes amazedly have seen
Essex' great fall, Tyrone his peace to gain,
The quiet end of that long-living Queen,
This King's fair entrance, and our peace with Spain,
We and the Dutch at length ourselves to sever:
Thus the world doth and evermore shall reel.
Yet to my goddess am I constant ever,

I'd love to have you on a rainy day
Tucked in a chair, my head against your knee
To sit and dream with. Sometime you must be
My home-sharer whom rain can't keep away.

Children born of fairy stock
Never need for shirt or frock,
Never want for food or fire,
Always get their hearts desire:
Jingle pockets full of gold,
Marry when they're seven years old.
Every fairy child may keep
Two ponies and ten sheep;
All have houses, each his own,
Built of brick or granite stone;
They live on cherries, they run wild--
I'd love to be a Fairy's child.

I had a lovely homeland long ago.
The oak trees seemed
So tall there, and the violets blew so sweet.
It was a dream.
It kissed me in German, spoke in German
(You’d scarce believe
How good it sounds) the words: I love you true!’
It was a dream.

My love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
And ice, which is congeal'd with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?

Unhappy verse, the witness of my unhappy state,
Make thy self flutt'ring wings of thy fast flying
Thought, and fly forth unto my love, wheresoever she be:
Whether lying restless in heavy bed, or else
Sitting so cheerless at the cheerful board, or else
Playing alone careless on her heavenly virginals.
If in bed, tell her, that my eyes can take no rest:
If at board, tell her, that my mouth can eat no meat:
If at her virginals, tell her, I can hear no mirth.
Asked why? say: waking love suffereth no sleep: