romantic poems

HE turned his face apart, and gave a sigh
And a strange whimper—such a pitiful thing
As haunts the heart for days. “Yes, Love can bring
Unto a pass so low that it seems high:
And, when we see a brave and strong man cry
With a poor infant's feeble sorrowing,
It is a nobler passion than to wing
Shafts of small angers and small prides,” thought I.
There is a love so deaf that it can hear
Not even its own voice which bids it seek
A name for its own meanness: it would find
The outlet else. But thus it is a sheer

She kneels with haggard eyes and hair
Unto the Christ upon the Cross:
Her gown is torn; her feet are bare.

What is this thing she begs of him,
The gentle Christ upon the Cross?
Her hands are clasped; her face is dim.

Is it forgiveness for her sin,
She asks of Christ upon the Cross?
And mercy for the soul within?

With anguished face, so sad and sweet,
She kneels to Christ upon the Cross:
Her arms embrace his nail-pierced feet.

Her tears run slowly down her face,

Heaped in raven loops and masses
Over temples smooth and fair,
Have you marked it, as she passes,
Gleam and shadow mingled there,
Braided strands of midnight air,
Helen's hair?

Deep with dreams and starry mazes
Of the thought that in them lies,
Have you seen them, as she raises
Them in gladness or surprise,
Two gray gleams of daybreak skies,
Helen's eyes?

Moist with dew and honied wafters
Of a music sweet that slips,
Have you marked them, brimmed with laughter's

Sitting alone by the window,
Watching the moonlit street,
Bending my head to listen
To the well-known sound of your feet,
I have been wondering, darling,
How I can bear the pain,
When I watch, with sighs and tear-wet eyes;
And wait for your coming in vain.


For I know that a day approaches
When your heart will tire of me;
When by door and gate I may watch and wait
For a form I shall not see.
When the love that is now my heaven,
The kisses that make my life,
You will bestow on another,

That love's dull smart distressed my heart
He shrewdly learnt to see,
But that I was in love with a dead man
Never suspected he.


He searched for the trace of a pictured face,
He watched each missive come,
And a note that seemed like a love-line
Made him look frozen and glum.


He dogged my feet to the city street,
He followed me to the sea,
But not to the neighbouring churchyard
Did he dream of following me.

Con the dead page as 'twere live love: press on!
Cold wisdom's words will ease thy track for thee;
Aye, go; cast off sweet ways, and leave me wan
To biting blasts that are intent on me.

But if thy object Fame's far summits be,
Whose inclines many a skeleton o'erlies
That missed both dream and substance, stop and see
How absence wears these cheeks and dims these eyes!

It surely is far sweeter and more wise
To water love, than toil to leave anon
A name whose glory-gleam will but advise

Your hands--they are strangely fair!
O Fair--for the jewels that sparkle there,--
Fair--for the witchery of the spell
That ivory keys alone can tell;
But when their delicate touches rest
Here in my own do I love them best,
As I clasp with eager, acquisitive spans
My glorious treasure of beautiful hands!

Marvelous--wonderful--beautiful hands!
They can coax roses to bloom in the strands
Of your brown tresses; and ribbons will twine,
Under mysterious touches of thine,
Into such knots as entangle the soul

Love-lies-bleeding now is found
Grown in every common ground.
Love-lies-bleeding thrives apace
With the dear forget-me-not:
Nor is boy's love out of place
Now in any garden plot.

Love-in-a-mist, bewilderèd
With the many tears Love shed,
Seeks for herb-o'-grace to bind
Up her wounds, and fever-few
To give ease to a hurt mind;
Wound-wort is not wanting too.

Now the love-lies-bleeding grows
More than lily or the rose;
Love-in-idleness has gone
Out of fashion; here are flowers

When the heavens throb and vibrate
All along their silver veins,
To the mellow storm of music
Sweeping o'er the starry trains,
Heard by few, as erst by shepherds
On the far Chaldean plains:

Not the blazing, torch-like planets,
Not the Pleiads wild and free,
Not Arcturus, Mars, Uranus,
Bring the brightest dreams to me;
But I gaze in rapt devotion
On the central star of three.

Central star of three that tingle
In the balmy southern sky;
One above, and one below it,

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy Love.

But Time drives flocks from field to fold;
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward Winter reckoning yields:
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,