romantic poems

I love a tender soul thus housed
Within a body white and fair:
Great fearless eyes, and forehead wreathed
With heavy clouds of shadowy hair!

You are so right in every way;
What I have sought in every land!
Besides, your worth enables you
So well my worth to understand!

You've found in me the man you need,
And, for a time, will fully pay
With love's delight, and kisses fond—
And then, as usual, betray.

A fine house!
Sparrows love the millet
"round back.

SUNLIGHT .

Thirteen long years have passed away
 Since through those autumn woods we went:
It was a bright September day,
 And I was full of sweet content;
So happy by her side to be—
In heaven, if she but looked at me.

The leaves were turning golden-red;
 The swift stream splashed along the dale;
In the far distance, blue, outspread,
 Boundless, with here and there a sail,
The sunlit sea gleamed, saying, “To-night
Reseek my green cliff's moonlit height.”

Birds, flowers, and foliage of the summer days
And skies above us lordly and serene
And forests measureless and deep and green
And blue glad billows bounding through the bays
And hyacinths and honeysuckle-sprays
And roses that against the window lean
Take ye my song, and bear it to my queen:
Teach her to understand my love and lays!

As the past lengthens, far intenser grow
All noble love and passion. Love that fades
Was never love. Now the tall tree-tops throw
A longer shadow down the silent glades

Though thou art bound, and canst not love me now
Save only in spirit, can they stay my song?
Can it not find thee when night-hours are long
And print a far-off soft kiss on thy brow?
Can it not lurk within the hazel bough?
Can it not shine amid the starry throng?
Fulfil thy life's task: be thou glad and strong:
But this true homage further and allow!

Art thou asleep, love? Then my soul is there,
Watching. Dost thou the wakeful moments count?
Then am I with thee. At this crystal fount

Hath anything been ever quite so fair
As first love, though the lengthening years have brought
Result of labour, red-ripe fruit of thought,
And new glad summers full of fragrant air?
The swift years pass us. Doth each swift year bear
Our spirits nearer to the goals we sought?
Though we have wrestled, suffered, toiled and fought,
Doth any aureole rest upon our hair?

The sweetest crown of all the crowns life brings
Is just to feel love very close indeed:
Love, the true God who lives within each creed

Thou art like some sweet queen who gives her heart
To zealous Psyche-service for a time,
Till she shall gather wings and growth sublime
And upwards towards the ancestral high heaven start.
Mine endlessly, unceasingly, thou art,
For I have kissed thee in some ancient clime
And circled thee with immemorial rhyme;
In truth our spirits never were apart.

But now to this love-service thou art doomed,
Though mine thou art in the inmost depth of things.
Though round thee endless starless nights have gloomed,

But is it any crime to love you so
That I would have you sitting ever near,
Ready to help my patient labour, dear,
And all depression's fiends to overthrow?
Is it a wrong that I would have you here
To aid the lagging moments as they go
And speed the silent hours with glances clear?
Is love condemned, when love doth overflow?

A little distance seems quite " far away, "
Because my heart would have you close indeed.
After clear sunshine e'en the moon looks grey
And wretched, — and so urgent is my need

Yet let us comfort. Comfort is a part
Of that strong help which either spirit needs:
It lifts, it soothes, it purifies each heart;
God's touch is gentle, when the pierced soul bleeds.
When anger fails, a softer speech succeeds
Full often; the great victories are won
By patience, and the everlasting deeds
By everlasting tenderness are done,
And out of love the angels' robes are spun,
And sweetest pity in God's loom is woven,
And he is crowned with mercy like a sun: —
By bitter lightning trees in twain are cloven,

Pain's fiery lesson was to teach us this:
To teach the perfect truth to either soul, —
That now, beside us as the swift months roll,
Nought may disturb, no frailty mar, our bliss.
Beneath the stars again our spirits kiss:
Again the smarting puzzled hearts are whole:
Again with gladdened lips Love's crystal bowl
We touch; — and know how great a thing Love is.

Heart of my heart, soul of my soul indeed,
Wast thou in sorrow, and did I not bleed?
Mind of my mind, were issues vast at stake,