romantic poems

I LOVED illustrious cities and the crowds
That eddy through their incandescent nights.
I loved remote horizons with far clouds
Girdled, and fringed about with snowy heights.
I loved fair women, their sweet, conscious ways
Of wearing among hands that covet and plead
The rose ablossom at the rainbow's base
That bounds the world's desire and all its need.
Nature I worshipped, whose fecundity
Embraces every vision the most fair,
Of perfect benediction. From a boy
I gloated on existence. Earth to me

Canto III.

The Girdle, or Love-Token.

1.

Short Taste of Pleasures , how dost thou torment
A liquorish Soul, when once inflam'd by thee!
Desire's sweet-cruel edge might soon relent
Didst thou not whet it to that keen degree
That nothing but complete fruition will
The longing of its wakened stomach fill.

2.

The Seaman, who hath with unwearied pain
Wrought through a thousand storms, and gain'd the sight

I SEND you roses—red, like love,
And white, like death, sweet friend:
Born in your bosom to rejoice,
Languish, and droop, and end.

If the white roses tell of death,
Let the red roses mend
The talk with true stories of love
Unchanging till the end.

Red and white roses, love and death—
What else is left to send?
For what is life but love, the means,
And death, true Wife, the end?

A WORLD of leafage murmurous and a twinkle;
The green, delicious plenitude of June;
Love and laughter and song
The blue day long
Going to the same glad, golden tune—
The same glad tune!

Clouds on the dim, delighting skies a sprinkle;
Poplars black in the wake of a setting moon;
Love and languor and sleep
And the star-sown deep
Going to the same good, golden tune—
The same good tune!

Love , which is lust, is the Lamp in the Tomb.
Love, which is lust, is the Call from the Gloom.

Love, which is lust, is the Main of Desire.
Love, which is lust, is the Centric Fire.

So man and woman will keep their trust,
Till the very Springs of the Sea run dust.

Yea, each with the other will lose and win,
Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in.

For the strife of Love's the abysmal strife,
And the word of Love is the Word of Life.

And they that go with the Word unsaid,

After the grim daylight,
Night—
Night and the stars and the sea!
Only the sea, and the stars
And the star-shown sails and spars—
Naught else in the night for me!

Over the northern height,
Light—
Light and the dawn of a day
With nothing for me but a breast
Laboured with love's unrest,
And the irk of an idle May!

Erechtheus next th' Athenian Sceptre sway'd,
Whose Rule the State with joynt Consent obey'd;
So mix'd his Justice with his Valour flow'd,
His Reign one Scene of Princely Goodness shew'd.
Four hopeful Youths, as many Females bright,
Sprung from his Loyns, and sooth'd him with Delight.
Two of these Sisters, of a lovelier Air,
Excell'd the rest, tho' all the rest were fair.
Procris , to Cephalus in Wedlock ty'd,
Bless'd the young Silvan with a blooming Bride:

THE Church is fill'd; so great the faith
That City in its Bishop hath;
And now the Congregation
Are waiting there in trembling prayer
And terrible expectation.

Emmelia and her sisterhood
Have taken there their seat;
And Choristers, and Monks, and Priests
And Psalmists there, and Exorcists,
Are station'd in order meet.

In sackcloth clad, with ashes strown
Upon his whiter hair,

Public must be the sinner's shame,
As heinous his offence;
So Basil said, when he ordain'd
His form of penitence.

And never had such dismay been felt
Through that astonish'd town,
As when, at morn, the Crier went
Proclaiming up and down, —

" The miserable sinner, Eleimon,
Who for love hath sold himself to the Demon,
His guilt before God and man declares;
And beseeches all good Christians

When weariness would let her
No longer pray and weep,
And midnight long was past,
Then Cyra fell asleep.

Into that wretched sleep she sunk
Which only sorrow knows,
Wherein the exhausted body rests,
But the heart hath no repose.

Of her Father she was dreaming,
Still aware that he was dead,
When, in the visions of the night,
He stood beside her bed.

Crown'd and in robes of light he came,
She saw he had found grace;
And yet there seem'd to be
A trouble in his face.