romantic poems

'Tis men who say that through all hurt and pain
The woman's love, wife's, mother's, still will hold,
And breathes the sweeter and will more unfold
For winds that tear it, and the sorrowful rain.
So in a thousand voices has the strain
Of this dear patient madness been retold,
That men call woman's love. Ah! they are bold,
Naming for love that grief which does remain.

Love faints that looks on baseness face to face:

A little child she, half defiant came
Reasoning her case — 'twas not so long ago —
" I cannot mind your scolding, for I know
However bad I were you'd love the same."
And I, what countering answer could I frame?
'Twas true, and true, and God's self told her so.
One does but ask one's child to smile and grow,
And each rebuke has love for its right name.

And yet, methinks, sad mothers who for years,
Watching the child pass forth that was their boast,
Have counted all the footsteps by new fears

The poorest peasant of the meanest soil,
The child of poverty, and heir to toil,
Early, from radiant love's impartial light,
Steals one small spark to cheer his world of night:
Dear spark! which oft, through winter's chilling woes,
Is all the warmth his little cottage knows!

Laura was lightsome, gay, and free from guile;
Bright were her eyes, and beautiful her smile;
Women found fault, but men were heard to swear
That she was lovely, though she was not fair .
Her parents were not rich, nor very poor;

O Love ! O beauteous Love!
— Thy home is made for all sweet things,
A dwelling for thine own soft dove
— And souls as spotless as her wings;
There summer ceases never:
The trees are rich with luscious fruits,
— The bowers are full of joyous throngs,
And gales that come from Heaven's own lutes
— And rivulets whose streams are songs
Go murmuring on for ever!

O Love! O wretched Love!
— Thy home is made for bitter care;
And sounds are in thy myrtle grove
— Of late repentance, long despair,

The gayest gallants of the Court
Oft fell in love, on mere report,
— With eyes they had not seen;
And knelt, and rhymed, and sighed, and frowned,
In talismanic fetters bound,
With flowers sunshine all around —
— And five-score leagues between. — MS. Poem .

VI. FLOWERS

Welcome , O pure and lovely forms! again
Unto the shadowy stillness of my room!
For not alone ye bring a joyous train
Of summer-thoughts attendant on your bloom —
Visions of freshness, of rich bowery gloom,
Of the low murmurs filling mossy dells,
Of stars that look down on your folded bells
Through dewy leaves, of many a wild perfume
Greeting the wanderer of the hill and grove
Like sudden music: more than this ye bring —
Far more; ye whisper of the all-fostering love

X.—A REMEMBRANCE OF GRASMERE

O VALE and lake, within your mountain-urn
Smiling so tranquilly, and set so deep!
Oft doth your dreamy loveliness return,
Coloring the tender shadows of my sleep
With light Elysian; for the hues that steep
Your shores in melting lustre, seem to float
On golden clouds from spirit-lands remote,
Isles of the blest; and in our memory keep
Their place with holiest harmonies: fair scene,
Most loved by evening and her dewy star!
Oh! ne'er may man, with touch unhallow'd, jar

So glad a life was never, love,
— As that which childhood leads,
Before it learns to sever, love,
— The roses from the weeds;
When to be very duteous, love,
— Is all it has to do;
And every flower is beauteous, love,
— And every folly true.

And you can still remember, love,
— The buds that decked our play,
Though Destiny's December, love,
— Has whirled those buds away:
And you can smile through tears, love,
— And feel a joy in pain,
To think upon those years, love,
— You may not see again.

PRELUDES

I

Platonic Love

Right art thou who wouldst rather be
A doorkeeper in Love's fair house,
Than lead the wretched revelry
Where fools at swinish troughs carouse.
But do not boast of being least;
And if to kiss thy Mistress' skirt
Amaze thy brain, scorn not the Priest
Whom greater honours do not hurt.
Stand off and gaze, if more than this

PRELUDES

I

Love's Perversity

How strange a thing a lover seems
To animals that do not love!
Lo, where he walks and talks in dreams,
And flouts us with his Lady's glove;
How foreign is the garb he wears;
And how his great devotion mocks
Our poor propriety, and scares
The undevout with paradox!
His soul, through scorn of worldly care,