romantic poems

The flute of the Infinite is played without ceasing, and its sound is love:
When love renounces all limits, it reaches truth.
How widely the fragrance spreads! It has no end, nothing stands in its way.
The form of this melody is bright like a million suns: incomparably sounds the vina, the vina of the notes of truth.

More than all else do I cherish at heart that love which makes me to live a limitless life in this world.
It is like the lotus, which lives in the water and blooms in the water: yet the water cannot touch its petals, they open beyond its reach.
It is like a wife, who enters the fire at the bidding of love. She burns and lets others grieve, yet never dishonours love.
This ocean of the world is hard to cross: its waters are very deep. Kabir says: " Listen to me, O Sadhu! few there are who have reached its end. "

O brother, my heart yearns for that true Guru, who fills the cup of true love, and drinks of it himself, and offers it then to me.
He removes the veil from the eyes, and gives the true Vision of Brahma:
He reveals the worlds in Him, and makes me to hear the Unstruck Music:
He shows joy and sorrow to be one:
He fills all utterance with love.
Kabir says: " Verily he has no fear, who has such a Guru to lead him to the shelter of safety! "

I played day and night with my comrades, and now I am greatly afraid.
So high is my Lord's palace, my heart trembles to mount its stairs: yet I must not be shy, if I would enjoy His love.
My heart must cleave to my Lover; I must withdraw my veil, and meet Him with all my body:
Mine eyes must perform the ceremony of the lamps of love.
Kabir says: " Listen to me, friend: he understands who loves. If you feel not love's longing for your Beloved One, it is vain to adorn your body, vain to put unguent on your eyelids. "

How lovely are Thy tabernacles,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul yearneth, yea, even pineth for
the courts of the Lord;
My heart and my flesh sing for joy
unto the living God.
Yea, the sparrow hath found a house,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
Where she may lay her young;
Thine altars, O Lord of hosts,
My King, and my God —
Happy are they that dwell in Thy
house,
They are ever praising Thee. Selah.

PART I.

M Y heart a noble theme indites:
What I compose concerns the king:
My tongue the swistest pen that writes
Outvies, while I attempt to sing.

None among all the human race
Like thee for loveliness appears:
Thy lips, bedew'd with heavenly grace,
Ravish each wondring soul that hears.
For God will ever from on high
His constant blessings thee afford.
O mighty one, upon thy thigh
Make haste to gird thy conquering sword.

Thy majesty and glory show:

SILENCE

The purple falls between the pines,
The sun that blanched Arundel walls,
Remembering them as he declines,
With purple fills his airy halls.
We drove all day; and all day long
Of Love and longing long we spoke;
And sang so often ballad and song,
The crescent moon cannot evoke
Another word; though Beauty calls
There is no word that can be said.
If Hesperus unhailed shines on,
O do not dream that Love is dead.
The hand I take is not withdrawn,
Between the pines the purple falls.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
And be all to me? Shall I never miss
Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss
That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,
When I look up, to drop on a new range
Of walls and floors, another home than this?
Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which
Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change?
That 's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried,
To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove;
For grief indeed is love and grief beside.
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.

Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;
For we two look two ways, and cannot shine
With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.
On me thou lookest with no doubting care,
As on a bee shut in a crystalline;
Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love's divine,
And to spread wing and fly in the outer air
Were most impossible failure, if I strove
To fail so. But I look on thee — on thee —
Beholding, besides love, the end of love,
Hearing oblivion beyond memory;