romantic poems

But into order falls our life at last,
Though in the retrospection jarred and blent.
Broken ambition, love misplaced or spent
Too soon, and slander busy with the past:
Sorrows too sweet to lose, or vexing joy.
But Time will bring oblivion of annoy,
And Silence bind the blows that words have lent;
And we will dwell, unheeding Love or Fame
Like him who has outlived a shining Name:
And Peace will come, as evening comes to him,
No leader now of men, no longer proud
But poor and private, watching the sun's rim;

O rest divine! O golden certainty
Of love! when love's half smile, illumining pain,
Bade all bright things immutable remain.
Dreaming I stand, the low brook drawling by,
Her flowerlike mien, her mountain step to mark.
Ah, I recall when her least look again
Could mar the music in my happy mind
And plunge me into doubt, her faintest sigh
Stir all the fixed pillars of my heaven,
Commingling them in mist and stormy dark!
And all together, as I have seen the rain
When the whole shower is swinging in the wind,

O hard endeavor, to blend in with these
Dark shadings of the past a darker grief
Or blur with stranger woes a wound so chief,
Though the great world turn slow with agonies.
What though the forest windflowers fell and died
And Gertrude sleeps at Gulielma's side?
They have their tears, nor turn to us their eyes:
But we pursue our dead with groans and cries
And bitter reclamations to the term
Of undiscerning darkness and the worm;
Then sit in silence down and darkly dwell
Through the slow years on all we loved, and tell

Sing we for love and idleness,
Naught else is worth the having.
Though I have been in many a land,
There is naught else in living.

And I would rather have my sweet,
Though rose-leaves die of grieving,
Than do high deeds in Hungary
To pass all men's believing.

As on a window late I cast mine eye,
I saw a vine drop grapes with J and C
Annealed on every bunch. One standing by
Asked what it meant. I (who am never loath
To spend my judgement) said, It seemed to me
To be the body and the letters both
Of Joy and Charity . Sir, you have not missed,
The man replied; it figures JESUS CHRIST .

A SCEND , my Muse, on sorrow's sable plume,
Let the soft number meet the swelling sigh;
With laureated chaplets deck the tomb,
The blood-stained tomb where Smith and comfort lie.

I loved him with a brother's ardent love,
Beyond the love which tenderest brothers bear;
Though savage kindred bosoms cannot move,
Friendship shall deck his urn and pay the tear.

Despised, an alien to thy father's breast,
Thy ready services repaid with hate;
By brother, father, sisters, all distressed,

H ERRICK and H ORACE Rewrite the Latter's 22nd Ode, Book I.

Fuscus, dear friend,
I prithee lend
An ear for but a space,
And thou shalt see
How Love may be
A more than saving grace.

As on a day
I chanced to stray
Beyond my own confines
Singing, perdie,
Of Lalage
Whose smile no star outshines —

P. B. S HELLEY and L AURENCE Hope Meet in a Pantoum .

I swoon, I sink, I fall —
Your beauty overpowers me;
I am a prey to all
The yearning that devours me.

Your beauty overpowers me —
It never gives me rest;
The yearning that devours me
Is loud within my breast.

It never gives me rest.
And tho' a wilder ringing
Is loud within my breast,

A NDREW Lang and O SCAR W ILDE Turn a Nursery Rhyme into a Rondeau Redouble .

Curly locks, Curly locks, wilt thou be mine?
Thou shalt not wash dishes nor yet feed the swine,
But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam,
And feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream.

Curly-locks, Curly-locks, brighten and beam
Joyous assent with a rapturous sign;
Hasten the Vision — quicken the Dream —
Curly-locks, Curly-locks, wilt thou be mine?

H EINRICH H EINE and C LINTON S COLLARD Construct a Rondeau.

Immortal eyes, why do they never die?
They come between me and the cheerful sky
And take the place of every sphinx-like star.
They haunt me always, always; and they mar
The comfort of my sleek tranquility.

In dreams you lean your cheek on mine and sigh;
And all the old, caressing words float by.
They haunt me always, always; yet they are
Immortal lies.