romantic poems

SEVEN TIMES THREE. LOVE .

I LEANED out of window, I smelt the white clover,
Dark, dark was the garden, I saw not the gate;
" Now, if there be footsteps, he comes, my one lover —
Hush, nightingale, hush! O, sweet nightingale, wait
Till I listen and hear
If a step draweth near,
For my love he is late!

" The skies in the darkness stoop nearer and nearer,
A cluster of stars hangs like fruit in the tree,

LXXXIII

A DAY IN SUSSEX

The dove did lend me wings. I fled away
From the loud world which long had troubled me.
Oh lightly did I flee when hoyden May
Threw her wild mantle on the hawthorn tree.
I left the dusty high road, and my way
Was through deep meadows, shut with copses fair.
A choir of thrushes poured its roundelay
From every hedge and every thicket there.
Mild, moon-faced kine looked on, where in the grass
All heaped with flowers I lay, from noon till eve.

LIV

HE DESIRES THE IMPOSSIBLE

I F it were possible the fierce sun should,
Standing in heaven unloved, companionless,
Enshrined be in some white-bosomed cloud,
And so forget his rage and loneliness;
If it were possible the bitter seas
Should suddenly grow sweet, till at their brink
Birds with bright eyes should stoop athirst and drink;
— If these were possible; and if to these
It should be proved that love has sometimes been
'Twixt lambs and leopards, doves and hawks, that snow

XXII

ON THE NATURE OF LOVE

You ask my love. What shall my love then be?
A hope, an aspiration, a desire?
The soul's eternal charter writ in fire
Upon the earth, the heavens, and the sea?
You ask my love. The carnal mystery
Of a soft hand, of finger-tips that press,
Of eyes that kindle and of lips that kiss,
Of sweet things known to thee and only thee?
You ask my love. What love can be more sweet
Than hope or pleasure? Yet we love in vain.
The soul is more than joy, the life than meat.

II

COMPARING HER TO A FALCON

Brave as a falcon and as merciless,
With bright eyes watching still the world, thy prey,
I saw thee pass in thy lone majesty,
Untamed, unmated, high above the press.
The dull crowd gazed at thee. It could not guess
The secret of thy proud airial way,
Or read in thy mute face the soul which lay
A prisoner there in chains of tenderness.
— Lo, thou art captured. In my hand to-day
I hold thee, and awhile thou deignest to be

Spring all the Graces of the age,
—And all the Loves of time;
Bring all the pleasures of the stage,
—And relishes of rhyme;
Add all the softnesses of courts,
The looks, the laughters, and the sports:
And mingle all their sweets and salts
That none may say, the Triumph halts.

Spring all the Graces of the age,
—And all the Loves of time;
Bring all the pleasures of the stage,
—And relishes of rhyme;
Add all the softnesses of courts,
The looks, the laughters, and the sports:

II Shepherdess .

Tell me Thirsis, tell your anguish,
Why you sigh, and why you languish;
When the nymph whom you adore
Grants the blessing of possessing,
What can love and I do more?
What can love, what can love and I do more? Shepherd .

Think it's love beyond all measure
Makes me faint away with pleasure;
Strength of cordial may destroy,
And the blessing of possessing
Kills me with excess of joy. Shepherdess .

Thirsis, how can I believe you?
But confess, and I'll forgive you.

Facing you, on the wall, across from your bed:
mountains like skinny bones,
rising loftily above table and desk.
Half the wall covered with craggy peaks and valleys;
seriously ill, you still loved the mountains

The brocade and rush hat you loved —
it dropped, it dropped
into the Kamo River, into midstream!
I've been looking for it, asking for it,
and now the day has come, the day has come
after a rustling, clear autumn night!

The potter at Mimaki in Kusuha —
he makes pots, but his daughter's good-looking.
Ah, she's so beautiful!
If I could put her on a love cart
in a procession of three carts, four carts,
and have her called " the governor's lady " !