romantic poems

CANTO I .

Stay your rude steps, or e'er your feet invade
The Muses' haunts, ye Sons of War and Trade!
Nor you, ye Legion Fiends of Church and Law,
Pollute these pages with unhallow'd paw!
Debased, corrupted, groveling, and confined,
No D EFINITIONS touch your senseless mind;
To you no P OSTULATES prefer their claim,
No ardent A XIOMS your dull souls inflame:
For you , no T ANGENTS touch, no A NGLES meet,
No C IRCLES join in osculation sweet!

All who have loved, be sure of this from me,
That to have touched one little ripple free
Of golden hair, or held a little hand
Very long since, is better than to stand
Rolled up in vestures stiff with golden thread,
Upon a throne o'er many a bowing head
Of adulators; yea, and to have seen
Thy lady walking in a garden green,
'Mid apple blossoms and green twisted boughs,
Along the golden gravel path, to house
Herself, where thou art watching far below,
Deep in thy bower impervious, even though

The thorn-tree keeps its leaves for ever green
All the year round; and when the wind blows keen,
And strips all trees the summer's pride and chief,
This holdeth fast, and will not quit one leaf.
Likewise when Christ had worn the thorny crown,
That year the sorry thorn-tree trickled down
With drops of blood, and ever since hath worn
Those bleeding berries in its leaves of thorn
Wherefore all doleful lovers prize that tree,
Both for its sorrow and its constancy;
And all they say that it is good to wear

The Love of Praise

The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art,
Reigns, more or less, and glows, in ev'ry heart:
The proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure;
The modest shun it, but to make it sure.
O'er globes, and sceptres, now on thrones it swells,
Now, trims the midnight lamp in college cells.
'Tis Tory, Whig; it plots, prays, preaches, pleads,
Harangues in senates, squeaks in masquerades;
Here, to Swift's humour makes a bold pretence,
There, bolder, aims at Pultney's eloquence.

Love is enough: though the World be a-waning
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
And this day draw a veil over all deeds passed over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.

Love is enough: it grew up without heeding

Peace , throbbing heart, nor let us shed one tear
O'er this late love's unseasonable glow;
Sweet as a violet blooming in the snow,
The posthumous offspring of the widowed year,
That smells of March when all the world is sere,
And, while around the hurtling sea-winds blow—
Which twist the oak and lay the pine tree low—
Stands childlike in the storm and has no fear.

Poor helpless blossom orphaned of the sun,
How could it thus brave winter's rude estate?
Oh love, more helpless love, why bloom so late,

What magic is there in thy mien,
What sorcery in thy smile,
Which charms away all cark and care,
Which turns the foul days into fair,
And for a little while
Changes this disenchanted scene
From the sere leaf into the green,
Transmuting with love's golden wand
This beggared life to fairyland?

My heart goes forth to thee, oh friend,
As some poor pilgrim to a shrine,
A pilgrim who has come from far
To seek his spirit's folding star,
And sees the taper shine;
The goal to which his wanderings tend,

Once on a golden day,
In the golden month of May,
I gave my heart away—
Little birds were singing.

I culled my heart in truth,
Wet with the dews of youth,
For love to take, forsooth—
Little flowers were springing.

Love sweetly laughed at this,
And between kiss and kiss
Fled with my heart in his:
Winds warmly blowing.

And with his sun and shower
Love kept my heart in flower,
As in the greenest bower
Rose richly glowing.

Till, worn at evensong,

Oh , brown Eyes with long black lashes,
Young brown Eyes,
Depths of night from which there flashes
Lightning as of summer skies,
Beautiful brown Eyes!

In your veiled mysterious splendour
Passion lies
Sleeping, but with sudden tender
Dreams that fill with vague surmise
Beautiful brown Eyes.

All my soul, with yearning shaken,
Asks in sighs—
Who will see your heart awaken,
Love's divine sunrise
In those young brown Eyes?

Your looks have touched my soul with bright
Ineffable emotion;
As moonbeams on a stormy night
Illume with transitory light
A seagull on her lonely flight
Across the lonely ocean.

Fluttering from out the gloom and roar,
On fitful wing she flies,
Moon-white above the moon-washed shore;
Then, drowned in darkness as before,
She's lost, as I when lit no more
By your beloved eyes.