romantic poems

Malcolm, I love thee more than women love
And pure and warm and equal is the feeling
Which binds us and our destinies forever
But there are seasons in the change of times
When strong excitement kindles up the light
Of ancient memories

Not Love, not War, nor the tumultuous swell
Of civil conflict, nor the wrecks of change,
Nor Duty struggling with afflictions strange—
Not these alone inspire the tuneful shell;
But where untroubled peace and concord dwell,
There also is the Muse not loth to range,
Watching the twilight smoke of cot or grange,
Skyward ascending from a woody dell.
Meek aspirations please her, lone endeavour,
And sage content, and placid melancholy;
She loves to gaze upon a crystal river—
Diaphanous because it travels slowly;

Around my lonely hearth, to-night,
Ghostlike the shadows wander:
Now here, now there, a childish sprite,
Earthborn and yet as angel bright,
Seems near me as I ponder.

Gaily she shouts: the laughing air
Echoes her note of gladness —
Or bends herself with earnest care
Round fairy-fortress to prepare
Grim battlement or turret-stair —
In childhood's merry madness!

New raptures still hath youth in store.
Age may but fondly cherish
Half-faded memories of yore —
Up, craven heart! repine no more!

Acrostic

“Seek ye Love, ye fairy-sprites?
 Ask where reddest roses grow.
Rosy fancies he invites,
And in roses he delights,
 Have ye found him?” “No!”

“Seek again, and find the boy
 In Childhood's heart, so pure and clear.”
Now the fairies leap for joy,
 Crying, “Love is here!”

“Love has found his proper nest;
 And we guard him while he dozes
In a dream of peace and rest
 Rosier than roses.”

The trail's high up on the ridge, on one goes down
But the east wind and the falling water the concave slope without a name to the little bay
That has no name either. The fish-hawk plunges
Beyond the long rocks, rises with streaming silver; the eagle strikes down from the ridge and robs the fish-hawk;
The stunted redwoods neither grow nor grow old
Up the steep slope, remembering winter and the sea-wind; the ferns are maiden green by the falling water;
The seas whiten on the reefs; nothing has changed

I hate this yoke; for the world's sake here put it on:
Knowing 'twill weigh as much on you till life is gone.
Knowing you love your freedom dear, as I love mine —
Knowing that love unchained has been our life's great wine:
Our one great wine (yet spent too soon, and serving none;
Of the two cups free love at last the deadly one).

We grant our meetings will be tame, not honey-sweet,
No longer turning to the tryst with flying feet.
We know the toil that now must come will spoil the bloom

I

Ah, what is love, our love, she said,
Ah, what is human love?
A fire, of earthly fuel fed,
Full fain to soar above.
With lambent flame the void it lips,
And of the impassive air
Would frame for its ambitious steps
A heaven-attaining stair.
It wrestles and it climbs — Ah me,
Go look in little space,
White ash on blackened earth will be

O Heaven, and thou most loving family
Of sister stars, whose intermingled light
From the blue home of this most quiet night
Shineth for aye in conscious unity!
Why bend ye thus your kind looks still on me,
That am a wretch, whose passions' ceaseless fight,
And gnawing thoughts of self—an inborn blight—
But vex the warmth of your pure sympathy?
Mine is no cup for you, blest stars, to pour
The rich draught of your sympathies therein;
It mantled once with all the joys of sin,
And I have quaffed them; now is nothing more,

Vayne loves, avaunt! infamous is your pleasure,
Your joye deceite;
Your jewells jestes, and worthles trash your treasure,
Fooles' common baite.
Your pallace is a prison that allureth
To sweete mishapp, and rest that payne procureth.

Your garden, greif hedgd in with thornes of envye
And stakes of strife;
Your allies, errour gravelled with jelosye
And cares of life;
Your bancks, are seates enwrapt with shades of sadnes
Your arbours, breed rough fittes of raging madnes.

I wage no warr, yet peace I none enjoy;
I hope, I feare, I fry in freesing colde;
I mount in mirth, still prostrate in annoye;
I all the worlde imbrace yet nothing holde.
All welth is want where chefest wishes fayle,
Yea life is loath'd where love may not prevayle.

For that I love I long, but that I lacke;
That others love I loath, and that I have;
All worldly fraightes to me are deadly wracke,
Men present happ, I future hopes do crave:
They, loving where they live, long life require,