romantic poems

Whosoever longs to try
Both love and jealousy,
My fair inconstant lady let him see,
And he will soon a jealous lover be.

Then he by proof shall know,
As I do to my woe,
How they make my poor heart at once to dwell,
In fire and frost, in heaven and in hell.

To Love

Thou, whose sole Name all Passions doth comprize,
Youngest and Eldest of the Deities,
Born without Parents, whose unbounded Raign
Moves the firm Earth, fixeth the floating Main,
Inverts the Course of Heav'n; and from the Deep
Awakes those Souls that in dark Lethe sleep,
By thy mysterious Chains seeking t'unite
Once more, the long-since torn Hermaphrodite.
He who thy willing Pris'ner long was vow'd
And uncompell'd beneath thy Scepter bow'd,

" Oh why," my darling prayeth me, " must you sing
For ever of ghostly loves, phantasmal passion?
Seeing that you never loved me after that fashion
And the love I gave was not a phantom thing,
But delight of eager lips and strong arms folding
The beauty of yielding arms and of smooth shoulder,
All fluent grace of which you were the moulder:
And I. . . . Oh, I was happy for your holding."
" Ah, do you not know, my dearest, have you not seen
The shadow that broodeth over things that perish:

Now by Aphrodite, I will burn all you have, Love, your arrows and your Scythian quiver; I will burn them!
Why do you laugh like a fool and grin with your wrinkledup nose and sneer? I think you will soon laugh with a wry face! I will cut off your wings, the guides of Desire, and I will bind your feet with a bronze chain.
Yet I shall win but a Cadmean victory if I keep you too near me, like a lynx in the goat-pastures. Go then, hard-to-conquer, bind on light sandals and fly away on new swift wings!

The wine-cup is glad; it has touched (it says) the sweet-speaking mouth of Zenophile, the dear-to-love.
Fortunate cup! O that with her lips upon my lips Zenophile would drink my soul at a draught!

O night, O my sleepless yearning for Heliodora, O the sharp kisses and tears at hateful dawn, does any trace of my love remain with her, any remembered kiss warm her cold thoughts? Does she remember my tears in her bed? Does she clasp to her breast and kiss a heart-deluding dream shape of me?
Or has she a new love, new caresses?
O lamp, may you never look on such a thing, but be the guardian of her I have committed to you.

Youth, beauty, strength, the trophy, and the bust,
Not these his honours to the Tomb we trust;
But modest manners, innocent of art,
The open nature, and the moral heart.
Such love of truth as ancient Britains bore,
Such fortitude, as never Roman more:
And call'd betimes, his task of glory done,
To mix with nature's social as his own.

Oh, lovely was our Rosalie
Unto her mother and to me;
Her gentle mother's image smiled
In Rosalie, our only child.

But gone is little Rosalie, —
Gone from her mother and from me;
An angel loved her when she smiled, —
Loved Rosalie, our only child.

Encradled like a tint of light
Within a dew-drop, frail and bright,
Was the sweet spirit, pure and mild,
Of Rosalie, our only child.

Oh, nevermore shall on my knee,
No, nevermore! sit Rosalie,
Who all our weary hours beguiled,

Ye woeful sires, whose causeless hate hath bred
Grief to yourselves, death to my love and me,
Let us not be disjoined when we are dead,
Though we alive conjoined could never be.
Though cruel stars denied us two one bed,
Yet in one tomb us two entombed see.
Like as the dart was one, and one the knife,
That did begin our love and end our life.

THE Gazel OF THE M ASTER

Yield not the soul to pang of Love, for Love's the soul's fierce glow;
That Love's the torment of the soul doth all the wide world know.
Seek not for gain from fancy wild of pang of Love at all;
For all that comes from fancy wild of Love's pang is grief's throe.
Each curving eyebrow is a blood-stained sabre thee to slay;
Each dusky curl, a deadly venomed snake to work thee woe.
Lovely, indeed, the forms of moon-like maidens are to see —