romantic poems

Who's this pretty wingèd boy?
'Tis Love, mischievous and coy.
Old as time he still is young,
Suasive is his silver tongue.
Frequently perdu he lies
In the depths of laughing eyes;
Wealth and ease and luxury,
Youth, desire and levity,—
These his close companions be.
Beauty and seductive smiles,
Agacerie, and wanton wiles
Nourish him, and honeyed kisses.
He the soul with grief can wring,
And can dreams of rapture bring.
Hopes, and fears, and dainty blisses
Are his guerdons, and his darts

H ELEN'S lips are drifting dust;
Ilion is consumed with rust;
All the galleons of Greece
Drink the ocean's dreamless peace;
Lost was Solomon's purple show
Restless centuries ago;
Stately empires wax and wane—
Babylon, Barbary, and Spain;—
Only one thing, undefaced,
Lasts, though all the worlds lie waste
And the heavens are overturned.
—Dear, how long ago we learned!

There's a sight that blinds the sun,
Sound that lives when sounds are done,
Music that rebukes the birds,
Language lovelier than words,

O we have loved you through cold and rain
And pitiless frost,
Consuming our offering of blood and brain
Gladly again and again and again,
Though it all seemed lost,
Ireland, Ireland!

O we will fight, fight on for you till
Your anguish is past,
The wronged ones righted, the tyrants still.—
Though God has not saved you, yet we will,
At the last, at the last,
Ireland, Ireland!

O we will love you in warmth and light
And the happy day,
When you have forgotten the terrible night,

If my harsh humble style, and rhymes ill dressed,
Arrive not to your worth and beauty glorious,
My Muse's shoulders are with weight oppressed,
And heavenly beams are o'er my fight victorious.
If these dim colours have your worth expressed,
Laid by love's hand, and not by art laborious,
Your sun-like rays have my wits' harvest blessed,
Enabling me to make your praise notorious.
But if, alas! alas! the heavens defend it!
My lines your eyes, my love your heart displeasing,
Breed hate in you, and kill my hope of easing;

In the old years that creep on us so fast,
When Time goes by us with a halting tread,
Shall we sit still and ponder at the last
The young swift years of love that will be dead?
Shall we look back upon the passionate years.
Where in a maze our younger figures move,
Instinct with half-forgotten hopes and fears,
And gaze anew on the mirage of love?

Yes, we two, like old actors at the play,
Watching the beating of a tinsel heart,
Will laugh and weep, and clap our hands, and say,
“How sadly that young lover played his part

The earth is waking at the voice of May,
The new grass brightens by the trodden way,
The woods wave welcome to the sweet spring day,
And the sea is growing summer blue;
But fairer, sweeter than the smiling sky,
Or bashful violet with tender eye,
Is she whose love for me will never die,—
I love you, darling, only you!

O, friendships falter when misfortunes frown,
The blossoms vanish when the leaves turn brown,
The shells lie stranded when the tide goes down,
But you, dear heart, are ever true.

O Elkhorn City, little town!
On which the Cumberland look down
Fond and protectingly.
Around your northern border grows
The spruce pines, and the Sandy flows
Among them tranquilly.

Your streets are ornamented well
With trees and cottages where dwell
Ever contentedly
A people, hospitable and kind,
To Life and Duty never blind
High minded proud and free.

O Elkhorn City! In my heart
I hold for you a goodly part
Of love's devotion true;
And this my wish: That He above

The space of the world is immense, before me and around me;
If I turn quickly, I am terrified, feeling space surround me;
Like a man in a boat on very clear, deep water, space frightens and confounds me.

I see myself isolated in the universe, and wonder
What effect I can have. My hands wave under
The heavens like specks of dust that are floating asunder.

I hold myself up, and feel a big wind blowing
Me like a gadfly into the dusk, without my knowing
Whither or why or even how I am going.

Another day of rest, and I sit here
Among the trees, green mounds, and leaves as sere
As my own blasted hopes. There was a time
When Love and perfect Happiness did chime
Like two sweet sounds upon this blessed day;
But one has flown forever, far away
From this poor Earth's unsatisfied desires
To love eternal, and the sacred fires
With which the other lighted up my mind
Have faded out and left no trace behind,
But dust and bitter ashes. Like a bark
Becalmed, I anchor through the midnight dark,

Can beauty that did prompt me first to write,
Now threaten, with those means she did invite?
Did her perfections call me on to gaze,
Then like, then love; and now would they amaze?
Or was she gracious afar off, but near
A terror? Or is all this but my fear?
That as the water makes things, put in't, straight,
Crookèd appear; so that doth my conceit:
I can help that with boldness; and love sware,
And fortune once, to assist the spirits that dare.
But which shall lead me on? Both these are blind: