romantic poems

Endowed with soul and body, happiness and riches, why did you not find love in the midst of these?
What doest thou? What was thy promise at thy coming? Why hast thou left it to pursue another aim?
Practice Joga, renunciation and the recluse life, O Dharni: why wear yourself to death in pursuit of riches?
At the last all these will desert thee: why not, O fool, desert them now?

Julia—at her name my mind
Throws its griefs and cares behind:
She, the love of early years,
Smiling through her childish tears—
Julia! child of love and pain,
One I ne'er shall see again.

And forgive me, Julia dear,
For the sins of that long year!
Think of me with kindly thought,
And condemn me not for naught.

By thine eyes, so softly brown,
By the light and glistening crown
That so gently o'er thy head
Did its shining lustre shed;
By that sad yet loving mouth,
Rose of fragrance from the South;

To every man some doting woman lends
A halo of enchantment; in her eyes
He is most noble, loving, brave and wise;
This worship like to incense pure ascends
And with her dreams in painted glamour blends
Like rainbow melting in the western skies;
His lightest word is something dear to prize
His chance caress for sorrow full amends.

Oh, mystery! that woman cannot see
Her own superiority to man,
Which soars on high like eagle's wing above—
Just as it was, has been, will ever be,
Because ordained by God's primeval plan,

'Twas said of old, and still the ages say,
“The lover's path is full of doubt and woe.”
Of me they spake : I know not, nor can know,
If she I sigh for will my love repay.
My head sinks on my breast; with bitter strife
My heart is torn, and grief she cannot see.
All unavailing is this agony
To help the love that has become my life.

Rosy days of youth and fancy,
Happy hours of long ago!
Ah, the flickering sunbeam visions—
How they waver to and fro!

Galaxies of blue-eyed Marys,
With a Julia and a Jane,
And a troop of little Lauras,
Blush, and laugh, and romp again.

Moonlight meetings, dreamy rambles,
In the balm of summer night,
When our hearts were full of rapture
And our senses of delight;—

Those remember,—and remember
How the fond stars shone above,
Keeping, in their mellow splendor,
Watch and ward upon our love.

Love never dies, that harbors in a jest!
Love never lives, that only words can tell!
And so light looks and smiles are ever best,—
Since love that speaks must only say Farewell!

All the people of the earth
Have a common death and birth;
All the men beneath the sky
Hope and love as thou and I;
Some are weak and some are strong,
Some are right and some are wrong,
But as dusk is after day,
We must journey in one way.
Of the hosts of humankind,
Some have vision, some are blind,
But the poorest child of fate
Doth outline the kingly state;
Over land and over sea,
Life, and death, and mystery;
Childhood, age, and from the steep,
All must make the final leap,
All must crumble into clay,

Once the gayest of the gay,
She her castanets would play,
Dance before us in the pride
Of her golden summer tide.

Now she's ill and worn and old,
Gone her lovers, gone her gold,
Those who used to hold her dear
Shrink away to-day in fear.

As the moon in heaven bright
Waxes still with borrowed light,
So to woman comes eclipse
When she is touched by no man's lips.

I care not what my fate shall be,
Burn me with lightning, freeze with ice,
Drown me in Ocean's deepest sea
Or hurl me down the precipice.

For I by Love am worn away
My body spent with fierce desire,
And if his bolt should strike to-day
I would not fear Jove's fire.

I fell in love with a fair maid
And she to love was not afraid;
Our lips made answer, kiss for kiss,
And soon we reached love's perfect bliss.

But who I am and who is she,
And how we came thus to agree,
All that is still beneath the rose—
Venus alone our secret knows.