poems about love

SEE the Chariot at hand here of Love,
   Wherein my Lady rideth!
Each that draws is a swan or a dove,
   And well the car Love guideth.
As she goes, all hearts do duty
   Unto her beauty;
And enamour'd do wish, so they might
   But enjoy such a sight,
That they still were to run by her side,
Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.

Do but look on her eyes, they do light
   All that Love's world compriseth!
Do but look on her hair, it is bright

Would my Delia know if I love, let her take
My last thought at night, and the first when I wake;
With my prayers and best wishes preferred for her sake.

Let her guess what I muse on, when rambling alone
I stride o'er the stubble each day with my gun,
Never ready to shoot till the covey is flown.

Let her think what odd whimsies I have in my brain,
When I read one page over and over again,
And discover at last that I read it in vain.

Let her say why so fixed and so steady my look,

I love thee when thy swelling buds appear
And one by one their tender leaves unfold,
As if they knew that warmer suns were near,
Nor longer sought to hide from winter's cold;
And when with darker growth thy leaves are seen
To veil from view the early robin's nest,
I love to lie beneath thy waving skreen
With limbs by summer's heat and toil opprest;
And when the autumn winds have stript thee bare,
And round thee lies the smooth untrodden snow,
When nought is thine that made thee once so fair,

573

The Test of Love—is Death—
Our Lord—"so loved"—it saith—
What Largest Lover—hath
Another—doth—

If smaller Patience—be—
Through less Infinity—
If Bravo, sometimes swerve—
Through fainter Nerve—

Accept its Most—
And overlook—the Dust—
Last—Least—
The Cross'—Request—

The time when first I fell in love,
Which now I must lament;
The year wherein I lost such time
To compass my content.

The day wherein I saw too late
The follies of a lover;
The hour wherein I found such loss
As care cannot recover.

And last, the minute of mishap,
Which makes me thus to plain
The doleful fruits of lover's suits,
Which labour lose in vain:

Doth make me solemnly protest,
As I with pain do prove,
There is no time, year, day, nor hour,

Fragments 84, 45, 82, 36, 38, 37, 40, 80, 50, 55, and 42 combined.

O Queens of Song, descend from your home.
From the golden halls of Olumpus on high!
O shell divine, now, now become
Voiceful, to utter mine heart's wild cry!
O Calliope, vouchsafe thine aid
Unto one whom the Muse of Love hath betrayed!
Ah me, I know not what to do
Who am wildered all, in a strait betwixt two!
I cry from a homeless heart storm-tossed
As a child for her mother, a young child lost.
Yet not after all-unattainable things

By the mossy weed-flowered column,
Where the setting moonbeam's glance
Streams a radiance cold and solemn
On the haunts of old romance:
Know'st thou what those shafts betoken,
Scattered on that tablet lone,
Where the ivory bow lies broken
By the monumental stone?

When true knighthood's shield, neglected,
Mouldered in the empty hall;
When the charms that shield protected
Slept in death's eternal thrall;
When chivalric glory perished
Like the pageant of a dream,
Love in vain its memory cherished,

Send me some token, that my hope may live,
Or that my easeless thoughts may sleep and rest;
Send me some honey to make sweet my hive,
That in my passions I may hope the best.
I beg no riband wrought with thine own hands,
To knit our loves in the fantastic strain
Of new-touched youth; nor ring to show the stands
Of our affection, that as that's round and plain,
So should our loves meet in simplicity;
No, nor the corals which thy wrist enfold,
Laced up together in congruity,

The night, dark-cloaked like a procuress, brought
him to me, willing, light as a shadow,
speaking words of love
in some tender language I do not know ...
With the crows came the morning, and my limbs
warm of love, were once again so lonely...
At my doorstep I saw a pock-marked face,
a friendly smile and
a rolleiflex. We will go for a drive,
he said. Or go see the lakes. I have
washed my face with soap and water, brushed
my hair a dozen
times, draped myself in six yards of printed

Love has moods: and I am cold,
Very cold ofttimes to Thee;
Fain to slip from Thy dear hold
To my follies and be free.

Yet I love: Thou knowest all.
I am Thine in heat and chill;
Thou, Thou hast my heart in thrall,
All my life and all my will.

Thou, Immortal Lover, sure
Knowest the way that lovers have,
Now so cold, afraid, unsure,
Now afire with love and brave.

If I loved less it might be
That the way was smoother, less
Of the heavenly joys for me
And the cast-down bitterness.