poems about love

Come live with me and be my Dear;
And till that happy bond shall lapse,
I'll set your Poutings in Brevier,
Your praises in the largest CAPS.

There's Diamond-'tis for your Eyes;
There's Ruby-that will match your Lips;
Pearl, for your Teeth; and Minion-size
To suit your dainty Finger-tips.

In Nonpareil I'll put your Face;
In Rubric shall your Blushes rise;
There is no Bourgeois in your Case;
Your Form can never need 'Revise.'

Your Cheek seems 'Ready for the Press';

Touch me, from out your breast of love,
With such white hands that be
As beautiful as a dream of
Your lips' virginity;
Or else look pity on my hope,
And that sweet sorrow shall
With the pang of departure cope,
And make amends for all.

O God, forgive me that I ranged
My live into a dream of love!
Will tears of anguish never wash
The passion from my blood?

Love kept my heart in a song of joy,
My pulses quivered to the tune;
The coldest blasts of winter blew
Upon me like sweet airs in June.

Love floated on the mists of morn
And rested on the sunset’s rays;
He calmed the thunder of the storm
And lighted all my ways.

Love held me joyful through the day
And dreaming ever through the night;
No evil thing could come to me,

I dreamt I was in love again
With the One Before the Last,
And smiled to greet the pleasant pain
Of that innocent young past.

But I jumped to feel how sharp had been
The pain when it did live,
How the faded dreams of Nineteen-ten
Were Hell in Nineteen-five.

The boy’s woe was as keen and clear,
The boy’s love just as true,
And the One Before the Last, my dear,
Hurt quite as much as you.

Sickly I pondered how the lover
Wrongs the unanswering tomb,
And sentimentalizes over

Tis believed that this Harp, which I wake now for thee
Was a Siren of old, who sung under the sea;
And who often, at eve, through the bright waters roved,
To meet, on the green shore, a youth whom she loved.

But she loved him in vain, for he left her to weep,
And in tears, all the night, her gold tresses to steep,
Till heaven look'd with pity on true-love so warm,
And changed to this soft Harp the sea-maiden's form.

Still her bosom rose fair -- still her cheeks smiled the same --

Was it love breathed on us as on the skies
Dawn breathes for a short space and then is fled;
Or loved we never at all who but misread
With too dim vision the guarded mysteries?

Were we unfaithful or were we unwise,
Knew we not love, or if our love is dead,
If such were true, for grace of what is sped,
Could we not part with unaverted eyes?

But whence there looks askance as at strange fears?
Anmd when the far and muffled cryings that beat
Across the moment of our dire farewell?

Stuck on the fridge, our favorite pin-up girl
is anorexic. On the radio we have a riff

of Muzak sax, and on the mind
a self-help book. We sprawl all evening, all

alone, in the unraised ranch;
all day the company we kept

kept on incorporating. As for the world
of poverty, we did our best, thanks

to a fund of Christian feeling
and mementos from

Amelia, the foster child, who has
the rags and seven photogenic sisters we prefer

in someone to be saved. She's proof

Come all kind, good people,
With sympathizing hearts,
Come listen to a few kind words
A friend to you imparts.
Be kind to an orphan child,
And always be its friend,
You will be happy in this world,
And will be to the end.
II
Be kind to the motherless,
Little motherless ones,
For God will forever bless
You in this world to come.
No kind and loving mother
To soothe their little brow,
Be kind to them always, friends,
They have no mother now.
III
Be kind to the fatherless,

There 's an old nest down in the branches

That under my windows swing,
Where once in the long sweet evenings

Two mocking birds used to sing ;

But winter has battered and tattered
That nest near my window pane :

As spring-time freshens I often wonder,
Will the mocking birds come again

Return to the nest that they loved so well
And built with such cunning care

The nest that they changed to a golden cup
With wisps of my loved one's hair?

[HERNANI, Act III.]


O mockery! that this halting love
That fills the heart so full of flame and transport,
Forgets the body while it fires the soul!
If but a youthful shepherd cross my path,
He singing on the way--I sadly musing,
He in his fields, I in my darksome alleys--
Then my heart murmurs: 'O, ye mouldering towers!
Thou olden ducal dungeon! O how gladly
Would I exchange ye, and my fields and forests,
Mine ancient name, mine ancient rank, my ruins--
My ancestors, with whom I soon shall lie,