poems about love

THE SAME CONTINUED
We vex each other with our presence, I
By my regrets and by my mocking face,
You by your laughter and mad gaiety,
And both by cruel thoughts of happier days.
Is then the world so narrow that we pace
These streets like prisoners still with eyes askance,
As bound together in the fell embrace
Of a dark chain which bars deliverance?
Nay, go your ways. I will not vex you more.
Make your own terms with life, while you are fair.
There is none better learned in woman's lore.

THE SAME CONTINUED
We may not meet. I could not for pride's sake
Dissemble further, and I suffer pain,
A palpable distinct and physical ache,
When our eyes meet by accident, and when
I hear you talk in your pathetic strain
Which always moved me. Only yesterday,
As I was standing with a crowd of men
In the long corridor, you came my way
And chanced to stop, and thus by chance I heard
A score of phrases uttered in that sad
Half--suppliant voice which once my spirit stirred

THE SAME CONTINUED
'Tis strange we are thus parted, not by death
Or man's device, but by our own mad will,
We who have stood together on life's path
Through half a youth of good repute and ill,
Friends more than lovers. See, Love's citadel
We held so stoutly 'gainst a world in arms
Lies all dismantled now, a sight to fill
The Earth with lamentations and alarms.
Whose was the fault? I dare not ask nor say.
If there was treachery, 'tis best untold.
The price of treason we receive to--day

THE SAME CONTINUED
Farewell, then. It is finished. I forgo
With this all right in you, even that of tears.
If I have spoken hardly, it will show
How much I loved you. With you disappears
A glory, a romance of many years.
What you may be henceforth I will not know.
The phantom of your presence on my fears
Is impotent at length for weal or woe.
Your past, your present, all alike must fade
In a new land of dreams where love is not.
Then kiss me and farewell. The choice is made

THE SAME CONTINUED
Lame, impotent conclusion to youth's dreams
Vast as all heaven! See, what glory lies
Entangled here in these base stratagems,
What virtue done to death! O glorious sighs,
Sublime beseechings, high cajoleries,
Fond wraths, brave ruptures, all that sometime was
Our daily bread of gods beneath the skies,
How are ye ended, in what utter loss!
Time was, time is, and time is yet to come,
Till even time itself shall have its end.
These were eternal. And behold, a tomb!

THE SAME CONTINUED
We planted love, and lo it bred a brood
Of lusts and vanities and senseless joys.
We planted love, and you have gathered food
Of every bitter herb which fills and cloys.
Your meat is loud excitement and mad noise,
Your wine the unblest ambition of command
O'er hearts of men, of dotards, idiots, boys.
These are the playthings fitted to your hand,
These are your happiness. You weep no more,
But I must weep. My Heaven has been defiled.
My sin has found me out and smites me sore,

HIS BONDAGE TO MANON IS BROKEN
From this day forth I lead another life,
Another life! A life without a tear!
To--day has ended the unequal strife;
My service and my sorrow finish here.
See, my soul cuts her cable of belief
And sails towards the ocean. She shall steer
Sublime henceforth o'er accidents of grief.
Her storm has rolled to a new Hemisphere.
I have loved too much, too loyally, too long.
To--day I am a pirate of the sea.
Let others suffer. I have suffered wrong.
Let others love, and love as tenderly.

ON FALLING ILL THROUGH GRIEF
Truce to thee, Soul! I have a debt to pay,
Which I acknowledge and without thy pleading.
I like thee little that thou barrest my way
With prayers too late for one well past thy heeding,
Truce to these tears! Thy fellow lieth bleeding,
Wounded by thee; and thou, forsooth, dost say,
``I have a servant who is sick and needing
Care at men's hands.'' The care was thine to pay.
--When this same Soul was sick, a while ago,
The Body watched her, till his eyes grew dim

HE LAMENTS THAT HIS LOVE IS DEAD
My love is dead, dead and in spite of me,--
Dead while I lived,--while yet my blood was rife
With hope and pleasure and the pride of life.
For my love ended unexpectedly
During the Winter, stricken like a tree
By a night's cold, and frozen to the blood,
Whose leaves fell off and never were renewed
By any promise of the years to be.
And, when the Spring came, and the birds, to mate
Among its branches, lo! they found it bare,
Though all around was Summer in the wood.

JOY'S TREACHERY
I had a live joy once and pampered her,
For I had brought her from the ``golden East,''
To lie when nights were cold upon my breast
And sit beside me the long days and purr,
Until her whole soul should be lapped in fur,
Deep as her claws; a beautiful sleek beast,
Which I might love.--But, when I deemed it least,
Her topaz eyes were on my stomacher,
Athirst for blood. Thus, for I loathed her since
I learned her guile, one night I had her slain
And thrown upon a dunghill to the flies,