poems about love

Love is apart from all things.
Desire and excitement are nothing beside it.
It is not the body that finds love.
What leads us there is the body.
What is not love provokes it.
What is not love quenches it.
Love lays hold of everything we know.
The passions which are called love
also change everything to a newness
at first. Passion is clearly the path
but does not bring us to love.
It opens the castle of our spirit
so that we might find the love which is
a mystery hidden there.

I DUG, beneath the cypress shade,
   What well might seem an elfin's grave;
And every pledge in earth I laid,
   That erst thy false affection gave.

I press'd them down the sod beneath;
   I placed one mossy stone above;
And twined the rose's fading wreath
   Around the sepulchre of love.

Frail as thy love, the flowers were dead
   Ere yet the evening sun was set:
But years shall see the cypress spread,
   Immutable as my regret.

DAME DOWSON, was a granny grey,
Who, three score years and ten,
Had pass'd her busy hours away,
In talking of the Men !
They were her theme, at home, abroad,
At wake, and by the winter fire,
Whether it froze, or blew, or thaw'd,
In sunshine or in shade, her ire
Was never calm'd; for still she made
Scandal her pleasure--and her trade!

A Grand-daughter DAME DOWSON had--
As fair, as fair could be!
Lovely enough to make Men mad;
For, on her cheek's soft downy rose
LOVE seem'd in dimples to repose;

BENEATH cool ferns, in dewy grass,
Among the leaves that fringe the stream,
I hear the feet of lovers pass,
--I hide all day, and dream.


But when the night, with wide soft wings,
Droops on the trembling waiting wood,
And lulls the restless woodland things
Within its solitude,


Ah, then my soft green lamp I light,
That thou may'st find me by its fire--
Come, crown me, O my winged delight
My darling, my desire.


Yet they who praise the lamp I bear

My love is light as a will-o'-the-wisp,

Oh, my, me !
My love she speaks with a little lisp,

Oh, my, me !

' Do n't kith me, pleath, it tumblth my hair,
Do n't squeeth my hand my heart is there'-
And that is more than I can bear,

Me, oh, my !

She 's wee and wise, she 's great and good,

Me, oh, my !
I 'd ring her finger if I could,

My, oh, me !



And when I say kind things to her
She drops her head ' I thank you, thir,'

I GIVE you Life, O child, a garden fair;
I give you Love, a rose that blossoms there--
I give a day to pluck it and to wear!

I give you Death, O child--a boon more great--
That, when your Rose has withered and 'tis late,
You may pass out and, smiling, close the gate!

I want to give you something, my child, for we are drifting in the
stream of the world.
Our lives will be carried apart, and our love forgotten.
But I am not so foolish as to hope that I could buy your heart
with my gifts.
Young is your life, your path long, and you drink the love we
bring you at one draught and turn and run away from us.
You have your play and your playmates. What harm is there if
you have no time or thought for us!
We, indeed, have leisure enough in old age to count the days

I.

By the rush of the Rhine's broad stream,
Down whose rapid tide
We sailed as in some sweet dream
Sitting side by side;
By the depth of its clear blue wave
And the vine-clad hills,
Which gazed on its heart and gave
Their tribute rills;

By the mountains, in purple shade,
And those valleys green
Where our bower of rest was made,
By the world unseen;
By the notes of the wild free bird,
Singing over-head
When nought else in the sunshine stirr'd
Round our flowery bed;

Through many a land your journey ran,
And showed the best the world can boast:
Now tell me, traveller, if you can,
The place that pleased you most."

She laid her hands upon my breast,
And murmured gently in my ear,
"The place I loved and liked the best
Was in your arms, my dear!"

My love, once upon a time your poet
launched a great epic in his mind.
Alas, I was not careful, and it struck
your ringing anklets and came to
grief.
It broke up into scraps of songs and
lay scattered at your feet.
All my cargo of the stories of old
wars was tossed by the laughing waves
and soaked in tears and sank.
You must make this loss good to me,
my love.
If my claims to immortal fame after
death are scattered, make me immortal
while I live.