poems about love

She gave a rose,
And I kissed it and pressed it.
I love her, she knows,
And my action confessed it.
She gave me a rose,
And I kissed it and pressed it.

Ah, how my heart glows,
Could I ever have guessed it?
It is fair to suppose
That I might have repressed it:
She gave me a rose,
And I kissed it and pressed it.

'T was a rhyme in life's prose
That uplifted and blest it.
Man's nature, who knows
Until love comes to test it?
She gave me a rose,

This love puts all humanity from me;
I can but maledict her, pray her dead,
For giving love and getting love of thee—
Feeding a heart that else mine own had fed!

How much I love I know not, life not known,
Save as some unit I would add love by;
But this I know, my being is but thine own—
Fused from its separateness by ecstasy.

And thus I grasp thy amplitudes, of her
Ungrasped, though helped by nigh-regarding eyes;
Canst thou then hate me as an envier
Who see unrecked what I so dearly prize?

I will be faithful to thee; aye, I will!
And Death shall choose me with a wondering eye
That he did not discern and domicile
One his by right ever since that last Good-bye!

I have no care for friends, or kin, or prime
Of manhood who deal gently with me here;
Amid the happy people of my time
Who work their love’s fulfilment, I appear

Numb as a vane that cankers on its point,
True to the wind that kissed ere canker came;
Despised by souls of Now, who would disjoint

She sung of Love, while o'er her lyre
The rosy rays of evening fell,
As if to feed with their soft fire
The soul within that trembling shell.
The same rich light hung o'er her cheek,
And play'd around those lips that sung
And spoke, as flowers would sing and speak,
If Love could lend their leaves a tongue.

But soon the West no longer burn'd,
Each rosy ray from heaven withdrew;
And, when to gaze again I turn'd,
The minstrel's form seem'd fading too.
As if her light and heaven's were one,

She tells her love while half asleep,
In the dark hours,
With half-words whispered low:
As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
And put out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.

SHE is not fair to outward view,
As many maidens be,
Her loveliness I never knew
Until she smiled on me:
O, then I saw her eye was bright, -
A well of love, a spring of light.
But now her looks are coy and cold;
To mine they ne'er reply;
And yet I cease not to behold,
The love-light in her eye:
Her very frowns are better far
Than smiles of other maidens are!

She has all Ireland in her blood,
All Ireland's need of sword and tears,
With memories dim before the flood,
And conflicts of a thousand years.
No son of Italy should love
A heart the centuries have worn.
She had no thought of kissing lips—
She held her womanhood in scorn.
And all her joy is blackest pain,
And all her love is bitter woe.
Then you must leave her side again.
That is no path for you to go.

I wandered o'er the vast green plains of youth,
And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height
Fame's silhouette stood sharp against the skies.
Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway
I caught the glimmer of a golden goal,
While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love.

Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed at Love,
With all the haughty insolence of youth,
As past her bower I strode to seek my goal.
'Now will I climb to glory's dizzy height, '
I said, ' for there above the common way

From the Greek Anthologies


Swifter than aught 'neath the sun the car of Simonides moved
him.
Two things he could not out-run--Death and a Woman who
loved him.

Dear motherland of mine,
I love you as you are,
But if I saw you free,
I'd love you even more.

Weep, oh forests, plains and stones,
Weep, oh mountains under snows,
Poor Albania is abandoned,
Never will she see the light,
Veiled forever is the country
In a thick and sombre blight.

Darkness and misfortune on us,
Thunder, lightning all around us,
Do we live with hearts a-frozen,
Dwell in fear, deprived of joy,
None in song do raise their voices,
And the nightingales are grieving.