poems about love

Once gods walked among humans,
The splendid Muses and youthful Apollo
Inspired and healed us, just like you.
And you are to me as if one of the Holy Ones
Had sent me forth into life, and the image
Of my beloved goes with me,
And wherever I stay and whatever I learn,
I learned and gained it from her,
With a love that lasts until death.

Then let us live, you with whom I suffer
And inwardly strive towards better times
In faith and loyalty. For we are the ones.
And if people should remember us both

Once a great love cut my life in two.
The first part goes on twisting
at some other place like a snake cut in two.

The passing years have calmed me
and brought healing to my heart and rest to my eyes.

And I'm like someone standing in the Judean desert, looking at a sign:
'Sea Level'
He cannot see the sea, but he knows.

Thus I remember your face everywhere
at your 'face Level.'

ONCE a sea-nymph loved a boy:
He and she they loved so well.
'Oh the foamy billow's joy!
Oh the rippling in the sun!
Oh the round waves, one by one, Swaying, swaying, swaying, To and fro.
Oh my pearl and coral cell, And the long weeds playing,
While the surges come and go, Come and go!'

Boy and nymph were hand in hand:
He and she they had much love.
'Oh the green and ripening land!
Oh the lime-scent in the trees!
Oh the langour of the breeze,

Wooing, wooing, wooing, Light and low!

It is a lofty feeling, yet a kind,
Thus to be topped with leaves; -- to have a sense
Of honour-shaded thought,-- an influence
As from great nature's fingers, and be twined
With her old, sacred, verdurous ivy-bind,
As though she hallowed with that sylvan fence
A head that bows to her benevolence,
Midst pomp of fancied trumpets in the wind.
It is what's within us crowned. And kind and great
Are all the conquering wishes it inspires,
Love of things lasting, love of the tall woods,

These are the letters which Endymion wrote
To one he loved in secret and apart,
And now the brawlers of the auction-mart
Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note,
Aye! for each separate pulse of passion quote
The merchant's price! I think they love not art
Who break the crystal of a poet's heart,
That small and sickly eyes may glare or gloat.
Is it not said, that many years ago,
In a far Eastern town some soldiers ran
With torches through the midnight, and began
To wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw

When worthless grandeur fills th' embellish'd urn,
No poignant grief attends the sable bier;
But when distinguish'd excellence we mourn,
Deep is the sorrow, genuine is the tear.
Stranger! should'st thou approach this awful shrine,
The merits of the honour'd dead to seek;
The friend, the son, the Christian, the divine,
Let those who knew him, those who lov'd him, speak.

O let him in some pause of anguish say,
What zeal inflam'd, what faith enlarg'd his breast;
How glad th' unfetter'd spirit wing'd its way

The night is black and the forest has no end;
a million people thread it in a million ways.
We have trysts to keep in the darkness, but where
or with whom - of that we are unaware.
But we have this faith - that a lifetime's bliss
will appear any minute, with a smile upon its lips.
Scents, touches, sounds, snatches of songs
brush us, pass us, give us delightful shocks.
Then peradventure there's a flash of lightning:
whomever I see that instant I fall in love with.
I call that person and cry: `This life is blest!

In Bourgueil Gardens more than one of yore
Engraved loved names on bark with heavy stroke,
And many a heart 'neath Louvre's gold ceilings shook,
At flash of smile, with pride to very core.

What matters it? - their joy or grief e'ermore
Is stilled: they lie between four boards of oak,
Where under grass-grown cover nought has woke
Their torpid dust that feeds oblivion's shore.

All die. Mary, Helen, and thee, Cassandra, all
Your lovely forms to lifeless ashes fall,
- Nor rose nor lily sees the morrow's land -

'L'Amitié est l'Amour sans ailes.'
FRIENDSHIP, as some sage poet sings,
Is chasten'd Love, depriv'd of wings,
Without all wish or power to wander;
Less volatile, but not less tender:
Yet says the proverbs­'Sly and slow
'Love creeps, even where he cannot go;'
To clip his pinions then is vain,
His old propensities remain;

And she, who years beyond fifteen,
Has counted twenty, may have seen
How rarely unplum'd Love will stay;
He flies not­but he coolly walks away.

``With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots,
Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots ;
Rhyme's sturdy cripple, fancy's maze and clue,
Wit's forge and fire-blast, meaning's press and screw.''