Loves Portrait

Out of the day--glare, out of all uproar,
Hurrying in ways disquieted, bring me
To silence, and earth's ancient peace restore,
That with profounder vision I may see.
In dew--baptizing dimness let me lose
Tired thoughts; dispeople the world--haunted mind,
With burning of interior fire refined;
Cleanse all my sense: then, Love, mine eyes unclose.

Let it be dawn, and such low light increase,
As when from darkness pure the hills emerge;
And solemn foliage trembles through its peace


Loves Lord

WHEN weight of all the garner’d years
Bows me, and praise must find relief
In harvest-song, and smiles and tears
Twist in the band that binds my sheaf;

Thou known Unknown, dark, radiant sea
In whom we live, in whom we move,
My spirit must lose itself in Thee,
Crying a name—Life, Light, or Love.


Loves Harvest

Nay, do not quarrel with the seasons, dear,
Nor make an enemy of friendly Time.
The fruit and foliage of the failing year
Rival the buds and blossoms of its prime.
Is not the harvest moon as round and bright
As that to which the nightingales did sing?
And thou, that call'st thyself my satellite,
Wilt seem in Autumn all thou art in Spring.
When steadfast sunshine follows fitful rain,
And gleams the sickle where once passed the plough,
Since tender green hath grown to mellow grain,


Loves Generosity

She, who I love
Never presents herself through surrender
Indeed she never gives herself,
Never drops with exhaustion
As a leaf might drop,
Or as rain drops, drawn by the earth,
Seeking to merge with earth's substance.

She, who I love
Gives herself as a conqueror might
Through immensities of freedom –
She overflows, she gushes forth
Through vast domains of liberty
In full desire.

She is not chained by her yearning for love.
No, she is in flight
Like a flock of white cranes


Loves Fitfulness

You say that I am fitful. Sweet, 'tis true;
But 'tis that I your fitfulness obey.
If you are April, how can I be May,
Or flaunt bright roses when you wear sad rue?
Shine like the sun, and my sky will be blue;
Sing, and the lark shall envy me my lay:
I do but follow where you point the way,
And what I feel you doing, straight must do.
The wind might just as well reproach the vane,
As you upbraid me for my shiftings, dear:
Blow from the south, and south I shall remain;
If you keep fixed, be sure I shall not veer.


Loves Auction

Could pretty Jane be put to sale,
I'd have no auctioneer in vogue;
Not Christie should her charms detail,
But Truth should dress the catalogue.
Within the leaves no falsehood slid;
No grace hitch'd in which Jane hath not.
Then all the world would come and bid;
But only Love should buy the lot.


Love To A Little Girl

When we all lie still
Where churchyard pines their funeral vigil keep,
Thou shalt rise up early
While the dews are deep;
Thee the earliest bird shall rouse
From thy maiden sleep,
Thy white bed in the old house
Where we all, in our day,
Lived and loved so cheerly.
And thou shalt take thy way
Where the nodding daffodil
Tells thee he is near;
Where the lark above the corn
Sings him to thine ear;
Where thine own oak, fondly grim,
Points to more than thou canst spy;


Love An Elegy

Too much my heart of Beauty's power hath known,
Too long to Love hath reason left her throne;
Too long my genius mourn'd his myrtle chain,
And three rich years of youth consum'd in vain.
My wishes, lull'd with soft inglorious dreams,
Forgot the patriot's and the sage's themes:
Through each Elysian vale and fairy grove,
Through all the enchanted paradise of love,
Misled by sickly hope's deceitful flame,
Averse to action, and renouncing fame.

At last the visionary scenes decay,


Love, You Must Be Blind

Tell me if you can, the rule by which a man
Selects his worse or better half.
Truly it would seem to be a lott'ry scheme,
The prizes often make one laugh.

The woman slim and thin and tall,
Will love a human butter ball;
While one who's round and plump and fat,
Adores some one as tall as that.
The author of a learned book,
Is sometimes wedded to his cook;
The girl who's frivolous and gay,
Picks out a meek Y. M. C. A.
The statesman with ambition high,
Will choose a social butterfly;


Love, We're Going Home Now

Love, we're going home now,
Where the vines clamber over the trellis:
Even before you, the summer will arrive,
On its honeysuckle feet, in your bedroom.

Our nomadic kisses wandered over all the world:
Armenia, dollop of disinterred honey:
Ceylon, green dove: and the YangTse with its old
Old patience, dividing the day from the night.

And now, dearest, we return, across the crackling sea
Like two blind birds to their wall,
To their nest in a distant spring:

Because love cannot always fly without resting,


Pages

Subscribe to RSS - poems about love