poems about love

Grant me, I cried, some spell of art,
To turn with all a lover's care,
That spotless page, my Eva's heart,
And write my burning wishes there.

But Love, by faithless Laia taught
How frail is woman's holiest vow,
Look'd down, while grace attempered thought
Sate serious on his baby brow.

'Go! blot her album,' cried the sage,
'There none but bards a place may claim;
But woman's heart's a worthless page,
Where every fool may write his name.'

Until by time or fate decayed,

HERE rests the image of a friend,-
Thine, cherish'd BIBI , thine!
Oft to this spot our steps we'll bend,
And call it Friendship's shrine.

Through length'ning years' successive flight
Thy fondness still had power
To shed its narrow line of light
On life's domestic hour;

And while for pleasures sought amiss
Abroad we vainly roam,
How far more dear the slightest bliss
That adds one charm to home!

Let those who coldly scorn the tear
That soothes the grief we prove,

We love cold water as it flows from the fountain,
Which nature hath brewed alone in the mountain,
In the wild woods and in the rocky dell
Where man hath not been but the deer loves to dwell,
And away across the sea in far distant lands
In Asia's gloomy jungles and Africa's drifting sands,
Where to the thirsty traveller a charming spot of green
Is by far the rarest gem his eyes have ever seen.
And when he hath quenched his thirst at the cooling spring,
With many grateful songs he makes the air to ring.

(i)

De Amico ad Amicam

A Celuy que pluys eyme en mounde,
Of alle tho that I have founde

Carissima,

Saluz od treye amour,
With grace and joye and alle honoure,

Dulcissima.

Sachez bien, pleysant et beele,
That I am right in goode heele

Laus Christo!

Et moun amour done vous ay,
And also thine owene, night and day

In cisto.

Ma tres duce et tres ame,
Night and day for love of thee

Suspiro.

Soyez permanent et leal;

Oh, sunny Love!
Crowned with fresh flowering May,
Breath like the Indian clove,
Eyes like the dawn of day;
Oh, sunny Love!
Oh, fatal Love!
Thy wreath is nightshade all,
With gloomy cypress wove,
Thy kiss is bitter gall,
Oh, fatal Love!

PLACED OVER A CHIMNEY-PIECE

Surly Winter, come not here;
Bluster in thy proper sphere:
Howl along the naked plain,
There exert thy joyless reign;
Triumph o'er the withered flower,
The leafless shrub, the ruined bower;
But our cottage come not near;—
Other springs inhabit here,
Other sunshine decks our board,
Than the niggard skies afford.
Gloomy Winter, hence! away!
Love and Fancy scorn thy sway;
Love and Joy, and friendly Mirth,
Shall bless this roof, these walls, this hearth;

O see-saws! O Lilies!
Enemas of silver!
Disdainful of labours,
disdainful of famines!

Dawn fills you with
a [wound-searching,] cleansing love!
A heavenly sweetness
butters your stamens!
Armand Silvestre

To Alice and Hypatia Bradlaugh

Who was Lilah? I am sure
She was young and sweet and pure;
With the forehead wise men love,-
Here a lucid dawn above
Broad curved brows, and twilight there,
Under the deep dusk of hair.
And her eyes? I cannot say
Whether brown, or blue, or grey:
I have seen them brown, and blue,
And a soft green grey-the hue
Shakespeare loved (and he was wise):
'Grey as glass' were Silvia's eyes.

So to Lilah's name above
I will add two names I love,

At midnight by the stream I roved,
To forget the form I loved.
Image of Lewti! from my mind
Depart; for Lewti is not kind.

The Moon was high, the moonlight gleam
And the shadow of a star
Heaved upon Tamaha's stream;
But the rock shone brighter far,
The rock half sheltered from my view
By pendent boughs of tressy yew.--
So shines my Lewti's forehead fair,
Gleaming through her sable hair,
Image of Lewti! from my mind
Depart; for Lewti is not kind.

I saw a cloud of palest hue,

'Oh, sad thy lot before I came,
But sadder when I go;
My presence but a flash of flame,
A transitory glow
Between two barren wastes like snow.
What wilt thou do when I am gone,
Where wilt thou rest, my dear?
For cold thy bed to rest upon,
And cold the falling year
Whose withered leaves are lost and sere.'

She hushed the baby at her breast,
She rocked it on her knee:
'And I will rest my lonely rest,
Warmed with the thought of thee,
Rest lulled to rest by memory.'