poems about love

THEY met, and all the world was fair;
Fair, too, were they as any pair
Of birds of paradise;
They met, and never meant to part,
But oh! time chills the warmest heart,
And dims the brightest eyes.

They met, and love betwixt them born,
From morn to dark, from dark to morn.
Walked with them through the land;
O, blithely sped the singing hours,
Till, lured to pluck the star-eyed flowers,
Each loosed the other's hand.

Then love took flight with sudden fright,

Young love has chains of metal rare,
Heavy as gold-yet light as air:
It chanced he caught a heart one day
Which struggled hard, as loth to stay.

Prudence, poor thing, was lingering near-
She whispered in the captive's ear,
'Cease, little flutterer; bear thy chain,
And soon thou shalt be free again!'

No; I assert my right to fly-
The chain shall break, and Love shall die
What! I remain a willing slave?
No-freedom, freedom, or the grave!

Meanwhile Love slumbered by his prize

There lies the heat of summer
On your cheek’s lovely art:
There lies the cold of winter
Within your little heart.
That will change, beloved,
The end not as the start!
Winter on your cheek then,
Summer in your heart.

Enough of thunderous passion
That clouds life's weary way.
Bid now in merrier fashion
The jocund pulses play.
Welcome the airy fancies
That charm and pass away,
The light loves,
The bright loves,
The loves that live a day.

Too rude for mortal bosoms
The storms that rage for aye;
Ask not from frost the blossoms
That deck the laughing May.
Bid welcome all the gay loves
That wither if they stay,
The sweet loves,
The fleet loves,
The loves that live a day.

I'll tell the story, kissing
This white hand for my pains:
No sweeter heart, nor falser
E'er filled such fine, blue veins.

I'll sing a song of true love,
My Lilith dear! to you;
Contraria contrariis
The rule is old and true.

The happiest of all lovers
Was Ernst of Edelsheim;
And why he was the happiest,
I'll tell you in my rhyme.

One summer night he wandered
Within a lonely glade,
And, couched in moss and moonlight,
He found a sleeping maid.

If social manners, if the gentlest mind,
If zeal for God, and love for human kind,
If all the charities which life endear,
May claim affection, or demand a tear,
Then, o'er Penrose's venerable urn
Domestic love may weep, and friendship mourn.

The path of duty still, untired, he trod,
He walk'd in safety, for he walk'd with God!
When past the power of precept and of prayer
Yet still his flock remain'd the shepherd's care;
Their wants still kindly watchful to supply,

On The Death of Edward Forbes

Nature, a jealous mistress, laid him low.
He woo'd and won her; and, by love made bold,
She showed him more than mortal man should know,
Then slew him lest her secret should be told.

An old willow with hollow branches
slowly swayed his few high gright tendrils
and sang:

Love is a young green willow
shimmering at the bare wood's edge.

Another Leonora once inspir'd
Tasso, with fatal love to frenzy fir'd,
But how much happier, liv'd he now, were he,
Pierced with whatever pangs for love of Thee!
Since could he hear that heavenly voice of thine,
With Adriana's lute of sound divine,
Fiercer than Pentheus' tho' his eye might roll,
Or idiot apathy benumb his soul,
You still, with medicinal sounds, might cheer
His senses wandering in a blind career;
And sweetly breathing thro' his wounded breast,
Charm, with soul-soothing song, his thoughts to rest.

At the end of my labour
A familiar voice consoles me in intimate whispers:
Don't worry, honey, you haven't erred
In this public celebration of our love.
The great monuments to love like the Taj Mahal,
Transformed private emotions into social ritual.
No grand passion can be contained
Within secret diaries or letters
But must spill out sooner or later into the open.
Love, like money, must be shared,
Not hoarded: so it can multiply.
To broadcast love, therefore, is no crime.
But beware of making it an act