poems about love

It's boring and sad, and there's no one around
In times of my spirit's travail...
Desires!...What use is our vain and eternal desire?..
While years pass on by - all the best years!

To love...but love whom?.. a short love is vexing,
And permanent love's just a myth.
Perhaps look within? - The past's left no trace:
All trivial, joys and distress...

What good are the passions? For sooner or later
Their sweet sickness ends when reason speaks up;
And life, if surveyed with cold-blooded regard,-

Now, again in the silent night,
sequestrant walls, border walls
like plants entwine,
so they may be the guardians of my love.

Now, again the town's evil murmurs,
like agitated schools of fish,
flee the darkness of my extremities.

Now, again windows rediscover themselves
in the pleasure of contact with scattered perfumes,
and trees, in slumberous orchards, shed their bark,
and soil, with its thousand inlets
inhales the dizzy particles of the moon.

***
Now
come closer

O saw ye bonie Lesley
As she gaed o'er the Border?
She 's gane, like Alexander,
To spread her conquests farther.

To see her is to love her,
And love but her for ever;
For Nature made her what she is,
And ne'er made sic anither!

Thou art a queen, fair Lesley,
Thy subjects we, before thee:
Thou art divine, fair Lesley,
The hearts o' men adore thee.

The Deil he couldna scaith thee,
Or aught that wad belang thee;
He'd look into thy bonnie face
And say, 'I canna wrang thee!'

WHAT sounds are those, Helvellyn, that are heard
Up to thy summit, through the depth of air
Ascending, as if distance had the power
To make the sounds more audible? What crowd
Covers, or sprinkles o'er, yon village green?
Crowd seems it, solitary hill! to thee,
Though but a little family of men,
Shepherds and tillers of the ground--betimes
Assembled with their children and their wives,
And here and there a stranger interspersed.
They hold a rustic fair--a festival,
Such as, on this side now, and now on that,

Hearken to the reed-flute, how it complains,
Lamenting its banishment from its home:


'Ever since they tore me from my osier bed,
My plaintive notes have moved men and women to tears.
I burst my breast, striving to give vent to sighs,
And to express the pangs of my yearning for my home.
He who abides far away from his home
Is ever longing for the day he shall return.
My wailing is heard in every throng,
In concert with them that rejoice and them that weep.
Each interprets my notes in harmony with his own feelings,

THE LOVING ONE SPEAKS.

And wherefore sends not
The horseman-captain
His heralds hither

Each day, unfailing?
Yet hath he horses,
He writes well.

He waiteth Tali,
And Neski knows he
To write with beauty
On silken tablets.
I'd deem him present,
Had I his words.

The sick One will not,
Will not recover
From her sweet sorrow;
She, when she heareth
That her true lover
Grows well, falls sick.

Writes he in Neski,
Faithfully speaks he;
Writes he in Tali,
Joy to give, seeks he:
Writes he in either,
Good!--for he loves!

Once, methought, in the night hours cold,

That I saw the moon in my sleep;
But as soon as I waken'd, behold

Unawares rose the sun from the deep.

THAT Suleika's love was so strong

For Joseph, need cause no surprise;

He was young, youth pleaseth the eyes,--

He was fair, they say, beyond measure

Fair was she, and so great was their pleasure.
But that thou, who awaitedst me long,
Youthful glances of fire dost throw me,
Soon wilt bless me, thy love now dost show me,

Love for love, and moments sweet,

Lips returning kiss for kiss,
Word for word, and eyes that meet;

Breath for breath, and bliss for bliss.
Thus at eve, and thus the morrow!

Yet thou feeblest, at my lay,
Ever some half-hidden sorrow;
Could I Joseph's graces borrow,

All thy beauty I'd repay!

From Heaven there fell upon the foaming wave
A timid drop; the flood with anger roared,--

But God, its modest boldness to reward,
Strength to the drop and firm endurance gave.
Its form the mussel captive took,

And to its lasting glory and renown,

The pearl now glistens in our monarch's crown,
With gentle gleam and loving look.