poems about love

I loved thee once, I'll love no more,
Thine be the grief as is the blame;
Thou art not what thou wast before,
What reason I should be the same?
He that can love unloved again,
Hath better store of love than brain:
God sends me love my debts to pay,
While unthrifts fool their love away.

Nothing could have my love o'erthrown,
If thou hadst still continued mine;
Yea, if thou hadst remained thy own,
I might perchance have yet been thine.
But thou thy freedom didst recall,
That if thou might elsewhere inthrall;

Has summer come without the rose,
Or left the bird behind?
Is the blue changed above thee,
O world! or am I blind?
Will you change every flower that grows,
Or only change this spot,
Where she who said, I love thee,
Now says, I love thee not?

The skies seemed true above thee,
The rose true on the tree;
The bird seemed true the summer through,
But all proved false to me.
World, is there one good thing in you,
Life, love, or death--or what?
Since lips that sang, I love thee,

Were I as base as is the lowly plain,
And you, my Love, as high as heaven above,
Yet should the thoughts of me your humble swain
Ascend to heaven, in honour of my Love.

Were I as high as heaven above the plain,
And you, my Love, as humble and as low
As are the deepest bottoms of the main,
Whereso'er you were, with you my love should go.

Were you the earth, dear Love, and I the skies,
My love should shine on you like to the sun,
And look upon you with ten thousand eyes
Till heaven wax'd blind, and till the world were done.

Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part,—
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;
And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free;

Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.

Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath,
When his pulse failing, passion speechless lies,
When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And innocence is closing up his eyes,

Phoebus, arise!
And paint the sable skies
With azure, white, and red:
Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed
That she may thy career with roses spread:
The nightingales thy coming eachwhere sing:
Make an eternal spring!
Give life to this dark world which lieth dead;
Spread forth thy golden hair
In larger locks than thou wast wont before,
And emperor-like decore
With diadem of pearl thy temples fair:
Chase hence the ugly night
Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light.

—This is that happy morn,

Can Eagles' birds fly lower than their kind?
Or can ambition stoop to servile gain?
Can free-born breasts be forc'd against their mind,
To put the mask of love upon disdain?
Can Love be bought? Can avarice constrain
Great Cupid to do homage unto gold?
Can he his wings, can he his flames restrain,
Or be induc'd to wish as worldlings would?
No, no, my fate is in the heavens enroll'd,
Men's laws may force my life, but not my love,
Men may my eyes, but not my heart, behold,
My eyes may their's, my heart my own, shall prove.

I ONCE loved a boy, and a bold Irish boy,
Far away in the hills of the West;
Ah! the love of that boy was my jewel of joy,
And I built him a bower in my breast,
In my breast;
And I built him a bower in my breast.

I once loved a boy, and I trusted him true,
And I built him a bower in my breast;
But away, wirrasthrue! the rover he flew,
And robbed my poor heart of its rest,
Of its rest;
And robbed my poor heart of its rest.

The spring-time returns, and the sweet speckled thrush

In the twilight darkling
When the sky was violet
And the stars were faintly sparkling
Thus it was we met,

In a lonely meadow
Carpeted with crocuses
Underneath the tangled shadow
Of the apple trees.

Long and fain we lingered
Whilst the world lay hushed in sleep
Till the dawning rosy-fingered
Clomb the eastern steep.

Priest nor ceremony
Or of Orient or Rome
Bound to me my love, mine honey
In the honey-comb,

Who, albeit of human
Things the most sublime he knew,

That night, when storms were spent and tranquil heaven,
Clear-eyed with stars and fragrant with fresh air,
Slept after thunder, came a sound of song,
And a keen voice that through the forest cried
On Ithocles, and still on Ithocles,
Persistent, till the woods and caverns rang.
He in his lair close-lying and tear-tired
Heard, knew the cry, and trembled. Nearer still
And nearer vibrated the single sound.
Yet, though much called for, Ithocles abode
Prone, deeming that the gods had heard his prayer,

I love to mark the bustling deer
Leap oer the walk as rousd from lare
& run till distance damps their fear
Then stopping turn them round to stare
Where wind shook boughs if suns are bright
To stretch their dancing shadows round
Oft wakes afresh their idle fright
& starts them swifter oer the ground.