poems about love

The look of love alarms
Because tis filld with fire
But the look of soft deceit
Shall win the lovers hire

I gaze out,
but still
the sky is empty
of all
but the autumn mist—
as aimless
as my passion,
with no place to go.

The moon is up, and soft and bright,
And tender is her light in June,
For is this not a lovely night,
And is not that a splendid moon?

Oh, that you knew how often, love,
When I was in the tropic sea,
My eyes were on the moon above
While thought was wandering back to thee.

And when we lost the polar star,
Far southward of the central line,
To you I struck the soft guitar,
And was your moonlight song like mine?

For mine was love, as still it is;
And shall it be forever crost,

By all my chains, my burdens and my fetters,
I plead with you to ease their galling weight,
And with the soothing solace of your letters,
To teach me resignation to my fate.
Since you no more may breathe love's fervent story,
I would be bride of heaven. Oh, tell me how!
Awake in me an ardor for that glory,
The love divine, so lacking in me now!
As once your songs related all love's pleasures,
Relate to me the rapture of your faith.
Unlock the storehouse of your new-found treasures,
And lend a radiance to my living death.

“As many as I love.”—Ah, Lord, Who lovest all,
If thus it is with Thee why sit remote above,
Beholding from afar, stumbling and marred and small,
So many Thou dost love?

Whom sin and sorrow make their worn reluctant thrall;
Who fain would flee away but lack the wings of dove;
Who long for love and rest; who look to Thee, and call
To Thee for rest and love.

By the old strange seas loud-breaking
Lo! my love for ever stands,
And the waves the shingle shaking
Are not whiter than her hands;
And her breath is sweet as roses
That the dewy morn discloses
When June holds the laughing lands.

Never, though the swift years perish,
Shall she quit that ancient shore,
And the flowers her sweet hands cherish
Shall be sweet for evermore:
And the seas' eternal metre
For her sake shall echo sweeter
As their endless chant they pour.

Ever, young and pure and tender,

Scotland prides her in the “Bonnet Blue,”
That it brooks no stain in Love or War:
Be it, on Ottilie's head, a token true
Of my Scottish Love to kind Weimar!

A THOUSAND lilies, a thousand pinks,
I take in my arms and clasp them round
Close as the loving vine-branch links
The bough in its clinging tendrils wound.

For joy has taken abode with me,
And care no longer turns pale my face,
I love all life—and if these things be,
'Tis the gift, fair dream, of thy heaven-sent grace

I could climb the sky thy flight to follow …
But alas! my joy lives but a breath,
For the fleeting dream is a vision hollow,
Like clouds in the wind it vanisheth.

Ere I lose myself in the vastness and drowse myself with the peace,
While I gaze on the light and the beauty afar from the dim homes of men,
May I still feel the heart-pang and pity, love-ties that I would not release;
May the voices of sorrow appealing call me back to their succour again.

Ere I storm with the tempest of power the thrones and dominions of old,
Ere the ancient enchantment allure me to roam through the star-misty skies,
I would go forth as one who has reaped well what harvest the earth may unfold;

Sweet names, the rosary of my evening prayer,
Told on my lips like kisses of good-night
To friends who go a little from my sight,
And some through distant years shine clear and fair!—
So this dear burden that I daily bear
Mighty God taketh, and doth loose me quite;
And soft I sink in slumbers pure and light
With thoughts of human love and heavenly care;
But when I mark how into shadow slips
My manhood's prime, and weep fast-passing friends,
And heaven's riches making poor my lips,
And think how in the dust love's labor ends,