poems about love

Such joy it was with Love to walk!
The month it was the month of May
When we with Love began to talk.
Such joy it was with Love to walk
We did not see Fate's shadow stalk
Beside us, where flowers hid the way,
Such joy it was with Love to walk—
The month it was the month of May.

“O Life ! hast thou misled me with thy smiles?”
I said, “Are all thy gifts so vain—
Mirages of the fabled Happy Isles,
Hung over wide, bleak seas of pain?
Unfathomable Doom! if in thy deeps,
Some compensating secret sleeps,
Oh, let it not be wholly lost;
Give me to see and know thine uttermost!”

Then came two Spirits, like in form and face—
So very like that one might seem
The younger sister with a fresher grace,
And eyes of brighter hue and gleam;
And one with matron movement, grave and slow,

Shee that holdes me under the lawes of love
on whome my mornefull vearse so ofte complaines
For those straunge griefs that I through[h]e wronge do prove
she is the courte wherin my lyfe remaynes
Shee is my prince off whom I woulde desarve
and shee alone to me can favor lende
Shee hath for courtiers thowsands that doo serve
and onely on her eyes for lookes attende
Unto her love wee woulde as fayne aspire
as others wolde in Courte to honors ryse
And as disgrace makes courtiers to retyre

Give me the boon of love!
I ask no more for fame;
Far better one unpurchased heart
Than glory's proudest name.
Why wake a fever in the blood,
Or damp the spirit now,
To gain a wreath whose leaves shall wave
Above a withered brow?

Give me the boon of love!
Ambition's meed is vain;
Dearer affection's earnest smile
Than honor's richest train.
I'd rather lean upon a breast
Responsive to my own,
Than sit pavilioned gorgeously
Upon a kingly throne.

Like the Chaldean sage,

Two birds within one nest;
Two hearts within one breast;
Two spirits in one fair,
Firm league of love and prayer,
Together bound for aye, together blest.

An ear that waits to catch
A hand upon the latch;
A step that hastens its sweet rest to win;
A world of care without,
A world of strife shut out,
A world of love shut in.

C HLORIS , whilst thou and I were free,
Wedded to nought but Liberty,
How sweetly happy did we live,
How free to promise, free to give?

Then, Monarchs of our selves, we might
Love here, or there, to change delight,
And ty'd to none, with all dispence,
Paying each Love its recompence.

But in that happy freedom, we
Were so improvidently free,
To give away our liberties;

And now in fruitless sorrow pine
At what we are, what might have bin,
Had thou, or I, or both been wise.

There is a state that all may know,
No fear, no shame we feel;
For God doth all his mercy show,
And all his love reveal.

His goodness manifested is,
And all his ways are clear;
The Spirit seals our souls as his,
For we to him are dear.

A Father's love, in our past years,
By us is clearly known;
For he has wiped away our tears,
And as his sons doth own.

And he has called us by his Son
To know a higher life,
With them forever to be one,
No more with sin at strife.

Who love would seek,
Let him love evermore
And seldom speak;
For in love's domain
Silence must reign;
Or it brings the heart
Smart

They put their finger on their lip,—
The Powers above;
The seas their islands clip,
The moons in Ocean dip,—
They love but name not love.

Under dusky laurel leaf,
—Scarlet leaf of rose,
I lie prone, who have known
—All a woman knows.

Love and grief and motherhood,
—Fame and mirth and scorn—
These are all shall befall
—Any woman born.

Jewel-laden are my hands,
—Tall my stone above—
Do not weep that I sleep,
—Who was wise in love.

Where I walk, a shadow gray
—Through gray asphodel,
I am glad, who have had
—All that Life could tell.