poems about love

Making love to a temple boy
on top of a horse.

At a mountain temple
they use a chess board

CCXXIX

I am ready and ever will be
To do you service with honesty.
There is nothing that lacks in me
But that I have not.

My poor heart always and my mind
Fixed in yours you shall still find.
To love you best reason doth bind
Although I have not.

And for your sake I would be glad
To have much more than I have had,
The lack whereof doth make me sad
Because I have not.

For I do love ye faithfully
And ye me again right secretly.
Of let there is no cause why

'T IS joy to feel the spirit leap
Angelic from its childhood sleep,
Pure as a star, fair as a flower,
Eager with youth's unblasted power;
Where every sense gives soft consent,
To burst into love's element;
To be all touch, all eye, all ear,
And pass into love's burning sphere.

“Oh, have you not a message, you who come over the sea?
Have you not a message or word at all for me?”

“I have sailed, sailed, sailed where the seas are green and blue,
I've silver, gold and merchandise—but never a word for you.”

“But did you see my love by any way you came?
For if you saw my love, he must have spoke my name.”

“Oh, yes, I saw your love—oh, yes, and he was gay
Riding in his coach-and-six all on his birthday.”

“But when you spoke of me, of me—oh! what was it he said?”

When merry autumn in her prime,
Fruitful mother of swift time,
Had filled Ceres' lap with store
Of vines and corn, and mickle more
Such needful fruits as do grow
From Terra's bosom, here below;
Tityrus did sigh, and see
With heart's grief and eyes' gree,
Eyes and heart both full of woes,
Where Galate his lover goes.
Her mantle was vermillion red;
A gaudy chaplet on her head,
A chaplet that did shroud the beams
That Phoebus on her beauty streams,
For sun itself desir'd to see
So fair a nymph as was she,

Ah! what is love? It is a pretty thing,
As sweet unto a shepherd as a king,
And sweeter too;
For kings have cares that wait upon a crown,
And cares can make the sweetest love to frown.
Ah then, ah then,
If country loves such sweet desires gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

His flocks are folded, he comes home a night,
As merry as a king in his delight,
And merrier too;
For kings bethink them what the state require,
Where shepherds careless carol by the fire.
Ah then, ah then,

Oft have I heard my lief Corydon report on a love-day,
When bonny maids do meet with the swains in the valley by Tempe,
How bright eyed his Phyllis was, how lovely they glanced,
When fro th'arches ebon black, flew looks as a lightning,
That set afire with piercing flames even hearts adamantine:
Face rose hued, cherry red, with a silver taint like a lily.
Venus' pride might abate, might abash with a blush to behold her.
Phoebus' wires compar'd to her hairs unworthy the praising.
Juno's state, and Pallas' wit disgrac'd with the Graces,

When first thou camest, gentle, shy, and fond,
My eldest-born, first hope, and dearest treasure,
My heart received thee with a joy beyond
All that it yet had felt of earthly pleasure—
Nor thought that any love again might be
So deep and strong as that I felt for thee.

Dear father and dear mother: Let me crave
Your loving kindness there beyond the grave
For my Erotion, the pretty maid
Who bears these lines. Don't let her be afraid!
She's such a little lassie--only six--
To toddle down that pathway to the Styx
All by herself! Black shadows haunt those steeps
And Cerberus the Dread who never sleeps,
May she be comforted, and may she play
About you merry as the livelong day,
And in her childish prattle often tell
Of that old master whom she loved so well.

It was the very noon of night: the stars above the fold,
More sure than clock or chiming bell, the hour of mid-night told:
When from the heav'ns there came a voice, and forms were seen to shine
Still bright'ning as the music rose with light and love divine.
With love divine, the song began; there shone a light serene:
O, who hath heard what I have heard, or seen what I have seen?

O ne'er could nightingale at dawn salute the rising day
With sweetness like that bird of song in his immortal lay: