poems about love

In the days of old
Lovers felt true passion,
Deeming years of sorrow
By a smile repaid:
Now the charms of gold,
Spells of pride and fashion,
Bid them say Good-morrow
To the best-loved Maid.

Through the forests wild,
O'er the mountains lonely,
They were never weary
Honor to pursue:
If the damsel smiled
Once in seven years only,
All their wanderings dreary
Ample guerdon knew.

Now one day's caprice
Weighs down years of smiling,
Youthful hearts are rovers,
Love is bought and sold.

If you should tire of loving me
Some one of our far days,
Oh, never start to hide your heart
Or cover thought with praise.

For every word you would not say
Be sure my heart has heard,
So go from me all silently
Without a kiss or word;

For God must give you happiness. . . .
And oh, it may befall
In listening long to Heaven-song
I may not care at all!

If a cleere fountaine still keeping a sad course,
Weepe out her sorrowes in drops, which like teares fall;
Marvell not if I lament my misfortune,
Brought to the same call.

Who thought such faire eyes could shine, and dissemble?
Who thought such sweete breath could poyson loves shame?
Who thought those chast eares could so be defiled?
Hers be the sole blame.

While love deserv'd love, of mine still she fail'd not,
Foole I to love still where mine was neglected,
Yet faith, and honor, both of me claim'd it,

I shall not sing again of love—
I weary of the old unrest.
(But like a hangman, Love has set
His crimson emblem on my breast;

But like a hangman, Love has placed
His crimson seal my heart above)—
Yea, I am wearied with old pain:
I shall not sing again of love.

From victory in love I now am come
Like a commander kild at the last blow:
Instead of Lawrell, to obtaine a tombe
With triumph that a steely faith I show.
Here must my grave be, which I thus will frame
Made of my stony heart to other name,
Then what I honor, scorne brings me my tombe,
Disdaine the Priest to bury me, I come.

Cloath'd in the reliques of a spotlesse love,
Embrace me you that let true lovers in;
Pure fires of truth doe light me when I moove,
Which lamp-like last, as if they did begin.

O flame of living love,
That dost eternally
Pierce through my soul with so consuming heat,
Since there's no help above,
Make thou an end of me,
And break the bond of this encounter sweet.

O burn that burns to heal!
O more than pleasant wound!
And O soft hand, O touch most delicate,
That dost new life reveal,
That dost in grace abound,
And, slaying, dost from death to life translate!

O lamps of fire that shined
With so intense a light,
That those deep caverns where the senses live,

From a long way, and Pilgrimage for Love,
I am return'd weary'd with Travels paine,
Not finding ease, or those vexations moove;
First, to my soule they are, where to remaine
They vow to setle; then alas, can I
Thinke of a rest, but travell till I die.

The first was Fancy , like a lovely boy,
Of rare aspect, and beautie without peare;
Matchable either to that ympe of Troy ,
Whom Joue did love, and chose his cup to beare,
Or that same daintie lad, which waas so deare
To Great Alcides , that when as he dyde,
He wailed womanlike with many a teare,
And every wood, and every valley wyde
He fild with Hylas name, the Nymphes eke Hylas cryde.

Ere yet the dawn
Pushed rosy fingers up the arch of day
And smiled its promise to the voiceless prime,
Love sat and patterns wove at life's great loom.

He flung the suns into the soundless arch,
Appointed them their courses in the deep,
To keep His great time-harmonies, and blaze
As beacons in the ebon fields of night.
Love balanced them and held them firm and true,
Poised 'twixt attractive and repulsive drift
Amid the throngs of heaven. What though this power
Was ever known to us as gravity,