poems about love

My deerest Mistrisse, let us live and love,
And care not what old doting fooles reprove.
Let us not feare their sensures, nor esteeme,
What they of us and of our loves shall deeme.
Old ages critticke and sensorious brow
Cannot of youthfull dalliance alow,
Nor never could endure that wee should tast,
Of those delights which they themselves are past.

My hand from my Beloved's skirt I cannot take away,
Though with a sword she smite me sharp, and, in her anger, slay:
I have no place of sheltering, no refuge half so sweet;
If I should fly 'twould only be to creep back to her feet.

Weary perhaps of dolorous love,
The cat has stol'n a bit to eat.

Women have loved before as I love now;
At least, in lively chronicles of the past—
Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow
Or Trojan waters by a Spartan mast
Much to their cost invaded—here and there,
Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest,
I find some woman bearing as I bear
Love like a burning city in the breast.
I think however that of all alive
I only in such utter, ancient way
Do suffer love; in me alone survive
The unregenerate passions of a day
When treacherous queens, with death upon the tread,

When a felon's not engaged in his employment,
Or maturing his felonious little plans,
His capacity for innocent enjoyment
Is just as great as any honest man's.
Our feelings we with difficulty smother
When constabulary duty's to be done:
Ah, take one consideration with another,
A policeman's lot is not a happy one!

When the enterprising burglar isn't burgling,
When the cut-throat isn't occupied in crime,
He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling,
And listen to the merry village chime.

Through life on journeying, by its thorny paths,
Or pleasant ways—its rank green hemlock wastes,
Or roseate bowers—in utter loneliness,
Or 'mid the din of busy multitudes—
Two babes of beauty linger near us still—
Twin Cherubim—that leave us not until
We've passed the threshold of that crowded inn
Which borders on Eternity! One doth point,
With gleaming eye and finger tremulous,
To clefts in azure, where the sunbeams slumber
On couch of vermeil dye and amethyst,
Bordered with flowers that never know decay;

O love! what art thou, Love? the ace of hearts,
Trumping earth's kings and queens, and all its suits;
A player, masquerading many parts
In life's odd carnival;—a boy that shoots,
From ladies' eyes, such mortal woundy darts;
A gardener, pulling heart's-ease up by the roots;
The Puck of Passion—partly false—part real—
A marriageable maiden's “beau ideal.”

O Love! what art thou, Love? a wicked thing,
Making green misses spoil their work at school;
A melancholy man, cross-gartering?
Grave ripe-faced wisdom made an April fool?

XXII

Love and Fortune and my mind, rememb'rer
Of that that is now with that that hath been,
Do torment me so that I very often
Envy them beyond all measure.
Love slayeth mine heart. Fortune is depriver
Of all my comfort. The foolish mind then
Burneth and plaineth as one that seldom
Liveth in rest, still in displeasure.
My pleasant days, they fleet away and pass,
But daily yet the ill doth change into the worse,
And more than the half is run of my course.
Alas, not of steel but of brickle glass

Forgetting God
To love a king
Hath been my rod
Or else nothing,

In this frail life,
Being a blast
Of care and strife
Till it be past.

Yet God did call
Me in my pride,
Lest I should fall
And from Him slide.

For whom loves He
And not correct,
That they may be
Of His elect?

Then, Death, haste thee.
Thou shalt me gain
Immortally
With Him to reign;

Who send the king
Like years as Noye
In governing
His realm in joy;

Dear, why do you say you love,
When indeed you careless prove,
Reason better can digest
Earnest hate, than love in rest.

Wherefore do your smiling eyes
Help your tongue to make sweet lies?
Leave to statesmen tricks of state,
Love doth politicians hate.

You perchance presume to find
Love of some chameleon kind;
But be not deceiv'd my fair,
Love will not be fed on air.

Love's a glutton of his food,
Surfeits make its stomach good,
Love whose diet grows precise,
Sick from some consumption dies.