poems about love

Fate, with devoted and incessant care,
Has showered grotesqueness round us day by day.
If we turn grave, a hurdy-gurdy's air
Is sure to rasp across the words we say.
If we stand tense on brink of perilous choices,
'Tis never where Miltonic headlands loom,
But mid the sound of comic-opera voices
Or the cheap blaze of some hair-dresser's room.
Heaven knows what moonlit turrets, hazed in bliss,
Saw Launcelot and night and Guinevere!
I only know our first impassioned kiss
Was in your cellar, rummaging for beer. …

Love, that makes others speak and write,
Makes both my Tongue and Pen lie still;
Robs me of Speech and Fancy quite,
Whilst it with Cares my Brain does fill.
Thus I, by Love, for Love am made unfit,
And what shou'd give me Courage lessens it.

Struck Dumb, when I would most express,
Most modest, when I most should dare;
Most awkard is my dull Address,
When best I would my Flame declare:
Unhappy Bashfulness, that do'st betray
Thy Master's Passion, and his Bliss delay!

Yet since Respect bespeaks my Flame,

You shall have all my vanities:
The curl and colour of my hair,
The hundred happy coquetries,
The rose-hued gowns I love to wear.
Perhaps I shall not greatly care,
Or, caring, mourn them but a day;
But oh! this joy, this joy of mine—
May this not stay?

You shall take laughter's clearest note,
The very dancing from my feet,
The warmth and whiteness of my throat—
I shall not tremble when we meet
Save for this joy of mine, this sweet
Rose of delight I close away
Within my inmost heart. O Time,

No thyng ys to man so dere
As wommanys love in gode manère.
A gode womman is mannys blys,
There her love right and stedfast ys.
There ys no solas onder hevene
Of alle that a man may nevene
That shulde a man so moche glew
As a gode womman that loveth true.
Ne derer is none in Goddis hurde
Than a chaste womman with lovely worde.

Most men know love but as a part of life;
They hide it in some corner of the breast,
Even from themselves; and only when they rest
In the brief pauses of that daily strife,
Wherewith the world might else be not so rife,
They draw it forth (as one draws forth a toy
To soothe some ardent, kiss-exacting boy)
And hold it up to sister, child, or wife.
Ah me! why may not love and life be one?
Why walk we thus alone, when by our side,
Love, like a visible God, might be our guide?
How would the marts grow noble! and the street,

Between the stars, the light-waves on and on
Roll from the scenes of earth's past history
Unto the margins of eternity.
No day is lost of all that ever shone,
Each with its story into space hath gone
So that, to-night, some distant world may see,
Looking at earth, the Cross on Calvary,
Or the green plain and camps at Marathon
Dear heart, whose life is woven into mine,
Who art the light and music of my days,
We move towards death, yet let us have no fear;
If nothing dies, not even light's faintest rays,

I saw old Duchesses with their young Loves,
I, in a pair of very shabby gloves;
Even my shapeless garments could not make me sad,
For I remembered I was young as you, dear Lad.
That I am lovelier without my dress,
Gave me sweet wanton happiness.

Oh, the anchor's aweigh, the anchor's aweigh, Farewell,
fare you well, my own true love. At last we parted on the
shore, As the tears rolled gently from her eyes. “Must you go leave me
now,” she did say, “That I face this all alone?” Oh, the

One sunniest morn among youth's sunny days
When all the light of life—like that which passed
The eastern panes, and tinted glories cast—
Was summerhued for me with rainbow rays.

One happiest hour in all the hours I've knelt
And prayed for happiness. All sorrow-pain
That ever saddened me returned in vain:
Life's burden fell when love unloosed the belt.

The holiest time in church I ever spent;
Not there to rest awhile and idly think
Or dream, but every word with thought to link.

My face is as brown as a berry,
You'd never take me for a swell:
But that will not make me less merry,
So long as my girl loves me well.

That kettle is just like your lover:
Outside 'tis as ugly as sin;
But go now, and lift up the cover—
Perhaps there's a chicken within.

And look at that hedgehog out yonder:
He's ugly enough for a show;
And his bristles, why, they are a wonder—
And yet he's good eating, you know.

So if you will marry me early—
So if you'll be gentle and true—