poems about love

God made the earth exceeding good.
He clothed the hill, or clothed the wood,
In verdurous raiment fresh and fair.
He filled the earth with living things:
With flashing of innumerous wings
He filled the sunlit heights of air.

He filled the hollow sea with life.
Strange sea-flowers in the far depths thrive,
And wondrous fishes, scarlet-scaled,
Dart like small flying suns along;
And where the eager tides wax strong
Rushes the salmon, silver-mailed.

God made the day, and made the night.

Thy life has not been wasted. Thou hast taught
Truths beyond thought,
Sweet sacred truths beyond my dream, to me.
Truths not one other woman could have told
Thy lips unfold.
Blind was I. Thou hast taught my soul to see.
For this I owe
Thanks infinite. For this I love thee so,
That thou hast shown me woman's heart indeed,—
So fair and sweet,
So far beyond a poet's dreams of it,
So far above man's common thoughtless creed.

Ah! never think thy life is wasted, dear.
It blossoms here;

Neither joy nor sorrow move
The figure at the feet of Love;
Light of breathing life is she,
Spirit of immortality.

Lead me up thy stony stair,
O Spirit, into thy great air!
For his day of pain and tears
Is to man a thousand years.

Herald of blissful summertide come I;
I wander by,
Singing of sweetest things the June day knows,—
Love and the rose.

If, o East wind, o'er the Ares' Plain to pass to thee befall,
Kiss that valley's earth and musky Look thou make thy breath withal.

Selma's stead (to whom an hundred Greetings be each breath from us)
Full thou'lt find of bells a-clamour and of camel-drivers' bawl.

Kiss for me the Loved One's litter And thus humbly to her say,
“For thy sev'rance I consumed am; Come, o dear one, to my call!”

I, who styled the warners' counsel Erst the chirp of the rebeck,
Now have proved enough of chast'ning From estrangement's heavy maul.

Morning's sun
shines through windows draped
in brocade sewn
with coins. Light
breezes move those pure
white silks.

An artful smile: a pair
of lush, curved, crimson
horns.
Lovely eyes: soft
moth-brows fall

Night so
long. Can't get
to sleep. Turn
on my side, and hear
the nightwatch drum.

No reason for it, love,
and yet we met:
it leaves a bitter taste
down in my guts.

So soon. Today, love, we
part. And our re-
union—when
will that time come?

A bright lamp
shines on an empty place,
in sorrow and longing:
not yet, not yet, not

L ESTENYT , lordynges, both elde and yinge,
How this rose began to sprynge;
Swych a rose to myn lykynge
In al this word ne knowe I non.

The aungil came fro hevene tour
To grete Marye with gret honour,
And seyde sche xuld bere the flour
That xulde breke the fyndes bond.

The flour sprong in heye Bedlem,
That is bothe bryht and schen:
The rose is Mary, hevene qwyn,
Out of here bosum the blosme sprong.

The ferste braunche is ful of myht,
That sprong on Crystemesse nyht,

How you haunt me with your eyes!
Still that questioning persistence,
Sad and sweet, across the distance
Of the days of love and laughter,
Those old days of love and lies.

Not reproaching, not reproving,
Only, always, questioning,
Those divinest eyes can bring
Memories of certain summers,
Nights of dreaming, days of loving,

When I loved you, when your kiss,
Shyer than a bird to capture,
Lit a sudden heaven of rapture;
When we neither dreamt that either
Could grow old in heart like this.