poems about love

For thee I have achieved hard things and dread.—I know it.
But what were heart of man, and, least of all, of poet,
If this he could not do?
The impossible to love is possible, and easy.
The God who first began his flower-work by the daisy
Conceived at last his rose of fieriest hue.

So I who first began my love-work by soft singing
Of love that passed away, now send a strong song ringing
Along the fields of air.
I who have sung of charm of meadow-sweet and daisy
And stooped to gather buds in morning's uplands hazy

I crave thine highest love.—No mere swift temporal passion,
That gives, then passes on in boyish girlish fashion;
No momentary thing;
But love that ever grows to higher tenderer beauty:
The love whose heart is one with the strong soul of duty:
The love whereat the stars rejoice and sing.

The love of thy deep soul. The love that, daily growing,
Sees ever, as the path, along the mountains going,
Winds upward day by day,
New heights of sacred joy before its footstep gleaming:
The love whose heart is one with woman's softest dreaming:

The lonely weary stars that never loved before
And who were wont across the loveless dark to pour
Sad solitary rays
Woke up for thee, and brought their gleaming crowns of gold
And gave thee all their dreams,—strange love-dreams that of old
Lighted old nights and days.

The flowers that never loved brought all their bloom and wonder,
And tender buds for thee broke green soft sheaths in sunder
Eager thine eyes to meet.—
And I thy poet bring the dreams that once forsook me,
Now caught and clasped again,—the old love-dream that shook me

Of old God rested 'mid the heavenly flowers,
Far from all sounds and sights of man's despair:
The blue sky filled with light the deathless bowers
And perfect peace was there.

All pure delights were present to his hand:
The stars at night were ministers sublime:
Joy flooded like a stream the painless land
That took no heed of time.

Far-off man toiled amid the nether gloom,
And woman wept, and death ruled bitterly.
Ruin and dread destruction were man's doom;
To love, and then to die.

As through the winter's gates the joyous spring-tide passes,
Her bright brow wreathed with flowers and buds and clinging grasses,—
And then the summer shines,
With songs of many birds and sound of many rivers
And laughter of the leaves that rustles down and shivers
Through the concordant leafage of the pines:

As still there is a sense of agony just over
That even pales the rose and troubles the sweet clover
At times, and thrills the grove,
So, in our human lives, an agony of weeping,

What right have I to thee! What claim in words to fashion!
Merely the right and claim of fiery love and passion
And tenderness outpoured:
Merely the right of Love the large-eyed world-redeemer;
Merely the desperate right of one wild-hearted dreamer,
And, if man doubt it, my most wakeful sword.

Merely the final right of love that knows no limit:
That gazes in death's eyes, but finds no power to dim it
Or dwarf it set therein:
Merely the right supreme by which when all the bowers

“Since thou hast loved with love so wild and sweet
That life and time have faded quite away
And thou hast learned to count the hours of day
By love's heart's inner and triumphant beat
At the dear coming of thy lady's feet;
Since, when she is not with thee, dark and grey
Is all the world—thy service to repay
And thy soul's strong forlorn desire to meet,
I send a dream:” even so the Love-god said.
Then I was 'ware that round about my bed
Crowded dim forms of angels and of men,
And the next world shone clear as in a glass.

And art thou never tired of poems, and of singing?—
“Nay! not more tired than Spring of merry bright birds winging
Along the woods their way.
A woman never tires of love, so it be endless:
The summer, full of flowers, would feel forlorn and friendless
With one flower less on one acacia spray.

“A woman never tires of love, so it be tireless:
A woman never tires till passion's soul be fireless
And song's heart void of flame.
What, do my eyes not speak? Then must my lips make plainer
That Song is ever sweet, a gentle-eyed retainer

Yes: love me with thine eyes.—If thy soft lips are dreaming
Far other dreams than ours, yet through thine eyes are gleaming
The dreams my love-songs bring.
If summer's lips are sweet, yet summer's eyes are sweeter.
If summer's hands are swift, yet summer's eyes are fleeter.
In spring's sweet eyes resides the charm of spring.

If only in thine eyes I see thy sweet soul waking,
I am content; content though all my heart be breaking
For very love of thee.
It only content,—for then I know thy soul is listening.

Yet when I strive to cease, yea when I think of ending,
It is but as a man whose eyes stoop downward, bending
Towards river-banks made sweet
With peppermint and thyme and tall reeds bright and gracious;
Who says, “I am content: I need no more the spacious
High hills and mountains for my wandering feet.”—

It is but as a man who merely loving rivers
And willow green that waves and alder dark that quivers
O'er blue tides tenderly,
Thinking to sing of these in some fair inland prison,
Lifts sudden eyes of awe when lo! before his vision