poems about love

'WHAREFORE sou'd ye talk o' love,
   Unless it be to pain us?
Wharefore sou'd ye talk o' love
   Whan ye say the sea maun twain us?'

'It 's no because my love is light,
   Nor for your angry deddy;
It 's a' to buy ye pearlins bright,
   An' to busk ye like a leddy.'

'O Willy, I can caird an' spin,
   Se ne'er can want for cleedin';
An' gin I hae my Willy's heart,
   I hae a' the pearls I'm heedin'.

'Will it be time to praise this cheek
   Whan years an' tears has blench'd it?

Ever, ever
Stir and shiver
The reeds and rushes
By the river:
Ever, ever,
As if in dream,
The lone moon's silver
Sleeks the stream.
What old sorrow,
What lost love,
Moon, reeds, rushes,
Dream you of?

Why do I love?
Is it for men to choose
The hour of the hushed night when crowned with dews
From its sea grave the morning star shall wake?
Lo, while we drowsed, it rose on our heart's ache,
And all our heaven was red with the day's hues,
And glad birds chaunted from the trees above.
So was it with my heart that might not choose
But woke to love.

Why do I love?
The aureole of lost days
Is on thy brow and unforgotten face;
Faith's guiding light, the same which of old time

Whom the gods love die young. Ah, do not doubt of it.
Laura did well to die. Our loss was a gain for her,
Ours who so loved her laughter, ours who at thought of it
Shrink from a wound yet tender, wailing in vain for her.

Full was her life, a well--spring, brimmed to the brink of it,
Giving of its abundance alms to humanity.
We, with our life's cup empty, paused there to drink of it,
Rose with our souls ennobled, purged of their vanity.

Which of us all but loved her, knelt to her, prayed to her?

When Love was born I think he lay
Right warm on Venus' breast,
And whiles he smiled and whiles would play
And whiles would take his rest.

But always, folded out of sight,
The wings were growing strong
That were to bear him off in flight
Erelong, erelong.

I

O mother, I am sick of love,
I cannot laugh nor lift my head,
My bitter dreams have broken me,
I would my love were dead.

"Drink of the draught I brew for thee,
Thou shalt have quiet in its stead."

II

Where is the silver in the rain,
Where is the music in the sea,
Where is the bird that sang all day
To break my heart with melody?

"The night thou badst Love fly away,
He hid them all from thee."

I was the Widow McFarlane,
Weaver of carpets for all the village.
And I pity you still at the loom of life,
You who are singing to the shuttle
And lovingly watching the work of your hands,
If you reach the day of hate, of terrible truth.
For the cloth of life is woven, you know,
To a pattern hidden under the loom --
A pattern you never see!
And you weave high-hearted, singing, singing,
You guard the threads of love and friendship
For noble figures in gold and purple.
And long after other eyes can see

Why should I pine? when there in Spain
Are eyes to woo, and not in vain;
Dark eyes, and dreamily divine:
And lips, as red as sunlit wine;

Sweet lips, that never know disdain:
And hearts, for passion over fain;
Fond, trusting hearts that know no stain
Of scorn for hearts that love like mine.-
Why should I pine?

Because all dreams I entertain
Of beauty wear thy form, Elain;
And e'en their lips and eyes are thine:
So though I gladly would resign
All love, I love, and still complain,

ONE blossoming rose-tree, like a beautiful thought
Nursed in a broken mind, that waits and schemes,
Survives, though shattered, and about it caught,
The strangling dodder streams.
Gaunt weeds: and here a bayonet or pouch,
Rusty and rotting where men fought and slew:
Bald, trampled paths that seem with fear to crouch,
Feeling a bloody dew.
Here nothing that was beauty's once remains.
War left the garden to its dead alone:
And Life and Love, who toiled here, for their pains
Have nothing once their own.

When love is lost, the day sets towards the night,
Albeit the morning sun may still be bright,
And not one cloud-ship sails across the sky.
Yet from the places where it used to lie
Gone is the lustrous glory of the light.


No splendour rests in any mountain height,
No scene spreads fair and beauteous to the sight;
All, all seems dull and dreary to the eye
When love is lost.


Love lends to life its grandeur and its might;
Love goes, and leaves behind it gloom and blight;