love poem

Oh infinite delight when never more
The white seas shine before us on the sand, —
When at the touching of Death's calm sweet hand
Colour forsakes the hills, and light the shore!
Yes: then shall all life's wild fierce pain be o'er.
Nought shall arouse us from our perfect sleep:
At woman's touch no lingering pulse shall leap
Nor at bright Summer's footstep at the door.

Whom woman cannot rouse is more than dead,
Death's infinite peace shall fall upon each soon:
Then in the timeless land where star nor moon

O first love, — tender holy blind pure phase! —
For then it seemeth to the soul that one
And but one woman liveth, — that the sun
Finds but one blossom worthy of his gaze.
Is it a snowdrop? — Then by green hedge-ways
We think no gleaming rose-bush ever grew!
White is our flower, — so never harebells blue
The sun loved, nor the rich gorse' golden blaze!

Ah! — Some day blind eyes open and we see
On every side far fairer than the old
New blossoms springing, — marvelling we behold
Petunia, cowslip, heath, anemone: —

The poet, victor over words,
Coy wayward things,
Deems he can snare the stars, those gold-plumed birds,
Because he sings!

He dreams of endless conquest, he —
While others plod
He must win thunder-music from the sea,
Epics from God.

The fragrance of the lips of June
In sunlit dales
His song must steal. The slender white-breast moon
His hand unveils.

Because one hour of mortal breath
He makes sublime,

Once Love was plain before me, for at night,
Sleeping, my eyes were sundered, and, awake,
Like some sweet moon reflected in a lake,
Surrounded with a silver stream of light,
I saw my lady's presence flame in sight,
And, after, came a sense of roses cast
In soft encompassing luxuriance fast
Over my silent body, and a bright
And strange unveiling of the spirit's form
And immortality made visible:
And death and sin and feebleness and hell,
Being black, shone white beneath the fragrant storm

If I may not see thee much,
Sweet at least it is to touch
Hand and hand;
Sweet at least it is to know
That a heart can understand
And that sympathy can grow.

If I may not win thee now,
I can worship thy pure brow
Where the hair
Coils so lovingly for crown —
Can rejoice to find thee fair,
And may win for thee renown.

That is much to do indeed:
If the world shall give its heed
As it goes
With swift footstep on its way,

I.

The flowers that as they fade fling parting kisses tender
From valley and hill and lea
Towards Autumn, know that Spring will mark fresh blossoms splendour;
But when Spring comes, love, I shall not have thee.

II.

The blue waves now along September gold shores gleaming
Will change to an angry sea;
But when the next Spring's ocean smiles, with eyes love-dreaming,
It will not smile on thee.

III.

Thou art gone! thou art gone! thou art gone! — And I, I may not follow!

This is the poet's doom: to love all joys,
To mark them fading, and to mourn them dead.
To see the rose at day-break blushing red:
At night to watch the wind with wanton noise
Scattering the petals from their perfect poise, —
Strewing with pale pink gems the brown cold bed;
To marvel at some woman's curve of head,
Till death both body and carven brow destroys.

This is the poet's doom — far more than others
To feel the life, and so the death far more:
To sing for the sweet sake of tuneless brothers

I.

" He that hath loved deserveth not to die. "
So thought I; and a sudden vision came
Of birds of splendour, crowned with crimson flame,
Wings touched with brilliance of the azure sky,
Breasts sapphire, throats of emerald, flying high
In the old forest-haunts without a name, —
The sweet green palaces that shone the same
Millions of centuries ere a man was nigh.

What might be done if men were wise —
What glorious deeds, my suffering brother,
Would they unite,
In love and right,
And cease their scorn of one another?

Oppression's heart might be imbued
With kindling drops of loving-kindness,
And knowledge pour,
From shore to shore,
Light on the eyes of mental blindness.

All slavery, warfare, lies, and wrongs,

Death is my doom, awarded by Disdain,
A ling'ring death that will not let me die:
This length of life is length'ning of my pain,
And length of pain gets strength of pain thereby:
And strength of pain makes pain of longer last;
Ah, who hath tied my life to pain so fast?

And yet I seem as if I did but feign,
Or make my grief much greater than I need,
Whenas the care to hide my burning pain,
With secret sighs, constrains my heart to bleed: