love poem

I.

GREAT LOVE IS HUMBLE.

HUMBLE is Love, for he is Honor's child:
He knows the worth of her he does adore,
And that high reckoning humbles him the more:
By her dear sweetness from his pain beguiled,
He would be proud because her look is mild;
But all the while he scans the oft-told score,
And his imperfectness must still deplore,
Abashed no less because on him she smiled.

To be allowed to love is Love's dear prize:
To lay his homage at Her royal feet —

I.

A H , fair Florelia, wilt thou, still unkind,
Affection's aching heart, with anguish fill,
Tear every nerve of his too feeling mind,
And bid his sad breast exquisitely thrill.

II.

My midnight dream, my lovely pride all day,
My tender tyrant, my corroding balm,
Could my dumb pillow speak, what would it say?
Could tears, and glowing pray'rs thy anger calm?

III.

O PASSER-BY, draw near!
Upon a grave I grow;
That she who died was dear
They planted me to show.

Pluck me as you go by —
I am her messenger;
With her sweet breath I sigh;
In me her pulses stir.

Through these my quivering leaves
She fain would speak to you —
She whom the grave bereaves
Of the dear life she knew.

" How glad I was up there! "
She whispers underground.
" Have they who found me fair
Some other fair one found?

" Has he who loved me best

No Knot of Friendship long can hold
Save that which Grace hath ty'd,
For other causes prove but cold
When their effects are try'd;
For God who loveth unity
Doth cause the onely union,
Which makes them of one Family
Of one mind and communion.

Commocions will be in that place,
Where are such contraries,
As is inniquity and grace,
The greatest enimies,

Love plumes his wings to fly away,
And laughs to scorn our idle pain:
Ah, vain it is to laugh and pray!
Love plumes his wings to fly away:
What prayer of ours his flight can stay
When, mocking us with high disdain,
Love plumes his wings to fly away,
And laughs to scorn our idle pain?

If Love could last, I'd spend my all
And think the price were yet too small
To buy his light upon my way,
His sun to turn my night to day,
His cheer whatever might befall.

Were I his slave, or he my thrall,
No terrors should my heart appall;
I'd fear no wreckage or dismay
If Love could last.

Heaven's lilies grow up white and tall,
But warm within earth's garden wall
With roses red the soft winds play —
Ah, might I gather them to-day!
My hands should never let them fall,
If Love could last.

By MOONLIGHT

THESE lions were sculptured centuries ago
In that fair court a Sultan made for her
Who was his heart's delight. Her worshipper
Was he whom all men worshipped; proving so
His love and homage that the ages know
How fair she was, and how at softest stir
Of her soft robes — as these proud courts aver —
His kingly heart with kingly love did glow;

Till he bade crafty workmen come and make
A palace, lovely for her lovely sake,

Sweet Love, the shadow of thy parting wings,
Hangs on my soul, like the soft shade of even,
Farewell to thee, for thou art going to Heaven,
And I must stay behind, with all the things
Which thou, and thy benign administerings
Once made most sweet, of sweetness now bereaven;
Whose memory, as a sour fermenting leaven,
Perverts all nature with an ill that springs
From good corrupted. Oh! for mercy — Love,
Stay with me yet, altho' thy comrade fair,
The smiler Hope, be gone to realms above,

Through the large, stormy splendors of the night,
When clouds made war, and spears of moonlight strove
To penetrate their serried ranks and prove
That braver than the darkness was the light,
Yet failed before the storm-clouds' gathered might,
I heard a voice cry, " Strong indeed is Love,
But stronger Fate and Death, who hold above
Their pitiless, high court, in Love's despite. "

Storm-cloud met storm-cloud, reeled, and shook, and fled, —
The old earth trembled at their mighty rage, —

" HE loved me once! " What words are these —
" He loved! "
Past tense, past love, past joy, past hope, past dream, —
All things that were and are not, — how they seem
To crowd around and mock the love disproved,
The former bliss, by ages long removed;
The light, far off as farthest star's pale beam
That sheds through trackless space its fitful gleam.
Which once, our sun, we welcomed and approved.

How dear that was which lies here stark and dead
While we sit watching in God's awful sight,