love poem

(Song)

I said: " O let me sing the praise
Of her who sweetly racks my days, —
Her I adore;
Her lips, her eyes, her moods, her ways!"

In miseries of pulse and pang
I strung my harp, and straightway sang
As none before: —
To wondrous words my quavers rang!

Thus I let heartaches lilt my verse,
Which suaged and soothed, and made disperse
The smarts I bore

(Song)

This is the last; the very, very last!
Anon, and all is dead and dumb,
Only a pale shroud over the past,
That cannot be
Of value small or vast,
Love, then to me!

I can say no more: I have even said too much.
I did not mean that this should come:

I waited at home all the while they were boating together —
My wife and my near neighbour's wife:
Till there entered a woman I loved more than life,
And we sat and sat on, and beheld the uprising dark weather,
With a sense that some mischief was rife.

Tidings came that the boat had capsized, and that one of the ladies

(Song: Minor)

I look in her face and say,
" Sing as you used to sing
About Love's blossoming;"
But she hints not Yea or Nay.

" Sing, then, that Love's a pain,
If, Dear, you think it so,
Whether it be or no;"
But dumb her lips remain.

I go to a far-off room,
A faint song ghosts my ear;
Which song I cannot hear,
But it seems to come from a tomb.

I rose and went to Rou'tor Town
With gaiety and good heart,
And ardour for the start,
That morning ere the moon was down
That lit me off to Rou'tor Town
With gaiety and good heart.

When sojourn soon at Rou'tor Town
Wrote sorrows on my face,
I strove that none should trace
The pale and gray, once pink and brown,
When sojourn soon at Rou'tor Town
Wrote sorrows on my face.

The evil wrought at Rou'tor Town
On him I'd loved so true
I cannot tell anew:
But nought can quench, but nought can drown

When I looked up at my love-birds
That Sunday afternoon,
There was in their tiny tune
A dying fetch like broken words,
When I looked up at my love-birds
That Sunday afternoon.

When he, too, scanned the love-birds
On entering there that day,
'Twas as if he had nought to say
Of his long journey citywards,
When he, too, scanned the love-birds,
On entering there that day.

And billed and billed the love-birds,
As 'twere in fond despair
At the stress of silence where

Behold this little bane —
The Boon of all alive —
As common as it is unknown
The name of it is Love —

To lack of it is Woe —
To own of it is Wound —
Not elsewhere — if in Paradise
Its Tantamount be found —

Did Helen steal my love from me?
She never had the wit.
Or was it Jane? But she's too plain,
And could not compass it.
A bad verse in the middle, then —

It might be Helen, Jane, or Kate,
It might be none of the three:
But I'm alone, for my love's gone
That should have been true to me.

Her advent was not hailed with shouts,
Nor banners, garlands, cymbals, drums;
The trees breathed gently sighs of love,
And whispered softly, " Hush! she comes."

I. OF HIS LYRE; THAT IT WILL PLAY ONLY OF LOVE

I fain would sing of Cadmus king,
And fain of Atrean banqueting;
But still the harp through every string
Doth echo only love —
I brake the chord that erewhile sent
That note, and changed the instrument;
And how Alcides' labours went
I sang with fire, — but still the lyre
Gave back the word of Love.
So farewell all heroical
Rare spirits!, for the lyre withal
Can sound but only love.