love poem

Many are poets — though they use no pen
To show their labours to the shuffling age
Real poets must be truly honest men
Tied to no mongrel laws on flatterys page
No zeal have they for wrong or party rage
— The life of labour is a rural song
That hurts no cause — nor warfare tries to wage
Toil like the brook in music wears along —
Great little minds claim right to act the wrong.

Ballad

Summer morning is risen
& to even it wends
& still Im in prison
Without any friends

Where the hazels hing love
Oer the Siller spring love
And their shadows fling love
O'er the mossy spring love beneath the Old Oak tree
Where the woodbines bloom so sweetly young lassie sit wi me.

I' the summers sunny weather
There we'll sit and love together
Where cares no longer tether
Beside the little spring love beneath the Old Oak tree
Lucy my dearest creature come and share the day wi me.

We'll gather ripe strawberries
More red than ripest Cherries

It is love
Theres a mildness i' the air
The fields are green and fair
And sunbeams there
From above
There is singing o birds
There is bleating o' herds
Waters waving like curds
What is love
But the landscapes o' spring sunny green o' the grove
And the maid walking there Mary Dove.

Is it love
To admire what God's sending
Charm on charm never ending
Ever varying unspending
Look above
Clouds rocks rough and ragged
Temples unhewed and jagged
Where currish man never begged

1

The spirit of Love is a beautiful thing
As ever o'er flowers and fair bosoms took wing
As ever broke silence through innocent lips
More sweet than the nectar the butterfly sips
From the breath of the rose tree sprinkled with dew
O Love is as sweet and as innocent too
The spirit of Love is an innocent thing
As ever o'er flowers and fair bosoms took wing

2

Not a sigh e'er escapes it to shew to the eye
Of her he adores that a lover is nigh
His eye thinks a language — and turns on her dress

The evening was lovely and littered wi dew
The points o' the thistle was knibbed wi a pearl
When I went i' the gloaming where bindweed bells grew
And talked to young Dinah a beautiful girl
O' bright were the ringlets adown her cheek glowing
And bright were her eyes as the dibbles o dew
That knobs all the spears o' the thistle flowers blowing
While hesperus shone like a lamp i' the blue

O' down i' the e'ening O' moon lighted gloaming
Among the big thistles so blooming and sweet

Where the ash tree weaves
Shadows over the river
And the willow's grey leaves
Shake and quiver —
Meet me & talk, love,
Down the grass-hoppers baulk, love,
And then love for ever —

2

There meet me, & talk, love,
Of love's inward feelings
Where the clouds look like chalk, love,
And the huts & the shielings
Lie like love o'er the river
Here talk of love's feelings,
And love on for ever —

3

Where the bee hums his ballads
By the river so near it,

1

I love thee nature with a boundless love
The calm of earth, the storms of roaring woods
The winds breathe happiness where e'er I rove
Theres lifes own music in the swelling floods
My harp is in the thunder melting clouds
The snow capt mountain, and the rolling sea
And hear ye not the voice where darkness shrouds
The heavens, — there lives happiness for me

2

Death breathes its pleasures when it speaks of him
My pulse beats calmer while its lightnings play
My eye with earths delusions waxing dim

There is a voice I love to hear
A form I love to meet
A face to me so very dear
A smile so very sweet
Her I love on from day to day
Through seasons past and gone
Of all the world when she's away
She seems the only one
There's no one else her place supplies
That bosom white and those bright eyes.

There is a love to me so sweet
Carnations are not half so dear
There is a maid I love to meet
The fairest blossom o' the year
The rose is nothing like her lips
No gem so bright as Biddy's eyes

1

O'er Scotland's vales and mountains high
I've tented sheep and herded kye
Where every bush and every tree
Was health and happiness to me
The mountain rills ran to the sea
A sunday song of harmony
And every day on hills and dales
'Twas harmony in all her vales

2

The sea-waves, and the ocean spray
The river shining far away
The cataract bursting o'er the rock
In silver foam with thunder shock
Where Scotlands scenes and Scotlands pride
And in my boyhood deified

1

I ever loved the simple flower
Where woman cast her eye
There's not a bloom in walk or bower
Like that she wandered by
'Twas faith without a tear or sigh
It drank dews from above
'Twas joy and hope and poesy
— It won a womans love

2

I lov'd the flower she gazed upon
And stooped to gaze again
It seemed the sweetest in the sun