love poem

I saw a damsel in a sombre room,
Laid low in beds of purple violet,
And pale, sweet roses scenting all the gloom;
And then I thought, This is a gray sunset
Of days of loving life. Shall he who stands
Beside her bier, in sorrow for his love,
Be first in Heaven to clasp her gentle hands
To bow with her before the Lord above?

If love can die, let my heart be as cold
As Galatea's was before the words

The soul to life inclining, Without the Loved One's grace, hath not:
Who hath not this, that , certes, In any time or place hath not.

A trace of yon heart-seizer In none alive have I beheld;
'Tis or that I no insight Or else that she a trace hath not

The station of contentment Unmeet it were from hand to give;
Light down, o camel-driver; For end this way of chase hath not.

Each dewdrop on this highway's An hundred seas of fire. Alack
That answer or solution Th'enigma of Love's case hath not!

As from the toil and turmoil of the world
I come to bring good fortune or defeat,
And once again your loving eyes to meet,
Then droops the rest, like a lone banner furled
By idle winds; for all my thoughts are whirled
Toward you, like a cloud of swallows fleet;
And all the cares that follow at my feet
Like wraiths against the darkness back are hurled.

Home is where love is, and no doubt can pierce
That inner space where you and I do dwell,
Nor cast a lurking shadow on its floor;

Hark to the harp and the ghittern, What notification they make;
" In secret drink wine, lest in public Of thee reprobation they make. "

The honour of Love and the glory Of lovers they ravish away;
Youth sorry with chiding and manhood With vilification they make.

Quoth they, " Speak ye not of Love's myst'ries Nor hearken to speech thereof. "
Nay, marry, it is a hard saying, Whereof promulgation they make!

Withoutside the door of the Loved One, We're gulled with an hundred deceits:

In days to come, when we are old and gray
Bent with the years and disciplined by Time,
Trembling and feeble we will scan this rhyme
Whose light for us has almost dimmed away,
And haply then remember, if we may,
Some sweet suggestion of our youth sublime,
Some keen reminder which like bruised thyme
Shall bring the memory of our Summer day.

There is no life but loving; naught but Youth
To make love perfect; when the rose-leaves fall
The perfume withers, while the birds are dumb.
And thus indeed I could in very truth

( FROM THE ITALIAN OF ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI .)

Our Lord Speaks:

And though I fill thy heart with warmest love,
Yet in true order must thy heart love me;
For without order can no virtue be.
By thine own virtue, then, I, from above
Stand in thy soul; and so, most earnestly,
Must love from turmoil be kept wholly free.
The life of fruitful trees, the seasons of
The circling year, move gently as a dove.
I measured all the things upon the earth;
Love ordered them, and order kept them fair,

My way, like the breeze, To the Loved One's abode I will make;
My soul musky-breathed With the dust of her road I will make.

All honour and fame, That by learning and faith I have won,
As dust in the path Of that lovely one strowed I will make.

To waste, without wine And beloved, life lapseth amain;
Henceforward away With idleness' load I will make.

Where's the wind of the East? For my soul, blood-besteeped like the rose,
On the scent of her locks, As strewage, bestowed I will make.

I said :
" If I come to you, will your lips kiss mine? "
She said :
" Have you a thousand lips that you should ask me? "
I said :
" Your raven locks are like black cobras. "
She said :
" Fool — would you trust a hooded cobra's sting? "
I said :
" How then shall I conquer your love? "
She said :
" Can you cut off a head without a sword? "

I said :

Sawest thou, o heart, the havoc That Love's pain hath wrought?
What, departing, she with lovers, True in vain, hath wrought?

That ensorcelling narcissus, What a game 't hath played!
And that tipsy one to sober Folk what bane hath wrought!

As the afterglow my tears are For her lovelessness.
See, what devastation Fortune Inhumane hath wrought!

Flashed from Leila's camp a levin In the dawn: alack
For what it with Mejnoun's harvest, Sorrow-slain, hath wrought!

Wine! None knoweth what the Limner Of th' Invisible,

A rock stands harmless from a little rain
But many storms will wear its strength away;
And thus in life when men and women say
Those bitter words which hasten strife and pain,
And still repeat till hope of peace is vain;
Lo! as the hour-glass sands divide the day
So these small things have parted them for aye,
And Love through such harsh means itself hath slain.

A venomed adder is the human tongue
When tipped with anger, be it either sex;
And who when stirred with controversy, recks