love poems for her

I.

Once more, with skies above her
Of endless perfect air,
With sunlit leaves to love her
And whisper, " Thou art fair; "
Once more — and statelier, surer,
When summer's hymn was done —
From woman's mouth came purer
The anthems of the sun:
Once more, in honeyed metre
That charmed grief to repose,
From woman's lips came sweeter
The lyrics of the rose.

II.

Summers have passed — yea, many a glowing morn,
And many a moonlit wonderful soft night
Since thou wast from my eager longing torn;
Yea, since that day full many a rosebud bright
Hath bloomed amid the fields of our delight,
And the great golden stars have glimmered down
On many passions as they reached their height.
How many loves have granted love's sweet crown,
While love's old petals withered yet and brown
Remain for me — no hand but thine can give
Bloom to the leaves that darken 'neath thy frown,

Back to the smoke-fed city from the sea
Thou, stronger than the sea's hand, drawest me:
Back, past green hill-side, flower and field and tree,
To where the eternal fog-bound turrets rise.

For thy sake dearer than the mountain-air
And than the breezy cliff-tops even more fair
Are the dim robes of mist the houses wear
Beneath their sunless moonless starless skies.

Thou biddest me return, and lo! I leave
The golden-coloured morn, the crimson eve;
Thy queenly laughing mandate I receive,

We rule the blue-green waves that round our shores
For ever surge. In vain the tempest roars;
The sea yields, and the land:
But death and love evade our conquering will.
We strive to master them. They cheat us still
With unique sleight of hand.

The humblest cottage-home, whose garden gleams
With scented English blossoms, has its dreams
Of love and death, alas!
Beside our hamlets ever stands the church,
And white tombs near it — under elm or birch,
Nestling in dark-green grass.

" How lovely is that curve of dazzling breast!
Now am I blest
Beyond all words, in that thou art so fair! " She . —
" Thou art the stronger. Teach me, love, to be
Ever to thee
True helper. In life's struggle let me share! " He . —

" The starlit heaven is less sweet than thine eyes:
Within them lies
An unknown passionate world beyond my dream. " She . —
" Yet must we, prisoners in this world of woe,
Climb from below

There is a point at which the burning soul
Collects, as into one tremendous flame,
Each perilous desire and every aim,
Determining to sacrifice the whole.
Then all God's voices and his thunders roll
Like gathering tides across the shaken sand
Whereon this spirit's trembling feet do stand,
And the wide earth is as a parchment scroll
Engraved with fiery letters: " Thou shalt die
And be forgotten, even as a star
That flames, and it has vanished from the sky, —
Even as a comet gleaming from afar,

I.

The sweetest love is over
This world has ever seen.
No more am I your lover!
No more are you my queen!
The stars are in the sky, love,
They glitter as of old:
Starless are you and I, love, —
Our heavens are dark and cold.

Oh, if you had been true, love,
We could have conquered pain!
My whole soul trusted you, love
— It will not trust again.

God having given Love, it cannot be
That he should take it. I am calm to wait
Till as a rosebud at his palace-gate
That unforgotten face of her I see, —
For this and nothing else shall come to me,
In this life or the next, or soon or late: —
I fall into the outspread arms of fate,
And — find they are the pleasant arms of thee!

Does God in heaven seek love and sigh for praise?
Neither is his from me, being left forlorn.
For so the double heart of God is torn
Asunder; and for any song I raise,

DAWN TO SUNSET

Beneath the high majestic morning gleaming
Once field and mount and moor and forest lay:
O'er joyous vale and hill I wandered, dreaming
That all life's hours were as the dawn of day.

The sun's touch woke the golden daffodilly;
His clear beam drew the snowdrop from repose:
Then first love said, " My heart is like the lily! "
And passion said, " My soul is as the rose! "

But France, fair France, that held her stedfast way
Mocked, cursed or preached at, — France that ever knew
That deep in Beauty's form lay hid the true
Secret that gives its golden life to day
And sends the blue waves leaping through the bay
And on the rose bestows its passionate hue, —
Shall not the Power whose eyes are dawns renew
Her force, and grant her Art's domains to sway?

No voice replies. This only is grandly sure, —
Where God and Love and Beauty and Woman are
There also shines the sun, there flower and star