love poems for her

IF YOU were with me — as you're not, of course,
I'd taste the elegant tortures of Despair
With a slow, languid, long-refining tongue;
Puzzle for days on one particular stare,
Or if you knew a word's peculiar force,
Or what you looked like when you were quite young.

You'd lift me heaven-high — till a word grated.
Dash me hell-deep — oh that luxurious Pit,
Fatly and well encushioned with self-pity,
Where Love's an epicure not quickly sated!
What mournful musics wander over it,
Faint-blown from some long-lost celestial city!

TO A FRIEND UNSUCCESSFUL IN LOVE .

I.

Indeed , my Phaedria, if to find
That wealth can female wishes gain,
Had e'er disturb'd your thoughtful mind,
Or caused one serious moment's pain,
I should have said that all the rules,
You learned of moralists and schools,
Were very useless, very vain.

II.

Yet I perhaps mistake the case —
Say, though with this heroic air,
Like one that holds a nobler chase,
You try the tender loss to bear;

Ah! not now, when desire burns, and the wind calls, and the suns of spring
Light-foot dance in the woods, whisper of life, woo me to wayfaring:
Ah! not now should you come, now when the road beckons, and good friends call,
Where are songs to be sung, fights to be fought, yea! and the best of all,
Love, on myriad lips fairer than yours, kisses you could not give! . . .
Dearest, why should I mourn, whimper, and whine, I that have yet to live?
Sorrow will I forget, tears for the best, love on the lips of you,

Love, sweet love is the poet's theme;
Love, sweet love is the poet's dream.
What is the love of which they sing?
Only a phantom unreal thing.
'Tis but the dalliance, the dalliance of youth and maid;
'Tis but the passion, the passion of vows that fade.
'Tis not the Heav'n, the Heav'n-implanted glow
That true hearts call love, ah no, ah no!

See a mother gazing on her baby boy
With ecstatic eyes and heart that fills with joy;
He to her is purest gold without alloy;
For him she prays to Heav'n above!

A RE the dead as calm as those
They leave behind them, friends or foes?

However a man may love or fight
Calm he falls asleep at night!

Fast the living sleeps and well;
But the spirits — who can tell?

Are they as a rushing flame
For the Sun from whence it came,

Driven on from star to star,
Where the other dead men are?

I HAVE more sorrow, dearest, in thy love
— Than ever I knew happiness thereby.
Joy was the promise, out of reach — above.
— The sorrow is fulfilment — and I die.

I HAVE not loved the gold of the mine.
— I have not loved the image of gold.
But I have loved the gold divine
— That springs in April from the mould;
And I have loved to see thee shine,
— Thou Sun, that makest all things gold!

All that love hath to give to me is given.
— Alas for the unutterable pain!
To love that showered on me the pearls of heaven
— I have no gift that I can give again, —
Not the least gem of earth, from the rock riven —
— I search my empty treasury in vain.

" First " in my heart? Why, she is all my heart.
There is no other;
Tho' I in her esteem have but a part,
And many a brother.

" First " in my love? I have no other love
Nor recollection.
Yet many names are writ my name above
In her affection.

" First " in my life? Tell me that she must die —
My life is over!
Tell her that I am dead — she'll give a sigh
For her old lover.

I MAY not call what many call divine,
And yet my faith is faith in its degree;
I worship at a dim and lonely shrine
— — On bended knee.

The secret grace of faith's celestial part
I hoard up safely for mine own self's own;
Within the hidden chambers of the heart
— — I love alone.