love poems

Her heart is like a harp whose strings
At will are touched alike by all:
Her heart is like a bird that sings
In answer to each fowler's call.
That harp! — has it one secret tone
Reserved for master hands alone?
That bird! has it one soulful note
Which only toward its mate will float?

Let it not wile thy soul away,
That harp, with its beguiling touch;
Let not that bird's bewildering lay
Thrill through thy bosom over-much:
They'll cheat thine eyes of sleep to-night,
Yet find thee dreaming with the light

Tell her I love her — love her for those eyes
Now soft with feeling, radiant now with mirth,
Which, like a lake reflecting autumn skies,
Reveal two heavens here to us on earth —
The one in which their soulful beauty lies,
And that wherein such soulfulness has birth:
Go, autumn flower, before the season flies,
And the rude winter comes thy bloom to blast —
Go! and with all of eloquence thou hast,
The burning story of my love discover,
And if the theme should fail, alas! to move her,

She loves — but 'tis not me she loves: —
Not me on whom she ponders,
When in some dream of tenderness
Her truant fancy wanders.
The forms that flit her visions through
Are like the shapes of old,
Where tales of Prince and Paladin
On tapestry are told.
Man may not hope her heart to win,
Be his of common mould!

But I — though spurs are won no more

Ay! there it is, that winning smile,
That look that cheats my heart for ever,
That tone that will my brain beguile
Till reason from her seat shall sever.
All, all bewitching, as when last
I for the twentieth time forswore them,
Resistless as when first I cast
My whole adoring soul before them.

Like carrier doves that hurry back
To the bright home from which they're parted,
However blind may be their track,
Or far the goal from which they started, —
So from Love's jesses if e'er free

They are mockery all — those skies, those skies —
Their untroubled depths of blue;
They are mockery all — these eyes, these eyes,
Which seem so warm and true.
Each quiet star in the one that lies,
Each meteor glance that at random dies
The other's lashes through;
They are mockery all, these flowers of spring,
Which her airs so softly woo;
And the love to which we would madly cling,
Ay! it is mockery too;
The winds are false which the perfume stir,
And the looks deceive to which we sue,

Kisse me, ├┤ kisse me, with Loues honyed Kisse ,
├┤ dearest Loue, and sweet'st-Heart of my Soule:
Whose loue is like pure Wine that cordiall is;
& doth sowre eares, with Comforts sweet, controle.

Thy Name is like so sweet suffused Balme :
which makes chast Soules eu'n sick for loue of thee:
Whose Passions (striuing in a blessed calme
on Sorrowes Seas) to thee still rowling be.

Drawe me (deare Loue) then, after thee Ile runne

O Past beginning, and immortall Sprit ,
eternall, and incomprehensible:
Incircumscrib'd in Maiestie and Might;
seene all in All , yet most insensible:

Immutable, impassible, most iust;
inscrutable; in mercy, most compleate:
From whom they came, and vnto whom they must
that doe beleeue thou art as good, as great:

Who by thy ne'er too-much applauded Word
hast framed whatsoe'er created is;
One blessed TRINITIE , in true accord

Love , art thou lonely to-day?
Lost love that I never see,
Love that, come noon or come night,
Comes never to me;
Love that I used to meet
In the hidden past, in the land
Of forbidden sweet.

Love! do you never miss
The old light in the days?
Does a hand
Come and touch thee at whiles
Like the wand of old smiles,
Like the breath of old bliss?
Or hast thou forgot,
And is all as if not?

What was it we swore?

1

Surely at last, O Lady, the sweet moon
That bringeth in the happy singing weather
Groweth to pearly queendom, and full soon
Shall Love and Song go hand in hand together;
For all the pain that all too long hath waited
In deep dumb darkness shall have speech at last,
And the bright babe Death gave the Love he mated
Shall leap to light and kiss the weeping past.

CANT. II.

S PONSUS .

I AM the lily of the vale,
The rose of Sharon's fragrant dale.
Lo, as th' unsullied lily shows
Which in a brake of brambles grows,
My love so darkens all that are
By erring men admir'd for fair.

S PONSA .

L O , as the tree which citrons bears
Amidst the barren shrubs appears,
So my Belov'd excells the race
Of man in ev'ry winning grace.
In His desired shade I rest,