love poetry

I.

How ost, alas, this wretched heart
Has wandered from the Lord!
How ost my roving thoughts depart,
Forgetful of his word!

II.

Yet sovereign mercy calls, Return:
Dear Lord, and may I come!
My vile ingratitude I mourn;
Oh take the wanderer home.

III.

And canst thou, wilt thou yet forgive,
And bid my crimes remove?
And shall a pardon'd rebel live

O' ER the dark woods, surging, solemn,
Hung the new moon's silver ring;
And in white and naked beauty,
Out from Twilight's luminous wing,
Peered the first star of the eve; —
'T was the time when poets weave
Radiant songs of love's sweet passion,
In the loom of thought sublime,
And with throbbing, quick pulsations
Beat the golden web of rhyme.

On a hillside very lonely
With the willows' dewy flow
Shutting down like sombre curtains
Round the silent beds below,
Where the lip from love is bound.

I.

The Lord forgets his wonted grace,
Afflicted Zion said;
My God withdraws his smiling face,
Withdraws his heavenly aid.

II.

Shall the kind mother's gentle breast
No soft emotion share;
But, every tender thought supprest,
ForgeTher infant care?

III.

The helpless child, that ofTher eyes
Have watch'd with anxious thought,
While her fond breast appeas'd his cries —

Say they that all beauty lies
In the paler maiden's hue?
Say they that all softness flies,
Save from eyes of April blue?
Arise thou, like a night in June,
Beautiful Quadroon!

Come, — all dark and bright, as skies
With the tender starlight hung!
Loose the Love from out thine eyes!
Loose the Angel from thy tongue!
Let them hear Heaven's own sweet tune.
Beautiful Quadroon!

Tell them — Beauty (born above)
From no shade nor hue doth fly:

I.

M Y Maker, and my King,
To thee my all I owe;
Thy sovereign bounty is the spring,
From whence my blessings flow.

II.

Thou ever good, and kind,
A thousand reasons move,
A thousand obligations bind,
My heart to grateful love.

III.

The creature of thy hand,
On thee alone I live:

I

Let the day come out of the night
And the night come out of the day —
Night from day, and day from night,
And let the hours be a flight
Or wild birds winging away.

And whether the night or whether the day,
As the hours forever fly,
Holding the sun on their wings, or grey
With the dusk of night, let them go their way
Calling across the sky.

II

Love cannot stay, love cannot pass.
For every love that dies,
Swift as a flower from the grass,
A newer love shall rise.

I. P. —

O Fisher , who dost ever love to stand
By waters streaming! F. —
O Poet, who dost lie, at Love's command,
In azure dreaming! P. —
What is it bids us face, 'midst rain and wind,
The wild Spring weather? F. —
What strange and unknown the doth help to bind
Such souls together?

II. F. —

What know'st thou, Poet, of the tedious time
The fisher loseth? P. —
What know'st thou, Fisher, of the precious rhyme
The bard abuseth? F. —

Why rests a shadow on her woman's heart?
In life's more girlish hours it was not so;
Ill hath she learned to hide with harmless art
The soundings of the plummet-line of wo!

Oh, what a world of tenderness looks through
The melting sapphire of her mournful eyes!
Less softly moist are violets full of dew,
And the delicious color of the skies.

Serenely amid worship doth she move,
Counting its passionate tenderness as dross;
And tempering the pleadings of earth's love,
In the still, solemn shadows of the cross.

It is not in the quality of Love
To be relieved from human error quite;
Nor quite unsullied is yon Orb above,
That fills the o'erhanging heavens with warmth and light,
And, from its vast and ever-burning fountains,
Sheds on the slumbering earth those summer showers,
Which clothe her meads with green, and bid her mountains
Shoot forests forth, in joy. And yet, O Love! O Sun!
What a world were ours,
Did ye not both your radiant journies run,
And touch us with your brightness, pure and kind!

Oh, Ladies, when you bend above
The cradled offspring of your love,
And bless the child whom you would see
A man of truth and constancy, —
Believe there is in Mason's lore,
A fund of wisdom, beauty, power,
Enriching every soul of man
Who comprehends the mystic plan.

Then train your boy in Mason's truth;
Lay deep the cornerstone in youth;
Teach him to walk by virtue's line,
To square his acts by SQUARE Divine ;
The cement of true love to spread,
And paths of Scripture truth to tread;