love poetry

Love came by in bitter need.
Oh, but I was sad!
Love stood by in bitter need,
And I nothing had.

Empty were the hands I held
Silently to Love.
Empty, as my heart of words,
Stared the sky above.

Lo, Love took — and thankfully —
All my wish for true;
Then my hands gave back to me,
Full of kisses too.

1.

O Love, where is the bed we made
In scented wood-ways for sweet sin?
The sun was with us and the shade;
The warm blue covered us in:

All men their curse on us had laid —
Finding had slain us both therein;
But, summer with us, not afraid
Were we to love and sin.

O Love, the crushed place is quite fair;
Leaves have sprung back and flowers grown there;

Be these the selfsame verses
That once when I was young
Charm'd me with dancing magic
To love their foreign tongue,

Delicate buds of passion,
Gems of a master's art,
That broke forth rivalling Nature
In love-songs of the heart;

Like fresh leaves of the woodland
Whose trembling screens would house
The wanton birdies courting
Upon the springing boughs?

Alas, how now they are wither'd!
And fallen from the skies
In yellowy tawny crumple
Their tender wreckage lies,

" She was beautiful in life And beautiful in death. "

Gone, with all her sparkling beauty,
Gone, with innocence and youth;
Gone, with loving ways and kindness,
Gone, with happiness and truth.

In the tomb they gently laid her —
Even strangers dropped a tear;
And one heart will feel the anguish
Of her loss for many a year.

Father, mother, loving sisters,
Deeply mourn the lov'd and lost;

We the White Witches are, that free
Enchanted hearts from slavery;
Love's dark abodes all tremble at our voice,
And at the awful noise
All the blind archers scud along,
And frighted to their shady myrtles throng.
We cloud the sun that shines in Caelia's eyes,
Hush the winds swelled by lovers' sighs,
And stop their tides of tears even when they highest rise.
We, by our magic's guiltless power,
Hearts long since dead to a new life restore.

All Love's black arts and fatal wiles,

Is it to me, this sad lamenting strain?
Are heaven's choicest gifts bestowed in vain?
A plenteous fortune, and a beauteous bride,
Your love rewarded, gratify'd your pride:
Yet leaving her — 'tis me that you pursue
Without one single charm, but being new.
How vile is man! how I detest their ways
Of artful falsehood, and designing praise!
Tasteless, an easy happiness you slight,
Ruin your joy, and mischief your delight,
Why should poor pug (the mimic of your kind)
Wear a rough chain, and be to box confin'd?

Young , loving, and beloved — these are brief words;
And yet they touch on all the finer chords,
Whose music is our happiness; the tone
May die away, and be no longer known,
In the sad changes brought by darker years,
When the heart has to treasure up its tears,
And life looks mournful on an altered scene —
Still it is much to think that it has been.

'T IS not my home — he made it home
With earnest love and care;
How can it be my own dear home,
And he no longer there?

I asked to meet my father's eyes,
But they were closed for me;
My father, would that I were laid
In the dark grave with thee.

Where shall I look for constant love,
To answer unto mine?
Others have many kindred hearts,
But I had only thine.

( XVIII. CENT .)

When first in C ELIA'S ear I poured
A yet unpractised pray'r,
My trembling tongue sincere ignored
The aids of " sweet " and " fair. "
I only said, as in me lay,
I'd strive her " worth " to reach;
She frowned, and turned her eyes away, —
So much for truth in speech.

Then D ELIA came. I changed my plan;

And she too — that beloved child, was gone —
Life's last and loveliest link. There was her place
Vacant beside the hearth — he almost dreamed
He saw her still; so present was her thought.
Then some slight thing reminded him how far
The distance was that parted her and him.
Fear dwells around the absent — and our love
For such grows all too anxious, too much filled
With vain regrets, and fond inquietudes:
We know not Love till those we love depart.