love poetry

The Argument

The swo[u]nding Swaine recovered is
By th' Goddesse; his soule rapting blisse:
There mutuàll conference, and how
Her service she doth him allow.

1

Soft-sleeping Venus waked with the fall,
Looking behind, the sinking Boy espies,
With all she starts, and wondereth withall,
She thinkes that there her faire Adonis dyes,
And more she thinkes the more the Boy she eyes:
 So stepping neerer, up begins to reare him;
 And now with love himselfe she will confer him,

When Atyches with better sight I eye,
Some powre me thinks beyond humanity,
Some heavenly power within his bosome lyes
And plainely looks through th' windowes of his eyes.
Thalander , if that soules departed rest
In other men, thou livest in his brest,
He is more then he seemes, or else — but see!
My love, my hate, my joy, my miserie.
Glau. Perindus , whither turnst thou? if thy wandring love
My love eschew, yet nothing canst thou see
Why thou shouldst flye me, I am no monster, friend,

I
Each Moment of the long-liv'd Day,
Lesbia for me does backward pray,
And rails at me sincerely;
Yet I dare pawn my Life, my Eyes,
My Soul, and all that Mortals prize,
That Lesbia loves me dearly.
II

Why shou'd you thus conclude, you'll say,
Faith 'tis my own beloved Way,
And thus I hourly prove her;
Yet let me all those Curses share
That Heav'n can give, or Man can bear,
If I don't strangely love her.

I hate and love. Why? You may ask but
It beats me. I feel it done to me, and ache.

None could ever say that she,
Lesbia! was so loved by me.
Never all the world around
Faith so true as mine was found.
If no longer it endures
(Would it did!) the fault is yours.
I can never think again
Well of you: I try in vain.
But . . . be false . . . do what you will.--
Lesbia! I must love you still.

(Catullus, XLV)

Septimius thus his [ ] love addressed,
His darling Acme in his arms sustained,
" My Acme, may I perish if my breast
Burns not for thee with love to madness strained,
And more — if I am not prepared to give
To thee such earnest love unchanged by time
As any human heart can feel and live,
Then may I roam through Lybia's burning clime
And meet alone the ravenous lion's roar."
He spoke and at the word the God of love,
The God of love, as from the right before,

My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love,
And though the sager sort our deeds reprove,
Let us not weigh them. Heaven's great lamps do dive
Into their west, and straight again revive,
But soon as once set is our little light,
Then must we sleep one ever-during night.

If all would lead their lives in love like me,
Then bloody swords and armor should not be;
No drum nor trumpet peaceful sleeps should move,
Unless alarm came from the camp of love.
But fools do live, and waste their little light,

The gown you wear is curiously like sound —
Tangles of dahlia-murmurs taking shape
In shrinking, mellow sprays.
The ever-lasting journey of your heart
Is like a fragile traveller of sound —
A murmur seeking the love that gave it birth.

F EDERIGO . You say she passed this way?
L EONIDO . Footing like dawn over the meadow, flecking the soft carpet with light; nor should devotion detain her long, for the priest has the wit to be brief.
F EDERIGO . Shall I accost her?
L EONIDO . Being her cousin, you cannot very well refrain.

I. Bird OF THE M OUNTAIN .

Bird of the mountain, sweetly thou singest, —
O, sweet thy song!
Over the fountain, high in the branches,
Thou sitt'st alone.
There oft, at evening, I linger to hear thee:
Bird of the mountain, sweetly thou singest, —
O, sweet thy song!

Bird of the mountain, why art thou ever
So sad and lone?
Only I hear thee breaking the silence
So deep around.
Art thou the spirit of heart-broken maiden?