Love poem

“ Love comes on the scene in shapes which are exquisitely beautiful, in all its purity, its tenderness, its unselfishness. But the claims of its all-ruling and irresistible might are also only too readily verified in the passions of men; in the follies of love, its entanglements, its mischiefs, its foulness. In one shape or another it meets us at every turn; it is never absent; it is the motive and stimulant of the whole activity of the poem. ”

“ The words of the old classic poem she had in her ignorance believed familiar, she knew that she was now for the first time really to sing.
"Not for one life but for the blossoming of a thousand lives, shall I seek my lover, shall I regain his love," she sang. ”

“ How divine my Flora's flower!
A third "poem of privacy" may be employed to temper this too fervid mood. I conceive it to be meant for the monologue of a lover in the presence of his sweetheart, and to express the varying lights and shades of his emotion.
THE LOVER'S MONOLOGUE. No. 35.
Love rules everything that is:
Love doth change hearts in a kiss:
Love seeks devious ways of bliss:
[115] Love than honey sweeter,
Love than gall more bitter.
Blind Love hath no modesties.
Love is lukewarm, fiery, cold;
Love is timid, overbold ”

“ But one summer knew her, and grew glad to own her,
And made her its flower, and gave her to me.
And she and I loving, on earth seem to sever
Some part of the great blue from heaven each day:
I know that the heaven and the earth are for ever,
But that which we take shall with us pass away.
And that which she gives me shall be for no lover
In any new love-time, the world’s lasting while;
The world, when it looses, shall never recover
The gold of her hair nor the sun of her smile. ”

“ The song within your heart could never rise Until love bade it spread its wings and soar. Nor could you look on Beauty's face before A poet's burning mouth had touched your eyes. Love is made out of ecstasy and wonder; Love is a poignant and accustomed pain. ”

“ And why is it that affection, as exhibited in general life, is so rarely seen unstained by the tint of some darker passion? Love on, fair girl—love on in thy purity and innocence! The beauty that thou seest in nature, and the music it sends forth, exist only in thy own heart, and the light which plays around thee like a glory, is only the reflection of that image whose lustre has taken away the shadows from thy spirit! ”

“ Still must your hands withhold your loveliness?
Is your soul jealous of your body still?
The fair white limbs beneath the clouding dress
Are such hard forms as you alone could fill
With life and sweetness. Such a harmony
Is yours as music and the thought expressed
By the musician: have no rivalry
Between your soul and the shape in which it's drest.
Kisses or words, both sensual, which shall be
The burning symbol of the love we bear?
My art is words, yours song, but still must we
Be mute and songless, seeing how love is fair. ”

“ How did he wake me with his lips upon mine eyes,
How did the singers carol, the singers of my soul,
That nest among the thoughts of my beloved!
All silent now, the choruses are gone,
The windows of my soul are closed; no more
Mine eyes look gladly out to see my lover come.
There is no more to do, no more to say
Take flight, my soul, my love returns no more!
AN ARAB LOVE SONG The bed of my love I will sprinkle with attar of roses,
The face of my love I will touch with the balm,
With the balm of the tree from the farthermost wood,
From the wood without end, in the world without end. ”

“ The singer steps before her flower-bedecked window, and sings her beauties in the name of her lover. He compares her size to that of a pear tree, her lips to two blushing rose-buds, and her womanly form to that of a dove. With assumed harshness the lady asks her lover: Who are you, and what do you want? He answers with ardent confidence: "Thy love I do adore. The stars live in the harmony of love, and why should not we, too, love each other?" Then the proud beauty gives herself away: she takes her flower-wreath from her hair and throws it down to her lover, promising to be his forever. ”

“ Another heart in you I guess:
A stranger's lips—but thine I kiss not,
Erring in all my tenderness.
I sometimes think a mighty lover
Takes every burning kiss we give:
His lights are those which round us hover:
For him alone our lives we live.
Ah, sigh for us whose hearts unseeing
Point all their passionate love in vain,
And blinded in the joy of being,
Meet only when pain touches pain.
BROTHERHOOD
Twilight, a blossom grey in shadowy valleys dwells:
Under the radiant dark the deep blue-tinted bells
In quietness reïmage heaven within their blooms,
Sapphire and gold and mystery. ”

“ From her deep soul I draw my peace, and thus, One wreath of rhyme I weave for both of us.
THE SHRINE Were I but as the master souls who move In their high place, immortal on the earth, My song might be a thing to crown her worth,— ‘Tis but a pathway for the feet of Love. But since she walks where I am fain to sing, Since she has said, “I listen, O my friend!” There is a glory lent the song I send, And I am proud, yes, prouder than a king. ”

“ Birds, that cry so loud in the old, green bowery garden,
Your song is of Love! Love! Love!
Will ye weary not nor cease?
For the loveless soul grows sick, the heart that the grey days harden;
I know too well that ye love! I would ye should hold your peace.
I too have seen Love rise, like a star; I have marked his setting;
I dreamed in my folly and pride that Life without Love were peace.
But if Love should await me yet, in the land of sleep and forgetting—
Ah, bird, could you sing me this, I would not your song should cease! ”

“ So amorously, my dove;
'Tis something quite apart from
The gentle cares of love.
I feel a bitter craving—
A dark and deep desire,
That glows beneath my bosom
Like coals of kindled fire.
The passion of the nightingale,
When singing to the rose,
Is feebler than the agony
That murders my repose!
Nay, dearest! do not doubt me,
Though madly thus I speak—
I feel thy arms about me,
Thy tresses on my cheek:
I know the sweet devotion
That links thy heart with mine,—
I know my soul's emotion
Is doubly felt by thine ”

“ How this new affection seems to spread a soft, fresh green over the soul. Does not the whole heart blossom thick with plants of hope, sparkling with perpetual dew-drops? What a loss, had we passed through the world, without tasting this purest, most exquisite fount of love. ”

“ Here glowing hyacinths, and tulips, and roses, lift their fair heads; and their perfumes, in loveliest sound, call to the happy youth: "Wander, wander among us, our beloved; for thou understandest us! Our perfume is the Longing of Love; we love thee, and are thine forevermore!" The golden rays burn in glowing tones: "We are Fire, kindled by Love. Perfume is Longing; but Fire is Desire: and dwell we not in thy bosom? We are thy own!" The dark bushes, the high trees, rustle and sound: "Come to us, thou loved, thou happy one! Fire is Desire; but Hope is our cool Shadow. ”

“ To lovers, I devise their imaginary world with whatever they may need, as the stars of the sky, the red roses by the wall, the bloom of the hawthorn, the sweet strains of music, and aught else they may desire to figure to each other the lastingness and beauty of their love. ”

“ She sang, “O look on me, and look on Love:
We three are here together, and above—
What heaven may there be?
None for thine heart without this spell of mine,
Yea, this my beauty, yea, these limbs that shine
And make thy senses shudder; and for me,
No heaven without thee!
“O, all the passion in me on this day
Rises into one song to sweep away
The breakers of Love’s bond;
For is it not a pleasant bond indeed,
And made of all the flowers in life’s mead?
And is not Love a master fair and fond? ”

“ As the alarmed heart leaps in the breast,
And knows and names and greets its godlike guest—
Thus doth Love speak.
How does Love speak?
In the proud spirit suddenly grown meek—
The haughty heart grown humble; in the tender
And unnamed light that floods the world with splendor;
In the resemblance which the fond eyes trace
In all fair things to one beloved face;
In the shy touch of hands that thrill and tremble ”

“ Would have read the legend of my passion, known the bitter secret of my heart,
Kissed as we have kissed, but never parted as we two are fated now to part.
For the crimson flower of our life is eaten by the cankerworm of truth,
And no hand can gather up the fallen withered petals of the rose of youth. ”

“ Lay it aside with thine unfastened zone,
And love him with the love that knows not fear,
[95]
Because it fears not change; enter thou in,
Flower of all sweet and stainless womanhood!
For ever to grow bright, for ever new;
Enter beneath the flowers, O flower-fair!
Beneath these tendrils, Loveliest! that entwine
And clasp, and wreathe and cling, with kissing stems;
Enter, with tender-blowing airs of heaven,
Soft as love's breath and gentle as the tones
Of lover's whispers, when the lips come close:
Enter the house of Love, O loveliest! ”

“ What though time's passage their soft lisp hush?
The seeds were scattered of lovers' blisses,
And year by year
We renew their tender caresses here. 48
We are born of joy, say these petals yellow,
Tinge of delight.
What though love's sunshine be lapped in night?
We, sprung from its seeds, rich-toned and mellow,
Perpetuate
The days when the orbit of love waxed great.
We are born, these red ones say, of passion,
Flush of the heart.
What though the sound of love's steps depart? ”

“ The full moon shone in a cloudless sky, sown thick with stars; the air was warm and fragrant, and seemed to pulsate with love. Every girl remembers how on such a night she has hung over the front gate, gowned in white, with a rose in her hair, waiting and watching for a lover dearer to her heart than all the world beside! ”

“ you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart’s-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty. ”

“ All earth's fragrance you enclose;
Through your light, my one, one star,
Heaven draws me from afar.
Easy were it to lay down
All things save your love,—my crown,
And, in dying, life renew,
Sweetheart! ”

“ It seems that my heart is opening in love, to the whole world. I could even take Mrs. Dudley with the kindest affection to it, if she would allow me; but why or wherefore she dislikes me, and will manifest that feeling for me. Even my perceptions of the beautiful have grown so much the more lively; and the meanest thing of earth—the mossy trunk—the cloudlet—the sky—the stream—the wild-flower—are all floating in an atmosphere of light and beauty. And why is all this? Oh! my proud heart, you are now satisfied; and you can answer, why this ecstatic feeling. I love and I am loved! ”

“ I see the vast alembic ever working, I see and know the flames that heat the world, The glow, the blush, the beating hearts of lovers, So blissful happy some, and some so silent, dark, and nigh to death; Love, that is all the earth to lovers—love, that mocks time and space, Love, that is day and night—love, that is sun and moon and stars, Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume, No other words but words of love, no other thought but love. ”

“ Scatter them back to the ivory gate and be alone and rule the night.
Surely all worlds are nothing to Love, for Love to flash thro’ the night and come;
Hither and thither he flies at will, with thee he dwelleth—there is his home.
Come, O Love, with a voice, a message; haste, O Love, on thy wings of light.
Love, I am calling thee, Love, I am calling; dost thou not hear my crying, sweet?
Does not the live air throb with the pain of my beating heart, till thy heart beat?—
Surely momently thou wilt be here, surely, O sweet Love, momently.{23} ”

“ Love, love, my love, ah, bid thy heart be stiller,
And, hark! the music of the resonant main.
What flowers are those that blow their balm unto us
From mouths of wild aroma, each a flame?—
That breathe of love, of love we know that drew us,
That kissed our eyes, so we might see the same. ”

“ I will sing a song of love such as you have never heard, such as poets dream not of, which lovers know not of, which the human soul is ever in quest of, which, in your best moments, vibrates undefined through your soul, but ever eludes your understanding. I will sing of that Love which ever plays before your heart's vision as the will-o'-the-wisp through countless incarnations—a Love which alone will make you happy for evermore. ”

“ The girl marvelled at his eloquence and elegance and taking her lute, smote thereon with the goodliest of performance, repeating all the melodies, and sang these couplets,
"By the life o' thy face, O thou life o' my sprite! * I'll ne'er
leave thy love for despair or delight:
When art cruel thy vision stands hard by my side * And the
thought of thee haunts me when far from sight:
O who saddenest my glance albe weeting that I * No love but thy
love will for ever requite?
Thy cheeks are of Rose and thy lips-dews are wine ”

“ Up then she rose and took his hand
And never a moment did they stand.
“Come, love,” she cried, “the ways I know,
How thick soe’er the thickets grow.
O love, I love thee! O thine heart!
How mighty and how kind thou art!” ”

“ Their hearts are by chance enkindled, each burns, fire seeks the embrace of fire; they touch, they mingle, they soar together. Wedded love, which neither soars nor leaps like a furnace, but glows steadily with equable and radiant heat—wedded love ensues this passionate commingling. ”