love poem

Half way the hill, near to those aged trees,
Whose insides are as hives for lab'ring bees,
(As who should say, before their roots were dead,
For good work's sake and alms they harboured
Those whom nought else did cover but the skies:)
A path, untrodden but of beasts, there lies,
Directing to a cave in yonder glade,
Where all this forest's citizens for shade
At noon-time come, and are the first, I think,
That (running through that cave) my waters drink:
Within this rock there sits a woful wight,

1863

I HEARD the tramp, and I heard the song,
Soldiers marching, marching along.
" Glory, Glory!" I hear it yet.
My heart was hot and my cheeks were wet.
" What shall I do when I am grown,"
I said, " with children of my own?"
" If I have a son; and he has a son;
They shall do what these have done;
And I'll love them so, I'll love them so,
That I'll buckle their swords and bid them go."

Come , join hands and swear
By earth and sea and air,
As brothers, side by side;
Troth to the sacred band,
Troth to the sacred land
Their love has sanctified —
Love, inborn, inbred,
Giving, taking and giving —
The love of the dead to the living,
The love of the living to the dead.

Run to Love's lottery! Run, maids, and rejoice:
When, drawing your chance, you meet your own choice;
And boast that your luck you help with design,
By praying cross-legged to Old Bishop Valentine.
Hark, hark! a prize is drawn, and trumpets sound!
Tan, ta, ra, ra, ra!
Tan, ta, ra, ra, ra!

Hark, maids! more lots are drawn! prizes abound.
Dub! dub a, dub a, dub! the drum now beats!

AGAINST LOVERS GOING TO WAR, IN WHICH HE
PHILOSOPHICALLY PREFERS LOVE AND DELIA, TO THE
MORE SERIOUS VANITIES OF THE WORLD .

The man, who sharpen'd first the warlike steel,
How fell and deadly was his iron heart,
He gave the wound, encountring nations feel,
And death grew stronger, by his fatal art:

Yet not from steel, debate and battle rose,
'Tis gold o'erturns the even scale of life,
Nature is free to all, and none were foes,
Till partial luxury began the strife.

ON HIS FALLING IN LOVE WITH NEAERA .

Farewell that liberty our fathers gave,
In vain they gave, their sons receiv'd in vain:
I saw Neaera, and her instant slave,
Though born a Briton, hugg'd the servile chain.

Her usage well repays my coward heart,
Meanly she triumphs in her lover's shame,
No healing joy relieves his constant smart,
No smile of love rewards the loss of fame.

Oh that to feel these killing pangs no more,
On Scythian hills I lay a senseless stone,

I AM in love and cannot woo,
Heigho! Heigho! what shall I do;
I gape and sigh and sometimes weep
For Phillis that my heart doth keep.

I love her hair and forehead high,
Then am I taken with her eye,
Her cheek I do commend for gay
But then her nose hangs in my way.

Her lips I praise but then steps in
Her white and pretty dimpled chin,
But there her neck I do behold
Fit to be hung with chains of gold.

Her breasts are soft as any down
Beneath which lies her Maiden Town,

Now fie on love, it ill befits,
Or man and woman know it,
Love was not meant for people in their wits,
And they that fondly show it
Betray their too much feathered brains,
And shall have only Bedlam for their pains.
To love is to distract my sleep,
And waking, to wear fetters;
To love is but to go to school to weep;
I'll leave it for my betters.
If single love be such a curse,
To marry is to make it ten times worse.

" LEARN to forget," the wise man said of old;
Learn to forget the cruel wiles of Fate:
Learn to forget the gods' remorseless hate;
Death comes apace, and soon the tale is told;
Then fill the wine-cup ere the blood be cold,
And, lapped in languorous beauty's soft caress,
Distil a potion of forgetfulness
From lips of coral and from locks of gold.

But thou shalt fill my wine-cup, and the wine
Shall be the joy and beauty of the earth:
I'll drink deep draughts of essences divine,
Of peace and truth and love and holy mirth:

O friend, what honour canst thou have of me?
Better my name were never named again:
Vain were the builded hopes, and worse than vain,
Now hope is shattered, is the memory.
Then void thy heart of what remains to thee
Of my importunate presence; make it clear
Of all that was and all that might have been,
Of Love, or thought of love, if thought there be —

But I have that nor thou nor Time can take,
Nor gusty fortune nor the tongues of men,
I have thyself within me, there to make
Sweet music in the chambers of my heart —