love poem

HUNGER FOR HER IS PREFERABLE TO HAPPINESS WITH ANOTHER

Ill-starred was I the morning I was born
(If that the constellations have such sway),
Hard was the cradle where I cried that day
And hard the earth by my young footsteps worn;
But harder still, the Lady whose bright scorn
With savage Love conspiring struck dismay
Into my heart... Her eyes, and only they,
Can cure the wound... Her eyes still find me torn.
O cruel Love, thou art, if anything,
More kind: for she, indifferent to the flame

WHEREIN HE TREATS OF LOVE IN EXTREMIS

Remarking in those orbs the orb of light
Where Love serenely rules that agitates
My own, the sick heart quits the soul's dim gates
Once more upon her paradisal flight;
Perceiving, then, how bitter-sweet her plight,
And the world-tangling web which she creates,
She sighs for thwarted love and hesitates,
Recalling the curb's tooth, the fanged spur's bite.
By these two mixed irreconcilables she,
With frozen or with fiery wishes filled,
Stands torn forever in a blind dispute:

WHEREIN EXCESS OF LOVE SILENCES HIS PURPOSE TO SPEAK

Often, when to my fancy her dear face
The colour of compassion took, I strove
With eloquent tears, with courteous speech to move
My stubborn angel in this piteous case:
But let swift anger for a flash displace
Her pity — and my hopes are vain thereof:
My life, death, good and ill by sovereign Love
Are trusted to her mercy and her grace.
Wherefore, whenever my mouth is moved to speak,
I scarce can bear the burden I proclaim,
By passion rendered timorous and weak.

WHEREIN EXCESS OF LOVE LOCKS HIS TONGUE

Filled with a thought whose beauty makes me shun
My kind and wander in the world alone,
I now and then must roll away the stone,
Pursuing her from whom I ought to run;
And see her pass, O sweet, O cruel one!
And my soul flutters and is almost flown,
And falls back, such armed sighs about her moan,
Love's dear antagonist... I am undone...
Be still, my heart! Do I not see beneath
Her proud and pitiless forehead one mild beam
Of mercy, almost thawing my heart's death?

WHEREIN HIS LADY SINGS

If Love her lovely eyes to earth compel,
And in a sigh resolving all her soul,
Permit the music of her voice to roll
Heavenward like a soft angelic bell,
My heart, divorced so sweetly from its shell,
(New thoughts, new wishes roused beyond control)
" O Heaven, " it cries, " grant me this golden dole,
That, listening, Death may ravish me as well! "
But ah, the sense enchanted in that mesh
Melodious, the will inflamed to hear
More and yet more of Heaven so wildly near,

WHEREIN HE ENVIES WHATSOEVER OF LOVELY IN NATURE HER PRESENCE MAKES LOVELIER

O rich and happy flowers forever apart
On which my pensive Lady puts her heel!
O golden acres privileged to feel
Her phrase, her footprint pressed upon your heart!
Trees silver green with April's earliest art;
Pale passionate violets; dark grove that can steal
Only so much of sun as may reveal
Your swarthy steeples in a radiant dart!
O comely landscape! O translucent stream
Mirroring her pure face, her intense eyes

WHEREIN HER IMAGE IS FIXED FOREVER IN HIS HEART

Wherever I rest or turn my tired eyes
To cool them of desires that draw them still,
Love paints the lovely Lady at his will
That passion may stay green; and, being wise,
Deep pity with sweet anguish Love applies —
For generous ardours gentle bosoms fill —
While, equally constrained, my fond ears thrill
To her soft syllables, her seraph sighs.
Love and pure Truth were both in league to tell
The virtues without fellows on this sphere,

WHEREIN LAURA WEEPS

Never was Jupiter so set on thunder,
Nor Caesar never so resolved to shatter
But Mercy like a blast would swoop to scatter
The flame, or tear the hand and sword asunder.
Milady wept: my Lord said (O sweet blunder!)
That I should see her, hear her sorrows flatter
My soul with listening, and thrill to the matter
And very marrow of my bones with wonder.
To me Love pointed, carved into my breast
That bright and silver tear, those mysteries
Cut with a diamond at Love's behest,

WHEREIN LOVE GUIDES HIM TO REASON

Never fled shaken mariner to port
From the black welter, from the hurricane,
As from the mutinous tumult of the brain
I tear away — from thoughts of dark resort;
Nor ever blazed a bolt from heaven's fort
Blasting the mortal sight, as with rich pain
And pride and passion burned that matchless twain
Wherein Love tips the gold barbs of his sport.
Throned in his own light there he lords it, there —
Not blind, but quivered, naked — or almost:

WHEREIN HE RECALLS THE FIRST SIGHT OF LAURA AND LOVE

Never so splendidly did the sun arise
When the sky stood most purged of taint and mist,
Nor, after rain, has the rainbow's amethyst
In the washed air displayed so many dyes
As are the colours that against my eyes
Dazzled that day I strapped upon my wrist
Love's load, that face (the florid I resist
In speech) beyond all mortal rivalries.
I saw Love turning, saw his eyes at turning
Look with such light upon me, such sweet burning