love poem

You say you love, and yet your eye
No symptom of that love conveys;
You say you love, yet know not why,
Your cheek no sign of love betrays.

Ah! did that breast with ardour glow,
With me alone it joy could know,
Or feel with me the listless woe,
Which racks my heart when far from thee.

Whene'er we meet my blushes rise,
And mantle through my purpled cheek;
But yet no blush to mine replies,

That unripe side of earth, that heavy clime
That gives us man up now, like Adam's time
Before he ate; man's shape, that would yet be
(Knew they not it, and feared beasts' company)
So naked at this day, as though man there
From Paradise so great a distance were,
As yet the news could not arrived be
Of Adam's tasting the forbidden tree;
Deprived of that free state which they were in,
And wanting the reward, yet bear the sin.
But, as from extreme heights who downward looks,

Three rompers run together, hand in hand.
The middle boy stops short, the others hurtle:
What bumps, what shrieks, what laughter turning turtle.
Love, racing between us two, has planned
A sudden mischief: shortly he will stand
And we shall shock. We cannot help but fall;
What matter? Why, it will not hurt at all,
Our youth is supple, and the world is sand.

Better our lips should bruise our eyes, than He,
Rude love, out-run our breath; you pant, and I,
I cannot run much farther; mind that we

Send me some token, that my hope may live,
Or that my easeless thoughts may sleep and rest;
Send me some honey to make sweet my hive,
That in my passions I may hope the best.
I beg no riband wrought with thine own hands,
To knit our loves in the fantastic strain
Of new-touched youth; nor ring to show the stands
Of our affection, that as that's round and plain,
So should our loves meet in simplicity;
No, nor the corals which thy wrist enfold,
Laced up together in congruity,

Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because
when you're hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you're flush pride keeps

you from the pawn shop and
because you are continually committing

Law, say the gardeners, is the sun,
Law is the one
All gardeners obey
Tomorrow, yesterday, today.

Law is the wisdom of the old
The impotent grandfathers shrilly scold;
The grandchildren put out a treble tongue,
Law is the senses of the young.

Law, says the priest with a priestly look,
Expounding to an unpriestly people,
Law is the words in my priestly book,
Law is my pulpit and my steeple.

Law, says the judge as he looks down his nose,
Speaking clearly and most severely,

— a dream
we dreamed
each
separately
we two
of love
and of
desire —

that fused
in the night —

in the distance
over
the meadows
by day
impossible —
The city
disappeared
when
we arrived —

A dream
a little false
toward which
now
we stand
and stare
transfixed —

All at once
in the east
rising!

(Imaginary translation from the Spanish)

Through what extremes of passion
had you come, Sappho, to the peace
of deathless song?
As from an illness, as after drought
the streams released to flow
filling the fields with freshness
the birds drinking from every twig
and beasts from every hollow —
bellowing, singing of the unrestraint
to colors of a waking world.
So
after love a music streams above it.
For what is love? But music is
Villon beaten and cast off

You have come between me and the terrifying presence
of the moon, the stars, the sun and the earth
with all its crooked outgrowths. The desolation of life
has been darkened by your shadow, but toward me
your face has been a light, your hands have been
a soft rain, the voice from between your lips
a thing that carries me as the air carries a bird.
I have spread my arms out wide feeling you about me
and looked up and taken a deep breath! Deep,
deep! an April in every finger tip!

She

Love bitter-sweet — Sappho

1

Keep love and he wings,
with his bow,
up, mocking us,
keep love and he taunts us
and escapes.
Keep love and he sways apart
in another world,
outdistancing us
Keep love and he mocks,
ah, bitter and sweet,
your sweetness is more cruel
than your hurt
Honey and salt,
fire burst from the rocks
to meet fire
spilt from Hesperus.
Fire darted aloft and met fire:
in that moment