love poem

In early days the woman was my queen;
The fair sweet maiden, crowned with first love's flowers.
With her I wandered through the in woven bowers
Of first love, — marked the young moon's silver sheen
Upon the deep, or heard the echoing shore
Ring to the white waves, answering their roar:
With her I lingered through the summer hours
Or smote the river tides with laughing oar.

I sought no further than the simple boon
Of simple maiden love: sufficient bliss
Had been the bounty of her red-lipped kiss;

I.

The year is flying, dying, —
Soon its flowers will flee;
Its tender soft red roses,
Its leafy verdant closes, —
Soon autumn will be crying,
" What is left for me? "

II.

The old loves are flying, dying, —
With all their soft-voiced glee;
Their ripples of sweet laughter

The Crescent-moon, the Star of Love,
Glories of evening, as ye there are seen
With but a span of sky between —
Speak one of you, my doubts remove,
Which is the attendant Page and which the Queen?

A sad and lovely face, with upturned eyes,
Tearless, yet full of grief. — How heavenly fair
How saintlike is the look those features wear!
Such sorrow is more lovely in its guise
Than joy itself — for underneath it lies
A calmness that betokens strength to bear
Earth's petty grievances — its toil and care: —
A spirit that can look through clouded skies,
And see the blue beyond. — Type of that grace
That lit Her holy features, from whose womb
Issued the blest Redeemer of our race —
How little dost thou speak of earthly gloom!

You call it, " Love lies bleeding," — so you may,
Though the red Flower, not prostrate, only droops,
As we have seen it here from day to day,
From month to month, life passing not away:
A flower how rich in sadness! Even thus stoops
(Sentient by Grecian sculpture's marvellous power),
Thus leans, with hanging brow and body bent
Earthward in uncomplaining languishment,
The dying Gladiator. So, sad Flower!
('Tis Fancy guides me willing to be led,
Though by a slender thread,)
So drooped Adonis, bathed in sanguine dew

I

You have heard " a Spanish Lady
How she wooed an English man;"
Hear now of a fair Armenian,
Daughter of the proud Soldan;
How she loved a Christian Slave, and told her pain
By word, look, deed, with hope that he might love again.

II

" Pluck that rose, it moves my liking,"

Of th' Atrides I would sing,
Or the wandring Theban King;
But when I my Lute did prove,
Nothing it would sound but Love;
I new strung it, and to play
Herc'les labours did essay;
But my pains I fruitlesse found,
Nothing it but Love would sound;
Heroes then farewell, my Lute
To all strains, but Love, is mute.

The whole life is lost in the love of ill desires.
Thus three stages of life have passed: the hairs of the head are grown grey.

The breath is choked: it comes no more to the mouth: but is as the Moon in the grip of Ketu.
As he who forsaking Ganga drinks water from his well, are they who forsake Hari and worship demons.

Living in sloth they have forgotten Gobind, and are drowned with all the rest.
O Sur Das, without money without price thou mayest take the name of Rama.

Thou that art my life and solace,
O no longer look upon me,
To such love thy eyes have won me.
For thy fair eyes have such power,
They give thousand years of sadness —
Thou of loveliness the flower —
In each instant of each hour,
And I fear to lose my gladness.
O no longer look upon me,
To such love thy eyes have won me.

My Mary's eyes — my Mary's eyes —
What would I give, to be where they
Are looking blue as summer skies,
And shedding joy with ev'ry ray?

And then her little rosy lip,
That breathes my name with such a grace,
If I could now its nectar sip,
T'would brighten up this lonely place.

There's music in her roughest tone,
There's magic in her ev'ry motion.
I'd rather be with her alone,