love poem

Love without passion is a flower without sun,
Reft of the wind's touch, banished from the rain
Wrought against nature — therefore wrought in vain
However fine its tissue may be spun;
Its petals fade and wither one by one
And in the dust and under dust are lain;
Love without passion is the dying strain
From shattered lutes that all to minors run.

True love is as the rose; the roses glow
With life and color in the summer air.
The winds of Autumn through the garden blow,
The leaves are scattered and the vines are bare,

Here on one side of the stream I stand,
And gaze on my love on the other strand.
Oh! not to be with her, what sadness!
Oh! not to be with her, what madness!

If but a red-lacquered skiff were mine,
With paddles strewn over with pearls so fine,
Then would I pass the river,
And dwell with my love for ever!

To the new blown rose the bulbul Spake this word at break of day,
" Leave disdain, for, like thee, many Here have bloomed and passed away. "

Laughingly the rose made answer, " Vexed we are not by the truth;
" But hard words to the Beloved Never should the lover say. "

Never was Love's fragrance wafted To his palate who his cheek
On the threshold of the winehouse Never in the dust did lay.

Those who covet wine of rubies From the jewelled cup of Love,
Many a pearl and many a jacinth With the eyelash pierce must they.

Where in spring the sweetest flowers
Fill Mount Kaminabi's bowers,
Where in autumn, dyed with red,
Each ancient maple rears its head,
And Aska's flood, with sedges lin'd,
As a belt the mound doth bind: —
There see my heart, — a reed that sways,
Nor aught but love's swift stream obeys,
And now, if, like the dew, dear maid,
Life must fade, then let it fade :
My secret love is not in vain,
For thou lov'st me back again.

The sea of Love a sea is, Whereunto shore is not;
There, saving soul-surrender, Resource in store is not.

Affright us not with Reason's Forbidments, but bring wine:
With us in credit yonder Apparitor is not.

Each moment that thou givest The heart to Love is good;
Need, in good works, of praying, Direction for, is not.

Ask thou thine eye who slew us O soul of mine, the blame
For this to lay at Heaven's Or Fortune's door is not.

Thy face with pure eyes only, New-moon like, can one see:

In a vacant mood the phrase came to me —
Alas! I neglected to make it mine —
It may have been jocund, or deep and gloomy:
It is gone, and has left no trace or sign.
It is gone, and it might have been the line
That in all men's memories would remain:
It is vanished, and never again will shine —
O lovely lyrical lost refrain!

Though Apollo's golden sandal shoe me,
Dionysos pour me his purpling wine,

After the morning and the evening blushed
Obedient to His rod,
'Twas then the daring thought of Adam flushed
The veiled brow of God;

But ere the maiden-mother of the race
In His mind lay unfurled,
Whose beauty, later, for a moment's space
Made God forget His world.

The sullen Earth was as an iron lyre
With leaden chords forlorn;
The air was empty of all tense desire, —
E'en Hope had not been born:

Then she, whose coming thrilled the ether through
Where all before was dearth,

I loved thee once, Atthis, long ago .

The head of our purpose cleaves To the Loved One's threshold-sill,
For all that o'er us doth pass Betideth but of her will.

The like of the loveliness Of the Friend I've never seen,
Albeit with moon and sun Her cheek I mirror still.

How shall the East wind loosen The stress of our straitened heart,
That, fold upon fold, like the rosebud, Is twisted up with ill?

I'm not the only swillpot In this sot-burning world:
How many a head in this workshop Is pot-clay for wine to fill!

Of the love of her my heart the holy place is;
Mirror-holder this mine eye unto her face is.

I that bow not down to this world nor the other,
See, my neck beneath the burden of her grace is.

Thou the Touba, I the shape of the Beloved;
Each man's way of thought according to his case is.

In that sanctuary what am I, where the zephyr:
Curtain-holder of her honour's altar-space is?

Skirt-polluted an I be, what matter? Witness
To her purity the whole world, good and base, is.