love poems for her

AW EDDING O DE

The mountain-air has grown so still,
The silence maketh audible
Your very hearts; and strange and new
Your lonely voices seem to you;
While to your eyes,
By Love made wise,
The earth, the skies,
The stars, the dew,
Seem merely symbols of the True.
Nay, all the outer world, I wis,
Is as an empty chrysalis,
Wherein ye dwelt ere Love ye knew,
The Love who with a summer kiss
Made your wings burn and blossom through

Love is our Reason's Paradox, which still
Against the Judgment doth maintain the Will,
And governs by such arbitrary laws
It onely makes the Act our Liking's cause:
We have no brave revenge, but to forgo
Our full desires, and starve the Tyrant so.
They whom the rising blood tempts not to taste
Preserve a stock of Love can never waste;
When easie people who their wish enjoy
Like Prodigalls at once their wealth destroy.
Adam till now had stay'd in Paradise
Had his desires been bounded by his eyes:

My Saviour's risen from the Dead,
And lives enthron'd Above.
The Price of my Salvation's paid;
My Life is in His Love.

With holy Sabbaths and Peace
Hath me victorious Blest.
Lord, bring thou my Holiness,
To Victory and Rest.

Health, Bread , with Life , my God mee sends,
My Consort, Father, Friends;
Employment , with Free Speech and Fame ,
And Books to feed the Same.

For This , but most, for thy dear Son ,
My Thanks are now begun .
Help mee, Good God, to love and praise ,
And serve thee all my Dayes.

The Sin of my First Father is
Mine, the Just Law doth say,
The Sin of a Vile Nature , This
Doth unto me Convey.

Innumerable Sins I do
Hence madly Perpetrate;
Sins , which the Good I Have and Know;
Doth sadly aggravate.

But, O my Precious CHRIST, I see,
THOU art my Surety made:
A Full Obedience was by Thee
To Thy Great Father Paid.

(Double ballade sur le mesme propos)

Go, love as much as love you will,
And forth to feasts and banquets stray,
Yet at the end there comes the bill,
And broken heads at break of day.
For light loves make men beasts of prey,
They bent towards idols, Solomon,
From Samson took his eyes away.
Happy is he not so undone.

For this did Orpheus, who could thrill
With pipe and flute the mountains grey,
Come near to death where stands to kill
Four-headed Cerberus at bay;
Also Narcissus, fair as May,

For a song, or a dance, over all the gay plain,
Young Damon was justly esteem'd the best swain;
Yet a great imperfection his mind had impress'd,
He thought beauty a trifle and love but a jest.

As often young Collin to him wou'd repair,
And sighing relate all his anguish and care;
He laugh'd at his folly, and said from his breast,
He thought beauty a trifle, and love but a jest.

Sly Cupid determin'd to take down his pride,
Who impiously dar'd sacred love to deride;
An arrow well aim'd sent twang at his breast,

Recitative .

As on a flowry bank young Thirsis lay;
Thirsis the young, the airy, and the gay,
Who lov'd fair Phaebe with a constant heart,
Devoid of flattery, and devoid of art;
By love inspir'd, he thus unloos'd his tongue,
And to the Cyprian deity he sung.

AIR

Goddess of the Cyprian grove,
Queen of beauty, queen of love;
To thy shrine behold I bend,

Bethink thee, love, what joy it is
When gales of passion blow,
If that fierce ecstasy of bliss
Two souls united know.

No noise of war, no thought of fear,
No shame shall make us part,
If once I take my dearest dear
And clasp her to my heart.

May Vulcan's chains be on us laid
When that glad hour has come,
Such as he erst in Lemnos made
Within his smithy home.

Together bound may it be mine
To press thee in my arms,
To feel thy hands about me twine
And know thy loving charms.

Again my lamp is burning dim,
Again the weary wick I trim,
And yet my sweet delays.
By the great queen of love she swore
To-night would see her at my door
But now she heedless stays.
Ah, would the flame that burns my breast
Might with my lamp sink soft to rest!