love poems for her

Once Love was plain before me, for at night,
Sleeping, my eyes were sundered, and, awake,
Like some sweet moon reflected in a lake,
Surrounded with a silver stream of light,
I saw my lady's presence flame in sight,
And, after, came a sense of roses cast
In soft encompassing luxuriance fast
Over my silent body, and a bright
And strange unveiling of the spirit's form
And immortality made visible:
And death and sin and feebleness and hell,
Being black, shone white beneath the fragrant storm

If I may not see thee much,
Sweet at least it is to touch
Hand and hand;
Sweet at least it is to know
That a heart can understand
And that sympathy can grow.

If I may not win thee now,
I can worship thy pure brow
Where the hair
Coils so lovingly for crown —
Can rejoice to find thee fair,
And may win for thee renown.

That is much to do indeed:
If the world shall give its heed
As it goes
With swift footstep on its way,

I.

The flowers that as they fade fling parting kisses tender
From valley and hill and lea
Towards Autumn, know that Spring will mark fresh blossoms splendour;
But when Spring comes, love, I shall not have thee.

II.

The blue waves now along September gold shores gleaming
Will change to an angry sea;
But when the next Spring's ocean smiles, with eyes love-dreaming,
It will not smile on thee.

III.

Thou art gone! thou art gone! thou art gone! — And I, I may not follow!

This is the poet's doom: to love all joys,
To mark them fading, and to mourn them dead.
To see the rose at day-break blushing red:
At night to watch the wind with wanton noise
Scattering the petals from their perfect poise, —
Strewing with pale pink gems the brown cold bed;
To marvel at some woman's curve of head,
Till death both body and carven brow destroys.

This is the poet's doom — far more than others
To feel the life, and so the death far more:
To sing for the sweet sake of tuneless brothers

I.

" He that hath loved deserveth not to die. "
So thought I; and a sudden vision came
Of birds of splendour, crowned with crimson flame,
Wings touched with brilliance of the azure sky,
Breasts sapphire, throats of emerald, flying high
In the old forest-haunts without a name, —
The sweet green palaces that shone the same
Millions of centuries ere a man was nigh.

What might be done if men were wise —
What glorious deeds, my suffering brother,
Would they unite,
In love and right,
And cease their scorn of one another?

Oppression's heart might be imbued
With kindling drops of loving-kindness,
And knowledge pour,
From shore to shore,
Light on the eyes of mental blindness.

All slavery, warfare, lies, and wrongs,

Death is my doom, awarded by Disdain,
A ling'ring death that will not let me die:
This length of life is length'ning of my pain,
And length of pain gets strength of pain thereby:
And strength of pain makes pain of longer last;
Ah, who hath tied my life to pain so fast?

And yet I seem as if I did but feign,
Or make my grief much greater than I need,
Whenas the care to hide my burning pain,
With secret sighs, constrains my heart to bleed:

Mine eyes have spent their tears, and now are dry:
My weary hand will guide my pen no more:
My voice is hoarse, and can no longer cry:
My head hath left no new complaints in store:
My heart is overburdened so with pain,
That sense of grief doth none therein remain.

The tears you see distilling from mine eyes,
My gentle Muse doth shed for this my grief;
The plaints you hear are her incessant cries,
By which she calls in vain for some relief.
She never parted since my grief begun;

All is not gold that shineth bright in show,
Nor every flower so good, as fair to sight;
The deepest streams, above do calmest flow
And strongest poisons oft the taste delight;
The pleasant bait doth hide the harmful hook,
And false deceit can lend a friendly look.

Love is the gold, whose outward hue doth pass,
Whose first beginnings goodly promise make
Of pleasures fair, and fresh as summer's grass,
Which neither sun can parch, nor wind can shake:
But when the mould should in the fire be tried,

Close your lids, unhappy eyes,
From the sight of such a change:
Love hath learned to despise;
Self-conceit hath made him strange:
Inward now his sight he turneth
With himself in love he burneth.

If abroad he beauty spy,
As by chance he looks abroad;
Or it is wrought by his eye,
Or forced out by painter's fraud:
Save himself, none fair he deemeth,
That himself too much esteemeth.

Coy disdain hath kindness' place,
Kindness forced to hide his head:
True desire is counted base;