love poems for her

AN EXAMINATION .

Were I so mad as I have been of yore
I would be happy: mad with Beauty's eyes;
Mad with the voice of one I could adore,
And the sweet music of her soft replies:
Mad with the charms of a serene bright face;
Possessed, and inly haunted by the grace
Of some fair creature, in her form and mind
The star and paragon of all her kind.

For, if I were so happy-mad again,
I'd live anew. I'd feed upon delights;
I'd find enraptured frenzy in a pain;

VERBAL LOVE .

If love be made of words, as woods of trees,
Who more beloved than I?
If love be hot where true desire doth freeze,
Who more than she doth fry?
Are drones that make no honey counted bees?
Is running water dry?
Is that a gainful trade that has no fees?
He live, that dead doth lie?
What else but blind is he that nothing sees?
But deaf that hears no cry?
Such is her vowed love to me,

Reason and Love lately at strife contended,
Whose right it was to have my mind's protection.
Reason on his side Nature's will pretended;
Love's title was my Mistress' rare perfection.
Of power to end this strife, each makes election:
Reason's pretence discoursive thoughts defended;
But Love soon brought those thoughts into subjection
By Beauty's troops, which on my saint depended.
Yet since to rule the mind was Reason's duty,
On this condition it by Love was rendered;
That endless praise by Reason should be tendered,

IMITATED FROM THE FRENCH .

Yes, these are the scenes where with Iris I stray'd,
But short was her sway for so lovely a maid!
In the bloom of her youth to a cloister she run,
In the bloom of her graces too fair for a nun!
Ill-grounded, no doubt, a devotion must prove,
So fatal to beauty, so killing to love!

Yes, these are the meadows, the shrubs, and the plains,
Once the scene of my pleasures, the scene of my pains;
How many soft moments I spent in this grove!

" Break ev'ry yoke; " the Gospel cries,
" And let th' oppress'd go free; "
Let ev'ry burden'd captive rise,
And taste sweet Liberty.

Lord! when shall man thy voice obey,
And rend each iron chain?
Oh! when shall Love its golden sway
O'er all the earth maintain?

Send thy good Spirit from above,
And melt th' oppressor's heart;
Send swift deliv'rance to the slave,
And bid his woes depart.

With joy and gladness crown his day,
And fill his heart with love;

I told my nymph, I told her true,
My fields were small, my flocks were few,
While falt'ring accents spoke my fear,
That Flavia might not prove sincere.

Of crops destroy'd by vernal cold,
And vagrant sheep that left my fold;
Of these she heard, yet bore to hear;
And is not Flavia then sincere?

How, changed by Fortune's fickle wind,
The friends I loved became unkind;
She heard, and shed a generous tear;
And is not Flavia then sincere?

How, if she deign my love to bless,

WRITTEN AT OXFORD, WHEN YOUNG .

Shall Love alone for ever claim
An universal right to fame,
An undisputed sway?
Or has not Music equal charms,
To fill the breast with strange alarms.
And make the world obey?

The Thracian bard, as poets tell,
Could mitigate the powers of hell,
E'en Pluto's nicer ear:
His arts, no more than Love's, we find
To deities or men confined,

My land is a woman who knows
Not the child at her breast.
All her quest
Hath been gold.
All her joys, all her woes
With the thin, yellow leaf are unrolled.
And here is my grief that no longer she cares
For the tumult that crowds in a rune
When the white curving throat of a cataract bares
In a song to the high floating moon.
I am Caneo,
The poet she loves not, grown bold.
Bold am I as all men grow bold
Who wash themselves long in the sun:
I know what she lost when she gathered the gold

O charity! thou heav'nly grace,
All-tender, soft, and kind,
A friend to all the human race,
To all that's good inclin'd!

The man of charity extends
To all his helping hand;
His kindred, neighbors, foes, and friends,
His pity may command.

He aids the poor in their distress;
He hears when they complain;
With tender heart delights to bless,
And lessen all their pain.

The sick, the pris'ner, deaf, and blind,
And all the sons of grief,
In him a benefactor find;

How blest are they whom mutual passions move
To seal a contract at the shrine of love;
From whose fond hearts the same affections flow,
To join in pleasure, and partake of woe.
If thro' life's course full prosp'rous blows the gale,
And fortune revels in the swelling sail;
One heart expands to see the other fill,
Whilst each anticipates its partner's will.
One just is pleas'd as th'other teems with joy,
And mutual pleasures flow without alloy.
Their wish, when death the busy scene wou'd close,