love poems for her

I AM inebriate with the sunlight's golden wine,
And I would love with an insensate fury!

Let me drain beauty even unto death!
Bring me a languid woman, perfumed, young,
Her dusky body hung with dazzling gems
And strange, exotic iridescent stuffs —
Her wanton eyes like thirsty summer moons.

Oh, I would love with an insensate fury!
Bring me a pale flower-boy,
White-limbed like a young heifer in a field,
His lips a-quiver with unknown desire. . . .
His soft throat virgin beneath my kiss,

Pray you, my master, let me keep my dream.
Of all sweet things have I not been bereft —
Of very youth, of very happiness?
Why should you covet this one fairing left?
Nay, grant me this. What slave could ask for less?
Pray you, my master, let me keep my dream.

Pray you, my master, leave to me this thing,
I, who was rich one day, to-day am poor
Beyond men's envying, save but for this,
This dream for whose glad sake I still endure;
All else you filched in that one Judas kiss.

I thought Love dead,
And saw him borne away,
One April day,
Unto a quiet mound,
And lying by his side I wound
A garland of white roses fair
In his hair,
And lilies sweet
For peace, I placed about his feet,
An ivy chaplet for his head;
I thought Love dead.

I thought Love dead,
And sang his requiem in tears
For many years.
All knew my pain and said:
" Yea. Love is dead! "

I thought Love dead;
One night I sought his lonely bier,
There were strange wind-songs near,

Was it the voice of the Spring or the voice of my love that called me
Out of the boughs of the birch-tree snowy with moonbeams?

Ah, it was sweet like the chant of a bee seeking honey,
Culling the nectar of dreams from a blossomy bosom!

Was it the face of the Spring or the face of my love that smiled on me,
Silvery pleading that swooned on the sea-scented breeze?

Ah, she was fair as a daffodil, golden, shimmering,
Her throat like a calyx woven of wonderful star-kisses!

As one who faring o'er a desert plain
Sees fountains clear in the mirage arise,
And, parched, longs the nectar sweet to gain
Which still before him flies —
So, wistfully, half doubting, half-believing,
Scornful of hope — yet hopeful, self-deceiving,
I thirst for love, which wastes before my eyes.

ASPHODEL

The children played at naming, every one
Her favorite blossom, in the mild June even;
When, at the last, the others having done,
A little maid — her years but numbered seven —

Stood shyly forth and answered in her turn:
" Pale violets I love, — and love full well
Red poppies, which the elves for torches burn, —
But for my own I choose — the asphodel."

I.

A lover often has been blessed
With a soft hand in secret pressed,
Or with a glance, or with a sigh,
Or with some other foolery
Of silent love.
II.

And should the nymph with roseate charms
Glide through night's darkness to his arms,
Nestling there while Scandal sleeps,
Sweet are the joys till daylight peeps
Of silent love.

III.

But bitter are the lover's woes

While pensive I thought on my love,
The moon on the mountain was bright;
And Philomel down in the grove
Broke sweetly the silence of night.

Oh, I wished that the tear-drop would flow!
But I felt too much anguish to weep;
Till, worn with the weight of my woe,
I sunk on my pillow to sleep.

Methought that my love as I lay,
His ringlets all clotted with gore,
In the paleness of death seemed to say,
" Alas! we must never meet more!

" Yes, yes, my beloved! we must part;

A WILD wind blows from out the angry sky
And all the clouds are tossed like thistle-down
Above the groaning branches of the trees;
For on this steel-cold night the earth is stirred
To shake away its rottenness; the leaves
Are shed like secret unremembered sins
In the great scourge of the great love of God....

Ere I was learned in the ways of love
I looked for it in green and pleasant lands,
In apple orchards and the poppy fields,
And peered among the silences of woods,
And meditated the shy notes of birds

SWEET IS THE BIRTH OF LOVE

Sweet is the birth of love, and the awaking,
The bashful dream, the faltering desire,
The vision fair — of all fair things partaking —
The wonder, the communicable fire:
Sweet is the need to give and to obtain, —
And sweet love's pain!