love poems for her

" H IPPOLITOS . "

Phaidra . O Women, dwellers in this portal-seat
Of Pelops' land, gazing toward my Crete,
How oft, in other days than these, have I
Thro night's long hours thought of man's misery,
And how this life is wreckt! And, to mine eyes,
Not in man's knowledge, not in wisdom, lies
The lack that makes for sorrow. Nay, we scan
And know the right — for wit hath many a man —
But will not to the last end strive and serve.
For some grow too soon weary, and some swerve

In a castel semly sett,
Strenthed wele widuten lett
þis castel es of love and grace.
Both of socure and of solace;
Apon þe marche it standes traist,
Of enmye dredis it na fraist,
It es hy sett apon a cragg,
Gray and hard, widuten hagg.
Dounward es it polischt bright,
þat it may neyhe na warid wiht,
Ne na maner gin of were
May cast þartill it forto dere,
Wid wallis closid four of stan,
þat fayrer in þis world es nan.
Baylis has þis castel thre,
Wid wallis thrinne, semly to se,

XVI

It nods and curtseys and recovers
When the wind blows above,
The nettle on the graves of lovers
That hanged themselves for love.

The nettle nods, the wind blows over,
The man, he does not move,
The lover of the grave, the lover
That hanged himself for love.

WHEREIN HE INVOKES THE AID OF LOVE TO SING HER WORTHILY

Ah Love, assist my faint and foolish brain!
Pillar the style, sustain the lyric portal!
Help me to sing of her who is immortal,
A citizen of the celestial reign!
Permit, Lord, that my verses may attain
The reach of her proud praise (presumptuous mortal!)
Whose passing our poor world must now deplore till
The Golden Trumpet give her back again.
Love answers: " In myself and Heaven the best,
By converse pure and precept sage and holy,

WHEREIN HE CRAVES THE SWIFT RECOMPENSE OF HER INTERCESSION AS REWARD FOR HIS TRUE AND LONG LOVE

Lady, that blissfully with God may glitter
By virtue of surpassing charms and graces,
Thou art enthroned now in the golden places,
With more than pearls adorned, with purple fitter
A princes of the Lord: Ah, loveliest sitter
On the celestial dais, through Him that traces
The secret breast, regard my heart whose basis
Of love and faith my songs prove, my tears bitter.
Know, also, at the last how my heart only

WHEREIN THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD CAME AND WENT WITH LAURA

Amid a lovely thousand one I saw,
Whom seeing — and these shapes no fancy bred —
Instantly I was seized by amorous dread,
Then flamed with ardour, then was hushed with awe.
No fleck was in her, never mortal flaw,
No earthly happiness her hunger fed;
My soul, constrained to follow where she led,
Flinched at the blue pavilions of His law.
Alas, her sweep outsoared all wings, all cries,
And in a little space she sped from sight:

WHEREIN HE HOPES SHE MAY REWARD THE OPEN PURITY AND PERMANENCE OF HIS LOVE

If honest love can merit recompense,
If pity still can do what she has done,
Mercy is mine, for clearer than the sun
My faith wins earth's and Laura's audience.
She feared me on a time; now confidence,
Though fearful to believe, believes me none
The less; where word or look before had won,
Now speaks my whole soul, stripped of all pretence.
And so I hope the high stars may resound
With her sighs doubling mine, on me the while

THE SENSE FAINTS PICTURING HER

The high new wonder that enriched our days,
Dawned on our world, but would not dally there,
Heaven revealed, only to make men stare,
Then snatched back in its own bright world to blaze:
That to posterity I paint and praise
Her beauty is Love's will, Love's early snare;
Though now wit, time, pen, ink are weak to bear
The lovely burden and the long delays.
My rhymes pulse slowly for all Love's impelling;
I feel it, and whoever here and now,

WHEREIN HE ENTREATS HER TO GLANCE DOWN ON HIM AND HIS GRIEF

O lovely spirit, flown from a lovelier snare
Than any Nature knitted in her loom,
Look down from thy new brightness, see the gloom
That eats my heart out, pity my despair!
The false fog that deluded once I tear
Asunder from my soul; no dreads consume
Thee now: O turn thine eyes, regard my doom
And drink the fire with which I drench the air!
Gaze on this rock from which the Sorga flows —
Dost thou not see me bowed with my black load,

WHEREIN HE REVEALS HIS ANGUISH TO ALL SUCH AS HAD WITNESSED HIS PREVIOUS DELIGHT

Love, that in lovelier days would wander here,
Walking and whispering by these mutual shores,
While the glad waters in green corridors
Listened to music she made doubly dear;
Ye flowers, leaves, grass, glades, grottoes, tranquil air,
Soft valleys, soaring hills and golden floors,
Ye trackless forests, rock-piled auditors
That often shared Love's laughter or Love's tear;
Ye coal-eyed nymphs that haunt this leafy place;