love poems for her

WHEREIN THE REFLECTION THAT POSTERITY WILL ENVY HIS LOVE CONSOLES HIM SOMEWHAT

Sweet anger, sweet disdain and peace as sweet,
Sweet ill, sweet anguish, burden sweet I bear,
Sweet accents sweet to listen to, sweet snare
That sets the soul on fire or curbs its heat.
Be still, my soul! Accept your bitter meat;
And all the acid sweets that fill your fare
Mix with that sweetest bliss, that dear despair,
Softly saluting her, " Thou Paraclete! "
Haply hereafter envious youth shall sigh:
" For sake of that superlative loveliness

WHEREIN LOVE'S AGONY DEVOURS APACE, YET HE CANNOT REPROACH HER

The vulture flames that on my heart's heart feed
Are pitiless; with stony eyes and narrow
They search, and so consume me to the marrow,
So waste my veins, it is a ghost they bleed.
Death, with his barbarous arm poised for the deed,
As heaven thunders or the lions harrow,
Pursues me like a hawk that hunts the sparrow,
While I yield, knowing none will hear or heed.
And yet, were Love and Pity friends, they might
A double rampart for deliverance rear

WHEREIN HE DILATES UPON THE STOLEN GLOVE

O lovely hand, that dost my heart enclose
And my whole life in a small space confine!
O hand, where Heaven and Nature both combine
Their art and ardours in supreme repose!
Sweet fingers, purest pearls of orient rose
To my wounds only cruel and malign!
Does Love permit this mercy that you shine
Unsheathed before me — Love that feels and knows?
O glove, most dear, most white, most delicate,
The perfect sheath for rose-stained ivory,
Where on this earth can mortal consummate

WHEREIN LOVE LINGERS WITH HIM, WATCHING LAURA WALK ABROAD

Here stand we, Love, our glory to regard:
Behold how she surpasses Nature! Stare
The while such sweetness sheds its showers there!
Such drench of dazzling heaven is earth's reward!
Look — purple, pearls and gold in yard on yard
Glitter and richly twist and weave a snare!
How her feet twinkle, her eyes burn the air,
Flashing the dark hills all alive and starred!
The green turf and the thousand-tinted flowers
Under that ancient holm-oak's high pavilion,

WHEREIN LAURA IS GRAVELY ILL

Love, Nature, and that sweet soul's gentleness
Where every pure and lofty virtue dwells,
Are leagued against my peace. Love strains and swells
His malice to destroy me or distress;
The threads which bind the slender nakedness
Of Nature to the earth are weak. Farewells
To the world move that proud heart which rebels
Humbly against the burdens that oppress.
So falters and so fades her spirit's power
Which should inform the flesh like some white flower,

WHEREIN HE EXPATIATES UPON LOVE AND JEALOUSY

Capricious Love now locks the heart in frost,
Now fills the marrow of the heart with fire,
Until we cannot say if hope inspire,
Or fear; if flame has won or ice has lost.
In June I quake and chatter, and am tossed
With flame in mid-December, torn entire
With jealousy, or thrilled with sweet desire,
As if she cloaked some rival to my cost.
But my sick heat consumes me day and night
The more as being all my own; nor thought
Nor poet's tongue can grasp the grim delight

WHEREIN HE URGES UPON A FRIEND THAT MEEKNESS WHICH IS THE ONLY ARMOUR AGAINST LOVE'S GORGON LOOK

When my sweet foe, so often barricaded
In tall contempt, incites me past controlling,
One solace is vouchsafed, one sure consoling,
One strength alone by which my soul is aided:
Wherever her eyes — which would leave my life shaded
In utter darkness — in red anger rolling,
Meet mine, such true humility, such cajoling
Replies, their wrath to meekness is persuaded.
Ah, were it otherwise, less could I dare

WHEREIN LOVE'S SLAVE REMEMBERS

That time and place loom like a promontory
Which marked me manacled and branded so,
Love's hand upon my wrists and the bright blow
Of branding irons that made my pain a glory.
My heart, packed with his flame, like the soft fury
Of those dull moans my ears, my heart well know,
Is so ablaze, its very torments glow:
On these I live, my bitter golden story.
That single sun which burst upon my sight,
Burns with his blinding shafts my soul still taken

HUNGER FOR HER IS PREFERABLE TO HAPPINESS WITH ANOTHER

Ill-starred was I the morning I was born
(If that the constellations have such sway),
Hard was the cradle where I cried that day
And hard the earth by my young footsteps worn;
But harder still, the Lady whose bright scorn
With savage Love conspiring struck dismay
Into my heart... Her eyes, and only they,
Can cure the wound... Her eyes still find me torn.
O cruel Love, thou art, if anything,
More kind: for she, indifferent to the flame

WHEREIN HE TREATS OF LOVE IN EXTREMIS

Remarking in those orbs the orb of light
Where Love serenely rules that agitates
My own, the sick heart quits the soul's dim gates
Once more upon her paradisal flight;
Perceiving, then, how bitter-sweet her plight,
And the world-tangling web which she creates,
She sighs for thwarted love and hesitates,
Recalling the curb's tooth, the fanged spur's bite.
By these two mixed irreconcilables she,
With frozen or with fiery wishes filled,
Stands torn forever in a blind dispute: