love poems for her

VIII.

O Love! within those golden vales,
Those genial airs where thou wast born;
Where Nature, listening thy soft tales,
Leans on the rosy breast of Morn:

Where the sweet Smiles, the Graces dwell,
And tender sighs the heart remove,
In silent eloquence to tell
Thy tale, O soul-subduing Love!

Ah! wherefore should grim Rage be nigh,

This is true Love, by that true Cupid got,
Which danceth galliards in your amorous eyes,
But to your frozen heart approacheth not;
Only your heart he dares not enterprize,
And yet through every other part he flies,
And everywhere he nimbly danceth now,
That in yourself, yourself perceive not how.

For your sweet beauty, daintily transfused
With due proportion throughout every part,
What is it but a dance where Love hath used
His finer cunning and more curious art;
Where all the elements themselves impart,

I have borne the anguish of love, which ask me not to describe:
I have tasted the poison of absence, which ask me not to relate.

Far through the world have I roved, and at length I have chosen
A sweet creature, a ravisher of hearts, whose name ask me not to disclose.

The flowings of my tears bedew her footsteps
In such a manner as ask me not to utter.

On yesterday night from her own mouth with my own ears I heard
Such words, as pray ask me not to repeat.

Why dost thou bite thy lip at me? What dost thou hint?

Love scorns degrees; the low he lifteth high,
The high he draweth down to that fair plain
Whereon, in his divine equality,
Two loving hearts may meet, nor meet in vain;
'Gainst such sweet levelling Custom cries amain,
But o'er its harshest utterance one bland sigh,
Breathed passion-wise, doth mount victorious still,
For Love, earth's lord, must have his lordly will.

The love of men for each other — so tender, heroic, constant;
That has come all down the ages, in every clime, in every nation,
Always so true, so well assured of itself, overleaping barriers of age, of rank, of distance,
Flag of the camp of Freedom;
The love of women for each other — so rapt, intense, so confiding-close, so burning-passionate,
To unheard deeds of sacrifice, of daring and devotion, prompting;
And (not less) the love of men for women, and of women for men — on a newer greater scale than it has hitherto been conceived;

Some say Love,
Foolish Love,
Doth rule and govern all the gods:
I say Love,
Inconstant Love,
Sets men's senses far at odds.
Some swear Love,
Smooth-fac'd Love,
Is sweetest sweet that men can have:
I say Love,
Sour Love,
Makes virtue yield as beauty's slave:
A bitter sweet, a folly worst of all,
That forceth wisdom to be folly's thrall.

Love is sweet.
Wherein sweet?
In fading pleasures that do pain?
Beauty sweet,
Is that sweet,
That yieldeth sorrow for a gain?

Through the shrubs as I can cracke,
For my Lambes pretty ones,
Mongst many little ones,
Nymphes I meane, whose haire was blacke,
As the Crow,
Like the snow,
Her face and browes shine I weene,
I saw a little one,
A bonny pretty one,
As bright, buxome, and as sheene,
As was she
On her knee,
That lulled the God, whose arrowes warmes,
Such merry little ones,
Such faire fac'de pretty ones,
As dally in loves chiefest harmes:
Such was mine,
Whose gray eyne
Made me love. I gan to woo

Tell me, dearest, what is Love? Luce:
'Tis a lightning from above,
'Tis an arrow, 'tis a fire,
'Tis a boy they call desire,
'Tis a smile
Doth beguile Jasper:
The poor hearts of men that prove.
Tell me more, are women true? Luce:
Some love change, and so do you. Jasper:
Are they fair, and never kind? Luce:
Yes, when men turn with the wind. Jasper:
Are they froward? Luce:
Ever toward
Those that love, to love anew.

CXXIX

Dear friend, far off, my lost desire,
So far, so near in woe and weal;
O loved the most, when most I feel
There is a lower and a higher;

Known and unknown; human, divine;
Sweet human hand and lips and eye;
Dear heavenly friend that canst not die,
Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine;

Strange friend, past, present, and to be;

CXXVIII

The love that rose on stronger wings,
Unpalsied when he met with Death,
Is comrade of the lesser faith
That sees the course of human things.

No doubt vast eddies in the flood
Of onward time shall yet be made,
And throned races may degrade;
Yet O ye mysteries of good,

Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear,
If all your office had to do