love poems for her

On hearing a song in praise of a lady's beauty

'Tis not the lily-brow I prize,
Nor roseate cheeks, nor sunny eyes,
Enough of lilies and of roses!
A thousand-fold more dear to me
The gentle look that Love discloses, —
The look that Love alone can see!
[1820s]

As late in wreaths gay flowers I bound,
Beneath some roses Love I found,
And by his little frolic pinion
As quick as thought I seiz'd the minion,
Then in my Cup the prisoner threw,
And drank him in its sparkling dew:
And sure I feel my angry Guest
Fluttering his Wings within my breast!

A PICTURE BY BARRY

THE shade for me, but over thee
The lingering sunshine still;
As, smiling, to the silent stream
Comes down the singing rill.

So come to me, my little one, —
My years with thee I share,
And mingle with a sister's love
A mother's tender care.

But keep the smile upon thy lip,
The trust upon thy brow;

Wae is my heart, and the tear 's in my e'e;
Lang, lang joy 's been a stranger to me:
Forsaken and friendless my burden I bear,
And the sweet voice o' pity ne'er sounds in my ear.

Love, thou hast pleasures, and deep hae I loved;
Love thou hast sorrows, and sair hae I proved:
But this bruised heart that now bleeds in my breast,
I can feel by its throbbings will soon be at rest. —

O, if I were, where happy I hae been;
Down by yon stream and yon bonie castle-green:
For there he is wandring, and musing on me,

Tune, Ye're welcome Charlie Stewart

Chorus

O Lovely Polly Stewart!
O charming Polly Stewart!
There 's ne'er a flower that blooms in May
That 's hauf sae sweet as thou art. —

The flower it blaws, it fades, it fa's,
And art can ne'er renew it;
But Worth and Truth eternal youth
Will gie to Polly Stewart. —
O lovely &c.

May he, whase arms shall fauld thy charms,

(179-)

" Come, let's to Culliford Hill and Wood,
And watch the squirrels climb,
And look in sunny places there
For shepherds' thyme."

— " Can I have heart for Culliford Wood,
And hill and bank and tree,
Who know and ponder over all
Things done by me!"

— " Then Dear, don hat, and come along:
We'll strut the Royal strand;

When the maiden leaves off teasing,
Then the man may leave off pleasing:
Yea, 'tis sign,
Wet or fine,
She will love him without ceasing
With a love there's no appeasing.
Is it so?

(Song)

I said: " O let me sing the praise
Of her who sweetly racks my days, —
Her I adore;
Her lips, her eyes, her moods, her ways!"

In miseries of pulse and pang
I strung my harp, and straightway sang
As none before: —
To wondrous words my quavers rang!

Thus I let heartaches lilt my verse,
Which suaged and soothed, and made disperse
The smarts I bore

(Song)

This is the last; the very, very last!
Anon, and all is dead and dumb,
Only a pale shroud over the past,
That cannot be
Of value small or vast,
Love, then to me!

I can say no more: I have even said too much.
I did not mean that this should come:

I waited at home all the while they were boating together —
My wife and my near neighbour's wife:
Till there entered a woman I loved more than life,
And we sat and sat on, and beheld the uprising dark weather,
With a sense that some mischief was rife.

Tidings came that the boat had capsized, and that one of the ladies