love poetry

High-hearted Surrey! I do love your ways,
Venturous, frank, romantic, vehement,
All with inviolate honor sealed and blent,
To the axe-edge that cleft your soldier-bays:
I love your youth, your friendships, whims, and frays;
Your strict, sweet verse, with its imperious bent,
Heard as in dreams from some old harper's tent,
And stirring in the listener's brain for days.
Good father-poet! if to-night there be
At Framlingham none save the north-wind's sighs,
No guard but moonlight's crossed and trailing spears,

A Robyn,
Jolly Robyn,
Tell me how thy leman doeth,
And thou shalt knowe of myn.

'My lady is unkynde, perde.'
Alack! why is she so?
'She loveth an other better than me;
And yet she will say no.'

I fynde no such doublenes;
I fynde women true;
My lady loveth me dowtles,
And will change for no newe.

'Thou art happy while that deeth last:
But I say, as I fynde,
That women's love is but a blast,
And torneth with the wynde.'

Suche folkes can take no harme by love,

(Parvati at her lattice)
O Love! were you a basil-wreath to twine
among my tresses,
A jewelled clasp of shining gold to bind around my sleeve,
O Love! were you the keora's soul that haunts
my silken raiment,
A bright, vermilion tassel in the girdles that I weave;

O Love! were you the scented fan
that lies upon my pillow,
A sandal lute, or silver lamp that burns before my shrine,
Why should I fear the jealous dawn
that spreads with cruel laughter,
Sad veils of separation between your face and mine?

Love, wilt thou love me still when wintry streak
Steals on the tresses of autumnal brow;
When the pale rose hath perished in my cheek,
And those are wrinkles that are dimples now?
Wilt thou, when this fond arm that here I twine
Round thy dear neck to help thee in thy need,
Droops faint and feeble, and hath need of thine,
Be then my prop, and not a broken reed?
When thou canst only glean along the Past,
And garner in thy heart what Time doth leave,
O, wilt thou then to me, love, cling as fast

Oh that I could write a story
Of love's dealing with affection!
How he makes the spirit sorry
That is touch'd with his infection.

But he doth so closely wind him,
In the plaits of will ill-pleased,
That the heart can never find him
Till it be too much diseased.

'Tis a subtle kind or spirit
Of a venom-kind of nature,
That can, like a coney-ferret,
Creep unawares upon a creature.

Never eye that can behold it,
Though it worketh first by seeing;
Nor conceit that can unfold it,

My heart forgot its God for love of you,
And you forgot me, other loves to learn;
Now through a wilderness of thorn and rue
Back to my God I turn.

And just because my God forgets the past,
And in forgetting does not ask to know
Why I once left His arms for yours, at last
Back to my God I go.

A prayer of love, O Father!
A fair and flowery way
Life stretches out before these
On this their marriage day.
O pour Thy choicest blessing,
Withhold no gift of Thine,
Fill all their world with beauty
And tenderness divine!

A prayer of love, O Father!
This holy love and pure,
That thrills the soul to rapture,
O may it e'er endure!
The richest of earth's treasures,
The gold without alloy,
The flower of faith unfading,
The full, the perfect joy!

No mist of tears or doubting,

Give place, ye lovers, here before
That spent your boasts and brags in vain;
My lady's beauty passeth more
The best of yours, I dare well sayn,
Than doth the sun the candle-light,
Or brightest day the darkest night.

And thereto hath a troth as just
As had Penelope the fair;
For what she saith, ye may it trust,
As it by writing sealed were;
And virtues hath she many mo
Than I with pen have skill to show.

I could rehearse, if that I wold,
The whole effect of Nature's plaint,

Because my love is quick to come and go-
A little here, and then a little there-
What use are any words of mine to swear
My heart is stubborn, and my spirit slow
Of weathering the drip and drive of woe?
What is my oath, when you have but to bare
My little, easy loves; and I can dare
Only to shrug, and answer, "They are so"?

You do not know how heavy a heart it is
That hangs about my neck- a clumsy stone
Cut with a birth, a death, a bridal-day.
Each time I love, I find it still my own,

If perchance, you ever remember how we were,
Then in the soft glow
of same moonlight
Cast a glance at a shining star.

And if that star
Travels the wasteland of space
and falls to your feet.

Know, it was an image of my heart.
And if the star stays on high

But then it is inconceivable
That you cast a glance at anything

But that it would splinter and crack
Lose its being.

If perchance, you ever remember how we were,
Place a soft hand on the passing breeze