love poetry

ADDRESSED TO MISS C — AM, OF BRISTOL

A S Spring now approaches with all his gay train,
And scatters his beauties around the green plain,
Come then, my dear charmer, all scruples remove,
Accept of my passion, allow me to love.

Without the soft transports which love must inspire,
Without the sweet torment of fear and desire,
Our thoughts and ideas are never refined,
And nothing but winter can reign in the mind.

But love is the blossom, the spring of the soul,

Go , gentle Muse, and to my fair one say,
My ardent passion mocks the feeble lay,
That love's pure flame my panting breast inspires,
And friendship warms me with her chaster fires.
Yes, more my fond esteem, my matchless love,
Than the soft turtle's, cooing in the grove;
More than the lark delights to mount the sky,
Then, sinkinGon the greensward, soft to lie;
More than the bird of eve, at close of day,
To pour in solemn solitude her lay;
More than grave Camplin with his deep-toned note,
To mouth the sacred service got by rote;

Girl in the glass! you smile, and yet
Your eyes are full of a vague regret,
For dreams are lovely and life is sad,
And when you were a child, what dreams you had!
Now, over your soul life's shadows pass,
Girl in the glass.

Girl in the Glass, an April day
Looks not more tearful, looks not more gay
Than your rose-flushed face with the wistful mouth.
For your Soul seeks Love, as a swallow flys south,
So, into your eyes Love's sorrows pass

A GAINST the wide clear, windows of your mind
My songs continually rush and beat
Like circling swallows in the summer days,
And with bound eyes, for Love has made them blind,
They sing in darkness of your beauty, Sweet,
And chant in shadow your perpetual praise.

And yet it is not love that makes them sad,
But Sorrow that stands ever by Delight
With bruised white blossoms in her weary hands,
Love tells her all his secrets mad and glad,
And she, with languid lips and eyes like night,

The strong wind on the unsheltered down
Shook loose her fluttering hair;
The very sun seemed glad to crown
The head of one so fair.

The Channel sang beneath blue skies
Its sounding song, and she,
With love's light laughter in her eyes,
Made earth as heaven for me.

Five bourgeois faces as the reeling train
Plunged headlong into darkness and the damp,
Glared in the dull light of the yellow lamp,
Five faces not indicative of brain.

Three slept and one stared at the window-pane;
One read a book and rose at times to stamp
A foot that seemed uneasy with the cramp.
The wheels ground out a foolish song's refrain.

And though each time the tune came round anew
I sped a furlong further, love, from you,
I could not sorrow then for love's eclipse.

A PRIL has whispered to the rose,
O flower, thy heart is deep and red,
Till evening let me lean my head
Between thy petals that unclose.

I murmured to my soul's delight,
Sweet love, thy heart is red and deep,
O take me in thine arms to sleep
Within thy bosom all the night!

I

H E waits at her door in the midnight;
A light in her window gleams,
A square in the dim great houses
That fairer than fancy seems.

But the days of his love are over,
They have passed to the past and in vain
He waits for her now in the silence
And the first faint fall of the rain.

II

He wandered through the lonely London night,
Her old sweet words of love rang in his ears,

Poor idols, how they fade and fall
Their changeful fanes within!
And only niches in the wall
Tell that a shrine has been.

And " Ah, " you cry, " then Love is nought,
And Faith is lifeless grown! "
But is this seeming unfaith wrought
By changefulness alone?

We love not what our idols are;
We worship what they seem.
And if we worshipped from afar,
We still might love and dream.

A star perchance were not a star
If one could reach the skies;
A touch tells what our idols are —

( A VERY LITTLE BODY .)

I F you had a little lover,
Little Kitten, —
A very little lover,
But dreadfully smitten, —
What would you say,
And what would you do,
If this little lover
Were littler than you?

To love one below you
Never is right;
How could you look up to
A man of less height?
And then a short-coming
Always is wrong.
If you loved him so little,
Could you love him long?

A lover should reach —
The reason, you see —