love poetry

" Dearly loved, devoted Sita! daughter of a royal line,
Part we now, for years of wand'ring in the pathless woods is mine,

For my father, promise-fettered, to Kaikeyi yields the sway,
And she wills her son anointed, — fourteen years doth Rama stray,

But before I leave thee, Sita, in the wilderness to rove,
Yield me one more tender token of thy true and trustful love!

Serve my crowned brother, Sita, as a faithful, duteous dame,
Tell him not of Rama's virtues, tell him not of Rama's claim,

With his wedded sons and daughters and his guard in bright array,
To the famed and fair Ayodhya, Dasa-ratha held his way,

And they reached the ancient city decked with banners bright and brave,
And the voice of drum and trumpet hailed the home-returning brave,

Fragrant blossoms strewed the pathway, song of welcome filled the air,
Joyous men and merry women issued forth in garments fair,

And they lifted up their faces and they waved their hands on high,
And they raised the voice of welcome as their righteous king drew nigh.

LOVE AND LIFE

Thy hand I press,
And am not much afraid:
Though danger lie in wait in every glade,
Thou, Love, hast might to comfort and caress
My helplessness.

The way is steep;
But thou wilt soothe its pain;
And when at last the utmost height we gain,
To the soft shelter of thy wings I'll creep,
And sleep — and sleep.

The way is long;

LOVE AND DEATH

A MOMENT , Death! — only a moment more!
She is my all; have pity! stay thy hand!
Behold, a fearful suppliant I stand! —
Take not away what thou canst not restore!

At thy approach the birds have ceased to sing,
The roses of my lintel droop and pine,
The genial sun itself doth coldly shine,
And in thy shadow all seems darkening.

That thou art merciless, as men declare,

Immortal Love, too high for my possessing, —
Yet, lower than thee, where shall I find repose?
Long in my youth I sang the morning rose,
By earthly things the heavenly pattern guessing!
Long fared I on, beauty and love caressing,
And finding in my heart a place for those
Eternal fugitives; the golden close
Of evening folds me, still their sweetness blessing.

Oh, happy we, the first-born heirs of nature,
For whom the Heavenly Sun delays his light!
He by the sweets of every mortal creature

" AN evil thing is honor, " once of old
The saddest of Italian shepherds sang,
And on his mouth the immortal lyric sprang
That through all ages pours the age of gold:
" Not that the earth untilled her harvests rolled,
The rose no thorn, the serpent had no fang,
The seAno furrow, nowhere ever rang
The battle, but that love was uncontrolled. "

The reminiscence of all lost desire
That love-defrauded hearts dream on for aye,
Hangs in the words, and rises from the lyre,
Whose ecstasy fails not unto this day.

In what a glorious substance did they dream
Who first embodied immortality,
And in warm marble gave this world to see
The earthly art that lifts heaven-high its beam!
Of things that only to the spirit seem
They wrought the eternal stuff of memory,
And the invisible divinity
That they so loved, did in their temples gleam.

I have no art to deify the stone,
Nor genius, later born, to limn or paint;
No instrumental music do I own,
Of choiring angel or ecstatic saint;
Best by its frailties here is true love known,

" LOVE purifies his acts, " my lady said,
" As first Apollo in his Castaly
His votaries dipped, and in thy turn dipped thee,
And healed thee of thy wounds of hardihead,
Whom great desires into great perils led
And made thee bonds even of thy liberty;
True service of the god, whate'er it be,
Doth in the action heavenly pardon shed.

" Only great sorrows can him greatly bless
Who shall from great ideals his nature draw;
Who doth no other lord than love confess,
And aye shall own not any other law,

Well from the first I knew how long deferred
My rapture, unaccomplished here below;
Yet must I upon all the winds that blow
Speak to all creatures my adoring word,
So burning in my bosom's depth was stirred
The power of loving; loving must I go,
Though crowning of desire I shall not know,
A soul enamored, of the people heard.

All of my lady is this spreading fire,
And mystical the quality thereof,
That, parted farthest, unto her goes nigher,
And seeming most to stoop, most springs above,

She is not a pale visionary thing;
She cometh not to me in dream or trance,
Nor ever with phantasmal feature haunts
The passages where thought goes wandering
Its shadow-world; night's sky-embracing wing,
That in the sleepy vault all things enchants,
Captures not there her form and countenance;
Fancies of her to me no fevers bring.

But when my conscious spirit doth purest ride
In its full being and sentiency of life,
When reason standeth at her height of pride,
And my quick mind, with germination rife,