love poetry

Fair , since thy virtues my affections move,
And I have vowed my purpose is to join
In an eternal band of chastest love
Our souls, to make a marriage most divine,
Why (thou may'st think) then seemeth he to prize
An outward beauty's fading hue so much?
Why doth he read such lectures in mine eyes,
And often strive my tender palm to touch?
Oh, pardon my presuming; for I swear,
My love is soiled with no lustful spot;
Thy soul's perfections through those veils appear;
And I half faint, that I embrace them not.

What is the cause, when elsewhere I resort,
I have my gestures and discourse more free?
And, if I please, can any beauty court,
Yet stand so duil and so demure by thee?
Why are my speeches broken whilst I talk?
Why do I fear almost thy hand to touch?
Why dare I not embrace thee as we walk,
Since with the greatest nymphs I've dared as much?
Ah! know that none of those I e'er affected;
And therefore, used a careless courtship there;
Because I neither their disdain respected,
Nor reckoned them nor their embraces dear.

Tell me, my heart, what thought these pantings move?
My thoughts of love.
What flames are these that set thee so on fire?
Flames of desire.
What means hast thou, contentment's flower to crop?
No means but hope.
Yet let us feed on hope, and hope the best;
For they amid their griefs are something blest,
Whose thoughts, and flames, and means have such free scope,
They may at once both love, desire, and hope.

But say, what fruit will love at last obtain?
Fruitless disdain.

Since Ignorance and Envie now are banish'd;
Since discord from among the flowers is vanish'd;
Since Rhodon is espous'd to Iris bright ;
Since warre hath happy Thessaly left quite ,
Let every one that loves his Countries peace,
His height of gladnesse with his hands expresse.

Ah, if I might but find
Myself again some sunny afternoon,
Face turned to Florence, faring up that path
Beside the wall, crumbling and ivy-grown,
Where weeds and wildflowers choke the violets,
Bursting, where the chance waits, to sudden flame.

There, from that upper room whose oriel eye
Looked from its cranny in the old home wall
Down o'er the land,—you, Sister, will recall
The charmèd place—we saw the quiet road
Winding away into the wider world.

My memory clings to every dear old spot

AFTER Many Y EARS

A GAIN on a bow, softly plunging
Under the wide star-drift,
We watch the white foam part and pass,
While the wind blows like a gift
Of a spirit somewhere east of the night
Into our hearts benign
With a sense that however the world is made
Love can only make it divine.

Two meteors sink, sad, to the sea,
Like lovers going to death,
A lone planet along their path
Leans, holding its breath.
Yet no dread from them drifts to us,
Who too one night must fall,

T RANSIENCY

Come , let us watch that rock down in the tide.
(So many things must go, so many things!)
Once we were young and the world was not so wide,
Or love had wings.

Once we could round the earth without a sail,
(The magic winds are gone, the magic foam!)
Where was the harbour that we did not hail,
That was not home?

Come, we will watch the moon with thoughts, not dreams.
(Whatever goes, love stays, love warm and wise!)

S HELTER

I HAVE been out where the winds are,
And tossing tops of trees,
And clouds that sweep from rim to rim
Of blue infinities.
And all was a sound and sway there, a surging of unrest:
So now I am wanting silence, and the heart I love best.

Yes, and a quiet book, too,
Of pensive poetry,
In which to let the lines lapse
Away, unlessonedly.

S WALLOWS

I N a room that we love,
Under a lamp,
Whose soft glow falls around,
We sit each night and you read to me,
Through the silence soul-profound.
And black on the yellow frieze of the walls
The swallows fly unchanging;
Round, round, yet never round,
Ranging, — yet never ranging.

We sit and you read, your face aglow,
While amid dreams that start
I watch the swallows
As each follows
The other, swift, apart.
Till oft it seems that your words are birds,

LOVE AND I NFINITY

A CROSS the kindling twilight moon
A late gull wings to rest.
The sea is murmuring underneath
Its vast eternal quest.
The coast-light flashes over the tide
A red and warning eye,
And Oh, the world is very wide,
But you are nigh!

The stars come out from zone to zone,
The wind knows every one
And blows their message to my heart,