love poetry

LOVE SONG

From the Icelandic

I was a sea-gull flying north
In the wrong season's
Distress; some fear had cast me forth
And some malfeasance.
The wind conveyed me past control;
My plumes were slanted;
To dash myself against the Pole
Was all I wanted.
My brain was frozen in my head,
My iris blinded;
To be destroyed and quickly dead
Was all I minded;
To dash my body on the ice
In shining splinters
And pile it with a century's
Contiguous winters.

A WAKE thee, my lady-love,
— Wake thee and rise!
The sun through the bower peeps
— Into thine eyes!

Behold how the early lark
— Springs from the corn!
Hark, hark how the flower-bird
— Winds her wee horn!

The swallow's glad shriek is heard
— All through the air;
The stock-dove is murmuring
— Loud as she dare!

Apollo's winged bugleman
— Cannot contain,
But peals his loud trumpet-call
— Once and again!

Then wake thee, my lady-love —
— Bird of my bower!

Just beguiler,
Kindest love, yet only chastest,
Royall in thy smooth denyals,
Frowning or demurely smiling,
Still my pure delight.

Let me view thee
With thoughts and with eyes affected,
And if then the flames do murmur,
Quench them with thy vertue, charme them
With thy stormy browes.

Heav'n so cheerefull
Laughs not ever, hory winter
Knowes his season, even the freshest
Sommer mornes from angry thunder
Jet not still secure.

Let us now sing of Loves delight,
For he alone is Lord to night.

Some friendship betweene man and man prefer,
But I th' affection betweene man and wife.

What good can be in life,
Whereof no fruites appeare?

Set is that Tree in ill houre,
That yeilds neither fruite nor flowre.

How can man Perpetuall be,
But in his owne Posteritie?
CHORUS.
That pleasure is of all most bountifull and kinde,

While dancing rests, fit place to musicke graunting,
Good spels the Fates shall breath, al envy daunting,
Kind eares with Joy enchaunting, chaunting.
CHORUS.
Io, Io Hymen .

Like lookes, like hearts, like loves are linck't together:
So must the Fates be pleas'd, so come they hether,
To make this Joy persever ever.
CHORUS.
Io, Io Hymen .

Love decks the spring, her buds to th' ayre exposing:

85 Tuesday, 8 January 1751

Otia si tollas periere Cupidinis arcus
Contemptaeque jacent, et sine luce faces
Ovid [Remed. Amor. 139 40]

At busy hearts in vain love's arrows fly;
Dim, scorn'd, and impotent, his torches lie.

IV

A calm and lovely paradise
Is Italy, for minds at ease.
The sadness of its sunny skies
Weighs not upon the lives of these.
The ruin'd aisle, the crumbling fane,
The broken column, vast and prone,
It may be joy — it may be pain —
Amid such wrecks to walk alone!
The saddest man will sadder be,
The gentlest lover gentler there,
As if, whate'er the spirit's key,

O Love, that lights this world,
Yet leaves us i' the dark; —
I led thee to my couch,
A grave-cloth was thy sark!
O Love, we would be clothed,
And thou hast left us stark.

Lancelot (crazed) sings —

Once there was a castle hall,
Fair, fair to see,
Armored dight, and splendored all,
Filled with shout o' revelry.
Came the hosts o' fate and rage
Thundered on its walls amain.
Sunken now like ruined age,
Never laughs its light again.

I loved a Queen and she loved me.

(with acknowledgments to Cole Porter)

VERSE 1

Mr. Irving Berlin
Often emphasizes sin
In a charming way.
Mr. Coward, we know,
Wrote a song or two to show
Sex was here to stay.
Richard Rodgers, it's true,
Took a more romantic view
Of this sly biological urge.
But it really was Cole
Who contrived to make the whole
Thing merge.

REFRAIN 1

He said the Belgians and Greeks do it,
Nice young men who sell antiques do it,

VERSE 1 SHE :

Relax for one moment, my Jerry,
Come out of your dark monastery,
While Venus is beaming above.
Darling, let's talk about love.

REFRAIN 1

Let's talk about love, that wonderful thing,
Let's blend the scent of Venice with Paris in spring,
Let's gaze at that moon and try to believe
We're Venus and Adonis, or Adam and Eve.
Let's throw away anxiety, let's quite forget propriety,
Respectable society, the rector and his piety,