love poetry

A perfect love is nourished by despair.
I am thy pupil in the school of pain;
Mine eyes will not reproach thee for disdain,
But thank thy rich disdain for being fair.
Aye! the proud sorrow, the eternal prayer
Thy beauty taught, what shall unteach again?
Hid from my sight, thou livest in my brain;
Fled from my bosom, thou abidest there.
And though they buried thee, and called thee dead,
And told me I should never see thee more,
The violets that grew above thy head
Would waft thy breath and tell thy sweetness o'er,

Let not thy bosom, to my foes allied,
Insult my sorrow with this coat of mail,
When for thy strong defence, if love assail,
Thou hast the world, thy virtue, and my pride.
But if thine own dear eyes I see beside
Sharpened against me, then my strength will fail,
Abandoning sail and rudder to the gale
For thy sweet sake alone so long defied.
If I am poor, in death how rich and brave
Will seem my spirit with the love it gave;
If I am sad, I shall seem happy then.
Be mine, be mine in God and in the grave,

A brother's love, but that I chose thee out
From all the world, not by the chance of birth,
But in the risen splendour of thy worth,
Which, like the sun, put all my stars to rout.
A lover's love, but that it bred no doubt
Of love returned, no heats of flood and dearth,
But, asking nothing, found in all the earth
The consolation of a heart devout.
A votary's love, though with no pale and wild
Imaginations did I stretch the might
Of a sweet friendship and a mortal light.
Thus in my love all loves are reconciled

Let my lips touch thy lips, and my desire
Contagious fever be, to set a-glow
The blood beneath thy whiter breast than snow —
Wonderful snow, that so can kindle fire!
Abandon to what gods in us conspire
Thy little wisdom, sweetest; for they know.
Is it not something that I love thee so?
Take that from life, ere death thine all require.
But no! Then would a mortal warmth disperse
That beauteous snow to water-drops, which, turned
To marble, had escaped the primal curse.
Be still a goddess, till my heart have burned

But is this love, that in my hollow breast
Gnaws like a silent poison, till I faint?
Is this the vision that the haggard saint
Fed with his vigils, till he found his rest?
Is this the hope that piloted thy quest,
Knight of the Grail, and kept thy heart from taint?
Is this the heaven, poets, that ye paint?
Oh, then, how like damnation to be blest!
This is not love: it is that worser thing —
Hunger for love, while love is yet to learn.
Thy peace is gone, my soul; thou long must yearn.
Long is thy winter's pilgrimage, till spring

'Tis love that moveth the celestial spheres
In endless yearning for the Changeless One,
And the stars sing together, as they run
To number the innumerable years.
'Tis love that lifteth through their dewy tears
The roses' beauty to the heedless sun,
And with no hope, nor any guerdon won,
Love leads me on, nor end of love appears.
For the same breath that did awake the flowers,
Making them happy with a joy unknown,
Kindled my light and fixed my spirit's goal;
And the same hand that reined the flying hours

JANUARY.

Rain — hail — sleet — snow! — But in my East
This is the time when palm-trees quicken
With flowers, wherefrom the Arabs' feast
Of amber dates will thenceforth thicken.

Palms, — he and she, — in sight they grow;
And o'er the desert-sands is wafted,
On light airs of the After-glow,
That golden dust whence fruit is grafted.

Ah, happy trees! who feel no frost

Why doth that foole unjustly love accuse,
Who through his owne feare did occasion lose?
To misse an offer'd happinesse must be,
Or want of love, or too much modesty:
Thy scorne Lysarda I have justly won ,
Who wanted light when I embrac'd the Sun.
O look into my heart, thou wilt see there,
'Twas admiration onely caus'd my feare:
Respect curb'd my affection; let me dye,
(Displeasing thee) by thy enflaming eye:
Such death will make thy cruelty confesse,
I never wanted love, though happinesse.

If the white dew must vanish,
let it vanish:
even if it stayed
no one would care
to make it a string of gems. The man thought her reply was callous, but his feelings for her only increased.

Patirruppattu 60

His armies love massacre,
he loves war,
yet gifts
flow from him ceaselessly.

Come, dear singers,
let's go and see him in Naravu

where, on trees
no ax can fell,
fruits ripen, unharmed
by swarms of bees,
egg-shaped, ready
for the weary traveler
in fields of steady, unfailing harvests;