love poetry

WHEREIN LAURA'S EYES ENSHRINE THE MAXIMS OF PERFECTION

What woman longs for that illustrious fame
Jewelled with courage, mind and courtesy?
Let her on those bright eyes fix hers and see
My lovely foe, whom men my friend misname.
There let her learn with love of God to flame,
With honour glow, how native grace can be
More golden, and by what proud certainty
To touch the heaven that awaits her with acclaim.
The liquid converse that no pen may capture
Is there; the splendid silence and the pure

WHEREIN HE PLEADS WITH LOVE, THE CAUSE OF HIS OFFENDING, TO INTERCEDE FOR HIS PARDON

O Love, I err and I confess my error,
As one who writhes in fire, whose inner fire
Feeds and augments his grief, while on that pyre
Reason is martyred and recants in terror.
I fought my passion (it grew stronger, dearer)
So that I never might with dark desire
Affront her calm sweet face: I tried; I tire:
The curb slips, the sick soul shouts bolder, clearer.
Wherefore, if at an unaccustomed height
My soul shoot, thine the act, who can so prod,

WHEREIN HIS LOVE GREW LIKE THE LAUREL

Love, forcing wide my heart with his great hand,
Planted therein, as in its proper seat,
A laurel whose bright emerald could compete
With the most brilliant jewels of the land:
Furrowed by pen, by the heart's hunger fanned,
Cooled by the soft rain that fell salt and sweet,
It grew in grace and poured such fragrant heat
As no Arabian rivals could withstand.
Renown, proud honour, virtue, elegance,
Purest perfection in celestial form —

CONFESSION

If faith most faithful, heart to guile unknown;
If Love's delicious languors, chastened thought;
If passion by the purer passions taught;
If labyrinthine wanderings, cold, alone;
If every pang upon the forehead flown
Like fire or faltered out in tones distraught
As shame or terror on my gray cheek wrought
Vermillion ravage with Love's blushes blown;
If than myself to hold one dearer far;
If still to weep, still burst the soul with sighs
Fostered in fever, fanned by Love's long war;

WHEREIN, THOUGH LOVE'S DEVOTED SERVANT THESE TWENTY YEARS, HIS SOLE WAGE IS TEARS

Felicitous in dreams, to brood content,
To grasp at shadows, chase the summer gust,
Through shoreless fathomless leagues of water thrust,
To build on sand, write on the windy tent
Of air, gaze at the sun till these eyes, spent
And broken by his splendour, drop to dust,
To drive down some soft slope with empty lust
The storm-hooved stag with cattle slow and bent;
Sightless and faint, begging an end to all,

WHEREIN HE EXPLAINS HIS LOVE-STRICKEN STATE, RECALLING THE YEAR, DAY, HOUR OF ITS ORIGIN

Desire presses, Love leads and presides;
Pleasure persuades and ancient habits hold;
Hope cheats and charms with flatteries as old,
And with her bright touch my heart's anguish chides:
It takes her hand, in her my heart confides,
Trusts to its blind and treacherous guide (Ah, cold
And cruel is Love!): the sense grows overbold:
On each wild wish a wilder passion rides!
Virtue and grace, beauty and honour — these

QUITTING VAUCLUSE, HIS SOUL STAYS BEHIND WITH LAURA

Those cherished hills which hold my spirit still
Where the heart lingers, though I tear my feet
Fiercely away, confront my dull retreat,
While I bear Love's dark burden by Love's will.
I marvel often that I can fulfil
The sweet yoke's duties which despair would cheat
In vain, that I can breathe and my pulse beat:
The more I run, the closer looms my ill.
And as the stag, by the dark arrow stricken,
The venomed iron rankling in his flank,

WHEREIN THE REFLECTION THAT POSTERITY WILL ENVY HIS LOVE CONSOLES HIM SOMEWHAT

Sweet anger, sweet disdain and peace as sweet,
Sweet ill, sweet anguish, burden sweet I bear,
Sweet accents sweet to listen to, sweet snare
That sets the soul on fire or curbs its heat.
Be still, my soul! Accept your bitter meat;
And all the acid sweets that fill your fare
Mix with that sweetest bliss, that dear despair,
Softly saluting her, " Thou Paraclete! "
Haply hereafter envious youth shall sigh:
" For sake of that superlative loveliness

WHEREIN LOVE'S AGONY DEVOURS APACE, YET HE CANNOT REPROACH HER

The vulture flames that on my heart's heart feed
Are pitiless; with stony eyes and narrow
They search, and so consume me to the marrow,
So waste my veins, it is a ghost they bleed.
Death, with his barbarous arm poised for the deed,
As heaven thunders or the lions harrow,
Pursues me like a hawk that hunts the sparrow,
While I yield, knowing none will hear or heed.
And yet, were Love and Pity friends, they might
A double rampart for deliverance rear

WHEREIN HE DILATES UPON THE STOLEN GLOVE

O lovely hand, that dost my heart enclose
And my whole life in a small space confine!
O hand, where Heaven and Nature both combine
Their art and ardours in supreme repose!
Sweet fingers, purest pearls of orient rose
To my wounds only cruel and malign!
Does Love permit this mercy that you shine
Unsheathed before me — Love that feels and knows?
O glove, most dear, most white, most delicate,
The perfect sheath for rose-stained ivory,
Where on this earth can mortal consummate