love poetry

In Bringing a Soul to the Point of Self-Renunciation and
Absolute Acquiescence

'T WAS my purpose, on a day,
To embark and sail away;
As I climb'd the vessel's side,
Love was sporting in the tide;
" Come, " he said — " ascend — make haste,
Launch into the boundless waste. "

Many mariners were there,
Having each his sep'rate care;
They that row'd us, held their eyes
Fixt upon the starry skies;
Others steer'd, or turn'd the sails
To receive the shifting gales.

VOL. 2, C ANTIQUE 236

A H ! reign, wherever Man is found,
My Spouse, beloved and divine!
Then I am rich, and I abound,
When ev'ry human heart is thine.

A thousand sorrows pierce my soul,
To think that all are not thine own:
Ah! be ador'd from pole to pole;
Where is thy zeal? arise, be known!

All hearts are cold, in ev'ry place,
Yet earthly good with warmth pursue;

VOL. 2, C ANTIQUE 54

I AM fond of the Swallow — I learn from her flight,
Had I skill to improve it, a lesson of Love:
How seldom on earth do we see her alight!
She dwells in the skies, she is ever above.

It is on the wing that she takes her repose,
Suspended, and pois'd in the regions of air,
'Tis not in our fields that her sustenance grows,
It is wing'd like herself, 'tis ethereal fare.

She comes in the Spring, all the Summer she stays,
And dreading the cold, still follows the sun —

On Receiving from her a Network Purse made by Herself

M Y gentle Anne, whom heretofore,
When I was young, and thou no more
Than plaything for a nurse,
I danced and fondled on my knee,
A kitten both in size and glee!
I thank thee for my purse.
Gold pays the worth of all things here;
But not of love: — that gem's too dear
For richest rogues to win it;
I, therefore, as a proof of love,
Esteem thy present far above

WOULD my Delia know if I love, let her take
My last thought at night, and the first when I wake;
With my prayers and best wishes preferr'd for her sake.

Let her guess what I muse on, when rambling alone
I stride o'er the stubble each day with my gun,
Never ready to shoot till the covey is flown.

Let her think what odd whimsies I have in my brain,
When I read one page over and over again,
And discover at last that I read it in vain.

Let her say why so fix'd and so steady my look,

When there's love as unrecognized as a lily, a firefly goes about, revealing it himself

Wakeful for last year's call that I loved — still, it's as fresh as ever when the cuckoo comes

Neglectful, I have not died of love — another year gone, counting on meeting you by living on

Look, this must be love that fills the sky! As soon as the thought rises, smoke smolders

The Rose is Love's own flower, and Love's no less
The Lily's tenderness.
Then half their dignity must Roses yield
To Lilies of the field?
Nay, diverse notes make up true harmony,
All-fashioned loves agree:
Love wears the Lily's whiteness, and Love glows
In the deep-hearted Rose.