love poetry

Behold this little bane —
The Boon of all alive —
As common as it is unknown
The name of it is Love —

To lack of it is Woe —
To own of it is Wound —
Not elsewhere — if in Paradise
Its Tantamount be found —

Did Helen steal my love from me?
She never had the wit.
Or was it Jane? But she's too plain,
And could not compass it.
A bad verse in the middle, then —

It might be Helen, Jane, or Kate,
It might be none of the three:
But I'm alone, for my love's gone
That should have been true to me.

Her advent was not hailed with shouts,
Nor banners, garlands, cymbals, drums;
The trees breathed gently sighs of love,
And whispered softly, " Hush! she comes."

I. OF HIS LYRE; THAT IT WILL PLAY ONLY OF LOVE

I fain would sing of Cadmus king,
And fain of Atrean banqueting;
But still the harp through every string
Doth echo only love —
I brake the chord that erewhile sent
That note, and changed the instrument;
And how Alcides' labours went
I sang with fire, — but still the lyre
Gave back the word of Love.
So farewell all heroical
Rare spirits!, for the lyre withal
Can sound but only love.

" Knowledge deposed, then!" — groaned whom that most grieved
As foolishest of all the company.
" What, knowledge, man's distinctive attribute,
He doffs that crown to emulate an ass
Because the unknowing long-ears loves at least
Husked lupines, and belike the feeder's self
— Whose purpose in the dole what ass divines?"
" Friend," quoth Ferishtah, " all I seem to know
Is — I know nothing save that love I can
Boundlessly, endlessly. My curls were crowned
In youth with knowledge, — off, alas, crown slipped

Wanting is — what?
Summer redundant,
Blueness abundant,
— Where is the blot?
Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same,
— Framework which waits for a picture to frame:
What of the leafage, what of the flower?
Roses embowering with naught they embower!
Come then, complete incompletion, O comer,
Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer!
Breathe but one breath
Rose-beauty above,
And all that was death
Grows life, grows love,

We were two lovers; let me lie by her,
My tomb beside her tomb. On hers inscribe —
" I loved him; but my reason bade prefer
Duty to love, reject the tempter's bribe
Of rose and lily when each path diverged,
And either I must pace to life's far end
As love should lead me, or, as duty urged,
Plod the worn causeway arm-in-arm with friend.
So, truth turned falsehood: " How I loathe a flower ,
How prize the pavement! " still caressed his ear —
The deafish friend's — through life's day, hour by hour,

I promise nothing: friends will part;
All things may end, for all began;
And truth and singleness of heart
Are mortal even as is man.

But this unlucky love should last
When answered passions thin to air;
Eternal fate so deep has cast
Its sure foundation of despair.

[A friend of Lord Byron's, who was with him at Ravenna when he wrote these Stanzas, says: " They were composed, like many others, with no view of publication, but merely to relieve himself in a moment of suffering. He had been painfully excited by some circumstances which appeared to make it necessary that he should immediately quit Italy, and in the day and the hour that he wrote the song was labouring under an access of fever." — So reads the note in the Edition of 1831. It is to be remarked, however, that Byron was not at Ravenna but at Venice on the date of the poem.]

[First published in the Edition of 1900 from a manuscript in the possession of Mr. Murray.]

I cannot talk of Love to thee,
Though thou art young and free and fair
There is a spell thou dost not see,
That bids a genuine love despair.

And yet that spell invites each youth,
For thee to sigh, or seem to sigh;
Makes falsehood wear the garb of truth,
And Truth itself appear a lie.

If ever Doubt a place possest
In woman's heart, 't were wise in thine:
Admit not Love into thy breast,