love poetry

To ward off Time's abuses
The name is set above,
By one who loves the Muses,
Of one the Muses love.

Among the windy spaces
The star-buds grow to light;
With pale and weeping faces
The day-hours bow to night;
Where down the gusty valleys
A blast of thunder dies,
And in the forest alleys
A startled night-bird cries.

Not pain but bitter pleasure
Surrounds my spirit here,
For life's supernal treasure
Is garlanded with fear;
Bright trees delight the garden
About my love's glad home,
But all the flower-roots harden
Under the frost of doom.

Like the bright stars above me

Al ye wh├Á loue or fortune hath betraide,
All ye that dreame of blisse but liue in greif,
Al ye whose hopes are euermore delaid,
Al ye whose sighes or sicknes wants releife:
Lend eares and teares to me most haples man,
That sings my sorrowes like the dying Swanne.

Care that consumes the heart with inward paine,
Paine that presents sad care in outward vew,
Both tyrant like enforce me to complaine,
But still in vaine, for none my plaints will rue,
Teares, sighes, and ceaseles cries alone I spend,

Apples of gold the Hero dropt
As he was in the race outstript;
And Atalanta, running, stopt,
And all her lovely body dipt
A moment; but she lost her stride —
And had to go to bed a bride.

And was it not a cordial strong,
By which the young Iseult was filled
With passion for a whole life long;
For that the amorous juice instilled?
So he who kept the unwitting tryst
Was sure of love before he kissed.

But where can I get Western gold,
Or posset of constraining fire? —
I who am fated to behold

Close by the elevated the worst of the back-yards lie,
Barren, desolate spaces under an ashen sky,
Bottles and boxes and papers and pieces of glass and tin,
And rotted boards of fencing that shut the scrap-heap in.

Hopeless, dreary ash-piles — and yet there is laughter here;
And hearts bowed down with labor still trace the round of the year,
When the rays of first spring sunshine strike through the dingy pane,
And the broken, rag-stuffed windows are stripped of their rags again.

We, who must grow old and staid,
Full of wisdom, much afraid,
In our hearts like flowers keep
Love for you until we sleep.

You the brave, and you the young
You of a thousand songs unsung,
Burning brain, and ardent word,
You the lovely and absurd.

Say, on that Galician plain
Are you arguing again?
Does a trench or ruined tree
Hear your — " O, I don't agree!"

We, who must grow staid and old,
Full of caution, worn and cold,
In our hearts, like flowers keep
Your image, till we also sleep.

Fond wanton youths make loue a God,
Which after proueth ages rod,
Their youth, their time, their wit, their arte,
They spend in seeking of their smarte
And which of follies is the chiefe,
They wooe their woe, they wedde their griefe.

All finde it so who wedded are,
Loues sweetes they find enfold sowre care:
His pleasures pleasingst in the eie,
Which tasted once, with lothing die:
They find of follies tis the chiefe,
Their woe to wooe to wedde their griefe.

If for their owne content they choose,

Naturall comparisons with perfect loue

The lowest Trees haue tops, the Ante her gall,
The flie her splene, the little sparkes their heate:
The slender haires cast shadowes, though but small,
And Bees haue stings, although they be not great:
Seas haue their sourse, & so haue shallow springs,
And loue is loue, in Beggars, as in Kings.

Where riuers smoothest run, deepe are the foords,
The Diall stirres, yet none perceiues it mooue:
The firmest faith is in the fewest wordes,

A Nimphs disdaine of Loue.

Hey downe a downe did Dian sing,
amongst her Virgins sitting:
Then loue there is no vainer thing,
for Maydens most vnfitting,
And so think I, with a downe downe derrie.

When women knew no woe,
but liu'd them-selues to please:

Farewell false loue, the oracle of lyes,
A mortal foe, & enimie to rest:
An enuious boy, from whome all cares aryse,
A bastard vile, a beast with rage possest:
A way of error, a temple ful of treason,
In all effects contrarie vnto reason.

A poysoned serpent couered all with flowers,
Mother of sighes, and murtherer of repose,
A sea of sorows fr├Á whece are drawe such showers,
As moysture lend to euerie griefe that growes,
A school of guile, a net of deepe deceit,
A guilded hooke, that holds a poysoned bayte.