love poetry

O Love, let the world for once go by,
With its danger-signals & warning cry,
Or else let us dream it was swung in space
Just that we two might stand face to face,
Soul within soul, as eye within eye,
Deaf, blind to all else save the you & the me —
Ah, for once, my life, let the whole world be!
What! We had promised? The words were not ours —
What! There's a heart dead? But ours are just born —

Ay, what will it matter, when all are dead,
That we died apart, with one word unsaid?

As we sit, you and I, in the twilight
And breathe the soft breath of the roses
That mingled with lily and iris
Steals up from your quaint garden-closes;
In the mystical, soft evening weather
When the sunset burns amber and clear
I think that a life-time together
Would not be half long enough, dear!

I long — how I long, my heart's Lady,
To call you a name that is dearer,
To be — always your slave and your lover
And in time something fonder and nearer.
Come home to me, darling, my Lady!

O Love, where are the hours fled,
The hours of our young delight?
Are they forever gone and dead,
Or only vanished out of sight?

O can it be that we shall live
To know once more the joys gone by,
To feel the old, deep love revive,
And smile again before we die?

Could I but fancy it might be,
Could I the past bring back again,
And for one moment, holding thee,
Forget the present and its pain!

O Love, those hours are past away
Beyond our longing and our sighs —

A Crambo Song.

Great Phaebus in his vast career,
Who forms the self-succeeding year,
Thron'd in his amber chariot,
Sees not an object half so bright,
Nor gives such joy, such life, such light,
As dear delicious Harriote .

Pedants of dull phlegmatic turns,
Whose pulse not beats, whose blood not burns,
Read Malbranche, Boyle, and Marriote,
I scorn their philosophic strife,
And study Nature from the life,

Come live with me and be my Dear;
And till that happy bond shall lapse,
I'll set your Poutings in Brevier ,
Your Praises in the largest CAPS.

There's Diamond — 'tis for your Eyes;
There's Ruby — that will match your Lips;
Pearl , for your Teeth; and Minion -size
To suit your dainty Finger-tips.

In Nonpareil I'll put your Face;
In Rubric shall your Blushes rise;
There is no Bourgeois in your Case ;

" No more!" I said to Love. " No more!
I scorn your baby-arts to know!
Not now am I as once of yore;
My brow the Sage's line can show!"
" Farewell!" he laughed. " Farewell! I go!"
And clove the air with fluttering track.
" Farewell!" he cried far off; — but lo!
He sent a Parthian arrow back!

In the duo of Love
There is little libretto;
There are few rhymes but " dove"
In the duo of Love;
Yet we prize it above
All our Epic falsetto; —
In the duo of Love
There is little libretto.

Vaine man, borne to noe happinesse,
but by the title of distresse,
Alli'de to a Capacitie
of Joye, only by missery;
whose pleasures are but remidies,
and best delights but the supplies
of what hee wantes, who hath noe sence
but poverty and indigence:
Is itt not paine still to desire
and carry in our breast this fyer?
is it not deadnesse to have none,
and satisfyed, are wee not stone?
Doeth not our Cheifest Blisse then lie
Betwixt thirst and satiety,
in the midd way? which is alone

She whispered: " Love is dead. "
She saw the raven hearse go down the street,
And closed her door.

Then Passion rose and pled,
Even more wild, even more fiery-sweet
Than Love, before,

And lingered in the room,
Out of an anguished moment to coerce
Dreams that had been:

Till forth into the gloom
Passion went following the raven hearse.
And Peace came in.

Here, after sailing far, I, Madoc, lie,
Of Owain Gwynedd lawful progeny:
The verdant land had little charms for me;
From earliest youth I loved the dark-blue sea.
God in his head the Muse instill'd,
And from his head the world he fill'd.