love

This is the place that I love the best,
A little brown house, like a ground-bird's nest,
Hid among grasses, and vines, and trees,
Summer retreat of the birds and bees.

The tenderest light that ever was seen
Sifts through the vine-made window screen--
Sifts and quivers, and flits and falls
On home-made carpets and gray-hung walls.

All through June the west wind free
The breath of clover brings to me.
All through the languid July day
I catch the scent of new-mown hay.

I, WITH whose colours Myra dress'd her head,
   I, that ware posies of her own hand-making,
I, that mine own name in the chimneys read
   By Myra finely wrought ere I was waking:
Must I look on, in hope time coming may
With change bring back my turn again to play?

I, that on Sunday at the church-stile found
   A garland sweet with true-love-knots in flowers,
Which I to wear about mine arms was bound
   That each of us might know that all was ours:
Must I lead now an idle life in wishes,

My sweetheart's dainty lips are red,
With ruby's crimson overspread;
Her teeth are like a string of pearls;
Down her neck her clustering curls
In ebony hue vie with the night,
And over her features dances light.

The twinkling stars enthroned above
Are sisters to my dearest love.
We men should count it joy complete
To lay our service at her feet.
But oh what rapture is her kiss!
A forecast 'tis of heavenly bliss!

Who said that I have stopped loving you?
Whatever I did yesterday,
I am doing today,
Or I will do tomorrow,
Has nothing to do to the way I feel about you…

Of course,
The world might be limited
Only to the five senses,
But let us go further…

Regardless of my situations,
You are and will always be
That fairy tale Princess of mine
I felt in love with…

Even though we have choose
Not to walk through
Life on the same path,
But you still my Princess…

I now think Love is rather deaf than blind,
For else it could not be
That she,
Whom I adore so much, should so slight me
And cast my love behind.
I'm sure my language to her was as sweet,
And every close did meet
In sentence of as subtle feet,
As hath the youngest He
That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree.
O, but my conscious fears,
That fly my thoughts between,
Tell me that she hath seen
My hundred of gray hairs,
Told seven and forty years

SO grieves th' adventurous merchant, when he throws
All the long toil'd-for treasure his ship stows
Into the angry main, to save from wrack
Himself and men, as I grieve to give back
These letters : yet so powerful is your sway
As if you bid me die, I must obey.
Go then, blest papers, you shall kiss those hands
That gave you freedom, but hold me in bands ;
Which with a touch did give you life, but I,
Because I may not touch those hands, must die.
Methinks, as if they knew they should be sent

My lover asks me:
"What is the difference between me and the sky?"
The difference, my love,
Is that when you laugh,
I forget about the sky.


Translated by B. Frangieh And C. Brown


Submitted by Noele Aabye

My love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
And ice, which is congeal's with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?

My love is in a light attire
Among the apple-trees,
Where the gay winds do most desire
To run in companies.

There, where the gay winds stay to woo
The young leaves as they pass,
My love goes slowly, bending to
Her shadow on the grass;

And where the sky's a pale blue cup
Over the laughing land,
My love goes lightly, holding up
Her dress with dainty hand.

My love for you, sweet Earth, my mother,
I cannot hide - I do not crave
The phantom pleasures of that other,
That spectral world beyond the grave.
O spring, the blessedness of Eden
Compared to yours as nothing is!
Love's joys you bring us all unbidden,
And golden dreams, and light, and bliss.

What rapture to drink in the balmy,
Warm air of spring, to languor wed,
And watch the clouds drift slowly, calmly
High in the blueness overhead;
To wander happily and idly
Across a field and past a stream,