love

TELL me not of a face that 's fair,
   Nor lip and cheek that 's red,
Nor of the tresses of her hair,
   Nor curls in order laid,
Nor of a rare seraphic voice
   That like an angel sings;
Though if I were to take my choice
   I would have all these things:
But if that thou wilt have me love,
   And it must be a she,
The only argument can move
   Is that she will love me.

The glories of your ladies be
   But metaphors of things,
And but resemble what we see

What is't you mean, that I am thus approach'd,
Dare you to hope, that I may be debauch'd?
For your seducing Words the same implies,
In begging Pity with a soft Surprise,
For one who loves, and sighs, and almost dies.
In ev'ry Word and Action doth appear,
Something I hate and blush to see or hear;
At first your Love for vast Respect was told,
Till your excess of Manners grew too bold,
And did your base, designing Thoughts unfold.
When a Salute did seem to Custom due,

The remembrance of the Good
Keep us ever glad in mood.

The remembrance of the Fair
Makes a mortal rapture share.

The remembrance of one's Love
Blest Is, if it constant prove.

The remembrance of the One
Is the greatest joy that's known.

He stood before my heart's closed door,
And asked to enter in;
But I had barred the passage o'er
By unbelief and sin.

He came with nail-prints in his hands,
To set my spirit free;
With wounded feet he trod a path
To come and sup with me.

He found me poor and brought me gold,
The fire of love had tried,
And garments whitened by his blood,
My wretchedness to hide.

The glare of life had dimmed my eyes,
Its glamour was too bright.
He came with ointment in his hands

All night the sound had
come back again,
and again falls
this quite, persistent rain.

What am I to myself
that must be remembered,
insisted upon
so often? Is it

that never the ease,
even the hardness,
of rain falling
will have for me

something other than this,
something not so insistent--
am I to be locked in this
final uneasiness.

Love, if you love me,
lie next to me.
Be for me, like rain,
the getting out

Love, a question
has destroyed you.

I have come back to you
from thorny uncertainty.

I want you straight as
the sword or the road.

But you insist
on keeping a nook
of shadow that I do not want.

My love,
understand me,
I love all of you,
from eyes to feet, to toenails,
inside,
all the brightness, which you kept.

It is I, my love,
who knocks at your door.
It is not the ghost, it is not
the one who once stopped
at your window.

High, hollowed in green
above the rocks of reason
lies the crater lake
whose ice the dreamer breaks
to find a summer season.

'He will plunge like a plummet down
far into hungry tides'
they cry, but as the sea
climbs to a lunar magnet
so the dreamer pursues
the lake where love resides.

My love came up from Barnegat,
The sea was in his eyes;
He trod as softly as a cat
And told me terrible lies.

His hair was yellow as new-cut pine
In shavings curled and feathered;
I thought how silver it would shine
By cruel winters weathered.

But he was in his twentieth year,
Ths time I'm speaking of;
We were head over heels in love with fear
And half a-feared of love.

My hair was piled in a copper crown --
A devilish living thing --

Take heed of loving me,
At least remember, I forbade it thee;
Not that I shall repair my unthrifty waste
Of breath and blood, upon thy sighs, and tears,
By being to thee then what to me thou wast;
But, so great joy, our life at once outwears,
Then, lest thy love, by my death, frustrate be,
If thou love me, take heed of loving me.

Take heed of hating me,
Or too much triumph in the victory.
Not that I shall be mine own officer,
And hate with hate again retaliate;
But thou wilt lose the style of conqueror,

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.