romantic poems

Great crane o'ertopping the delicate trees
Why do you seem so fair,
Swaying and raising your load with ease
High in the misty air?
You are a wonder of pearl and grey
Lifting strong arms to the sky.
Have you a meaning that's lovely, pray?
Why are you lovely, why?
I have a friend with a theory strange,
Thriftless in unity,
None of my reasons avails to change.
'Beauty is truth,' says she.
Are you all ugliness, Fair-to-the-sense?
You are a symbol drear.

Yet it is pitiful how friendships die,
Spite of our oaths eternal and high vows.
Some fall through blight of tongues wagged secretly,
Some through strifes loud in empty honour's house.
Some vanish with fame got too glorious,
And rapt to heaven in fiery chariots fly;
And some are drowned in sloth and the carouse
Of wedded joys and long love's tyranny.
O ye, who with high--hearted valliance
Deem truth eternal and youth's dreams divine,
Keep ye from love and fame and the mischance
Of other worship than the Muses nine.

Ah, Paris, Paris! What an echo rings
Still in those syllables of vain delight!
What voice of what dead pleasures on what wings
Of Maenad laughters pulsing through the night!
How bravely her streets smile on me! How bright
Her shops, her houses, fair sepulchral things,
Stored with the sins of men forgotten quite,
The loves of mountebanks, the lusts of kings!
What message has she to me on this day
Of my new life? Shall I, a pilgrim wan,
Sit at her board and revel at her play,
As in the days of old? Nay, this is done.

Away from sorrow! Yes, indeed, away!
Who said that care behind the horseman sits?
The train to Paris, as it flies to--day,
Whirls its bold rider clear of ague fits.
Who stops for sorrows? Who for his lost wits,
His vanished gold, his loves of yesterday,
His vexed ambitions? See, the landscape flits
Bright in his face, and fleeter far than they.
Away! away! Our mother Earth is wide;
And our poor lives and loves of what avail?
All life is here; and here we sit astride
On her broad back, with Hope's white wings for sail,

Care killed a cat, and I have cares at home,
Which vex me nightly and disturb my bed.
The things I love have all grown wearisome;
The things that loved me are estranged or dead.
I have a house most fair, but tenanted
With shadows only, gardens of tall trees,
Fenced in and made secure from every dread
But this one terror, my soul's lack of ease.
I have much wealth of pleasure, horse and hound,
Woods broad for sport, and fields that are my own,
With neighbours of good cheer to greet me round,

Love has its secrets, joy has its revealings.
How shall I speak of that which love has hid?
If my beloved shall return to greet me,
Deeds shall be done for her none ever did.

My beloved loved me. How shall I reveal it?
We were alone that morning in the street.
She looked down at the ground, and blushed, and trembled.
She stopped me with her eyes when these did meet.

``What wouldst thou, sweet one? What wouldst thou with sorrow,
Thou, the new morning star with me, the night?

I

Love me Sweet, with all thou art,
Feeling, thinking, seeing;
Love me in the lightest part,
Love me in full being.

II

Love me with thine open youth
In its frank surrender;
With the vowing of thy mouth,
With its silence tender.

III

Love me with thine azure eyes,
Made for earnest grantings;
Taking colour from the skies,
Can Heaven's truth be wanting?

IV

Love me with their lids, that fall
Snow-like at first meeting;

'Sas agapo sas agapo,'
He sang beneath her lattice.
''Sas agapo'?' she murmured-'O,
I wonder, now, what that is!'

Was she less fair that she did bear
So light a load of knowledge?
Are loving looks got out of books,
Or kisses taught in college?

Of woman's lore give me no more
Than how to love,-in many
A tongue men brawl: she speaks them all
Who says 'I love,' in any.

Proud word you never spoke, but you will speak
Four not exempt from pride some future day.
Resting on one white hand a warm wet cheek,
Over my open volume you will say,
“This man loved me!” then rise and trip away.

MY heart to thy heart,
My hand to thine;
My lips to thy lips,
Kisses are wine
Brewed for the lover in sunshine and shade;
Let me drink deep, then, my African maid.
Lily to lily,
Rose unto rose;
My love to thy love
Tenderly grows.
Rend not the oak and the ivy in twain,
Nor the swart maid from her swarthier swain.