Love

Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the fault
was, had I not been made of common clay
I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed
yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day.

From the wildness of my wasted passion I had
struck a better, clearer song,
Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled
with some Hydra-headed wrong.

Had my lips been smitten into music by the
kisses that but made them bleed,
You had walked with Bice and the angels on
that verdant and enamelled mead.

I had trod the road which Dante treading saw
the suns of seven circles shine,
Ay! perchance had seen the heavens opening,
as they opened to the Florentine.

And the mighty nations would have crowned
me, who am crownless now and without name,
And some orient dawn...

I

O mother, I am sick of love,
I cannot laugh nor lift my head,
My bitter dreams have broken me,
I would my love were dead.

"Drink of the draught I brew for thee,
Thou shalt have quiet in its stead."

II

Where is the silver in the rain,
Where is the music in the sea,
Where is the bird that sang all day
To break my heart with melody?

"The night thou badst Love fly away,
He hid them all from thee."

Love, do not count your labour lost
    Though I turn sullen, grim, retired
Even at your side; my thought is crossed
    With fancies by old longings fired.

And when I answer you, some days
    Vaguely and wildly, do not fear
That my love walks forbidden ways,
    Breaking the ties that hold it here.

If I speak gruffly, this mood is
    Mere indignation at my own
Shortcomings, plagues, uncertainties;
    I forget the gentler tone.

'You,' now that you have come to be
    My one beginning, prime and end,
I count at last as wholly 'me,'
    Lover no longer nor yet friend.

Friendship is flattery, though close hid;
    Must I then flatter my own mind?
And must (which laws of shame forbid)
    Blind love of you make self-love b...

    There shall be a song for both of us that day
    Though fools say you have long outlived your songs,
    And when, perhaps, because your hair is grey,
    You go unsung, to whom all praise belongs,
    And no men kiss your hands - your fragile hands
    Folded like empty shells on sea-spurned sands.
    And you that were dawn whereat men shouted once
    Are sunset now, with but one worshipper,
    Then to your twilight heart this song shall be
    Sweeter than those that did your youth announce
    For your brave beautiful spirit is lovelier
    Than once your lovely body was to me.
    Your folded hands and your shut eyelids stir
    A passion that Time has crowned with sanctity.
    Young fools shall wonder why, your youth being over,
    You are so sung st...

A Dialogue: Addressed to a young Lady.


Friendship:

In vain thy lawless Fires contend with mine,
Tho' Crouds unnumber'd fall before thy Shrine;
Let Youths, who ne'er aspir'd to noble Fame,
And the soft Virgin, kindle at thy Flame,
Thee, Son of Indolence and Vice, I scorn,
By Reason nourish'd, and of Virtue born.

Love:

Vain is that boasted Reason 'gainst my Dart,
I pierce the Sage's, as the vulgar Heart,
All Ages, Sexes, the soft Torment share,
The hoary Patriot, and the blooming Fair.
To narrow Limits is thy Sway confin'd,
To some few Breasts, I triumph o'er Mankind.

Friendship:

From grov'ling Sources, ever springs thy Pow'r,
Still varying Fancy, and frail Beauty's Flow'r:
Then with its Cause the short liv'd A...

Tell them, when you are home again,
    How warm the air was now;
How silent were the birds and leaves,
    And of the moon's full glow;
        And how we saw afar
        A falling star:
It was a tear of pure delight
Ran down the face of Heaven this happy night.

Our kisses are but love in flower,
    Until that greater time
When, gathering strength, those flowers take wing,
    And Love can reach his prime.
        And now, my heart's delight,
        Good night, good night;
Give me the last sweet kiss,
But do not breathe at home one word of this!

    How well my heart remembers
    Beside these camp-fire embers
The eyes that smiled so far away, -
    The joy that was November's.

    Her voice to laughter moving,
    So merrily reproving, -
We wandered through the autumn woods,
    And neither thought of loving.

    The hills with light were glowing,
    The waves in joy were flowing, -
It was not to the clouded sun
    The day's delight was owing.

    Though through the brown leaves straying,
    Our lives seemed gone a-Maying;
We knew not Love was with us there,
    No look nor tone betraying.

    How unbelief still misses
    The best of being's blisses!
Our parting saw the first and last
    Of love's imagined kisses.

    Now 'mid these scenes the dr...

Why is it said thou canst not live
In a youthful breast and fair,
Since thou eternal life canst give,
Canst bloom for ever there?
Since withering pain no power possessed,
Nor age, to blanch thy vermeil hue,
Nor time's dread victor, death, confessed,
Though bathed with his poison dew,
Still thou retain'st unchanging bloom,
Fixed tranquil, even in the tomb.
And oh! when on the blest, reviving,
The day-star dawns of love,
Each energy of soul surviving
More vivid, soars above,
Hast thou ne'er felt a rapturous thrill,
Like June's warm breath, athwart thee fly,
O'er each idea then to steal,
When other passions die?
Felt it in some wild noonday dream,
When sitting by the lonely stream,
Where Silence says, 'Mine is the dell';
And not a murmur ...

Spontaneous me, Nature,
The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with,
The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,
The hill-side whiten'd with blossoms of the mountain ash,
The same, late in autumn the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark green,
The rich coverlid of the grass animals and birds the private untrimm'd bank the primitive apples the pebble-stones,
Beautiful dripping fragments the negligent list of one after another, as I happen to call them to me, or think of them,
The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)
The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me,
This poem, drooping shy and unseen, that I always carry, and that all men carry,
(Know, once for all, avow'd on purpose, wherever are men like me, are our lust...

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
Are all but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay
Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine stealing o'er the scene
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She leant against the armed man,
The statue of the armed knight;
She stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene'er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story -
An ...

    Do you remember, Leda?


    There are those who love, to whom Love brings
    Great gladness: such thing have not I.
    Love looks and has no mercy, brings
    Long doom to others.    Such was I.
    Heart breaking hand upon the lute,
    Touching one note only ... such were you.
    Who shall play now upon that lute
    Long last made musical by you?
    Sharp bird-beak in the swelling fruit,
    Blind frost upon the eyes of flowers.
    Who shall now praise the shrivelled fruit,
    Or raise the eyelids of those flowers?

    I dare not watch that hidden pool,
    Nor see the wild bird's sudden wing
    Lifting the wide, brown, shaken pool,
    But round me falls that secret wing,
    And in that sharp, perverse, sweet pain

Out of my heart, one treach'rous winter's day,
I locked young Love and threw the key away.
Grief, wandering widely, found the key,
And hastened with it, straightway, back to me,
With Love beside him. He unlocked the door
And bade Love enter with him there and stay.
And so the twain abide for evermore.

Love came to us in time gone by
When one at twilight shyly played
And one in fear was standing nigh,
For Love at first is all afraid.

We were grave lovers. Love is past
That had his sweet hours many a one;
Welcome to us now at the last
The ways that we shall go upon.

Fluttering spread thy purple pinions,
    Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart:
I a slave in thy dominions;
    Nature must give way to art.

Mild Arcadians, ever blooming
    Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming
    All beneath yon flowery rocks.

Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping
    Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth;
Him the boar, in silence creeping,
    Gored with unrelenting tooth.

Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers;
    Fair Discretion, string the lyre;
Sooth my ever-waking slumbers:
    Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.

Gloomy Pluto, king of terrors,
    Arm'd in adamantine chains,
Lead me to the crystal mirrors,
    Watering soft Elysian plains.

Mournful cypress, verdant willow,
    Gilding my...

As yon great Sun in his supreme condition
    Absorbs small worlds and makes them all his own,
So does my love absorb each vain ambition,
    Each outside purpose which my life has known.
Stars cannot shine so near that vast orb'd splendour;
    They are content to feed his flames of fire:
And so my heart is satisfied to render
    Its strength, its all, to meet thy strong desire.

As in a forest when dead leaves are falling
    From all save some perennial green tree,
So one by one I find all pleasures palling
    That are not linked with or enjoyed by thee.
And all the homage that the world may proffer,
    I take as perfumed oils or incense sweet,
And think of it as one thing more to offer,
    And sacrifice to Love, at thy dear feet.

I love myse...

Why, my heart, do we love her so?
(Geraldine, Geraldine!)
Why does the great sea ebb and flow?
Why does the round world spin?
Geraldine, Geraldine,
Bid me my life renew,
What is it worth unless I win,
Love, love and you?

Why, my heart, when we speak her name
(Geraldine, Geraldine!),
Throbs the word like a flinging flame?
Why does the spring begin?
Geraldine, Geraldine,
Bid me indeed to be,
Open your heart and take us in,
Love, love and me.

1.

Could Love for ever
Run like a river,
And Time's endeavour
Be tried in vain -
No other pleasure
With this could measure;
And like a treasure[ik]
We'd hug the chain.
But since our sighing
Ends not in dying,
And, formed for flying,
Love plumes his wing;
Then for this reason
Let's love a season;
But let that season be only Spring.


2.

When lovers parted
Feel broken-hearted,
And, all hopes thwarted,
Expect to die;
A few years older,
Ah! how much colder
They might behold her
For whom they sigh!
When linked together,
In every weather,[il]
They pluck Love's feather
From out his wing -
He'll stay for ever,[im]
But sadly shiver
Without h...

1.

This votive pledge of fond esteem,
Perhaps, dear girl! for me thou'lt prize;
It sings of Love's enchanting dream,
A theme we never can despise.


2.

Who blames it but the envious fool,
The old and disappointed maid?
Or pupil of the prudish school,
In single sorrow doom'd to fade?


3.

Then read, dear Girl! with feeling read,
For thou wilt ne'er be one of those;
To thee, in vain, I shall not plead
In pity for the Poet's woes.


4.

He was, in sooth, a genuine Bard;
His was no faint, fictitious flame:
Like his, may Love be thy reward,
But not thy hapless fate the same.