What Is Love?

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1. Freedom And Love How delicious is the winning Of a kiss at love’s beginning, When two mutual hearts are sighing For the knot there’s no untying! Yet remember, ‘Midst our wooing, Love has bliss, but Love has ruing; Other smiles may make you fickle, Tears for other charms may trickle. Love he comes, and Love he tarries, Just […]...
2. Song Why so pale and wan fond lover? Prithee why so pale? Will, when looking well can’t move her, Looking ill prevail? Prithee why so pale? Why so dull and mute young sinner? Prithee why so mute? Will, when speaking well can’t win her, Saying nothing do’t? Prithee why so mute? Quit, quit for shame, this […]...
3. Sonnet VI: Is It to Love Is it to love, to fix the tender gaze, To hide the timid blush, and steal away; To shun the busy world, and waste the day In some rude mountain’s solitary maze? Is it to chant one name in ceaseless lays, To hear no words that other tongues can say, To watch the pale moon’s […]...
4. Love and Folly Love’s worshippers alone can know The thousand mysteries that are his; His blazing torch, his twanging bow, His blooming age are mysteries. A charming science but the day Were all too short to con it o’er; So take of me this little lay, A sample of its boundless lore. As once, beneath the fragrant shade […]...
5. As You Go Through Life Don’t look for the flaws as you go through life; And even when you find them, It is wise and kind to be somewhat blind And look for the virtue behind them. For the cloudiest night has a hint of light Somewhere in its shadows hiding; It is better by far to hunt for a […]...
6. Folly (For A. K. K.) What distant mountains thrill and glow Beneath our Lady Folly’s tread? Why has she left us, wise in woe, Shrewd, practical, uncomforted? We cannot love or dream or sing, We are too cynical to pray, There is no joy in anything Since Lady Folly went away. Many a knight and gentle […]...
7. Wild Dark Love Song Her man, A wild dark love song Borne deep within her gypsy soul He’s gone to live in jagged mountains Where salmon jump and sing In tarns High above The cloud lines Beyond the silver moon In the shadow of the Cader Idris In misty mountains Where meadowlarks are known to wing And wild geese […]...
8. Away, Melancholy Away, melancholy, Away with it, let it go. Are not the trees green, The earth as green? Does not the wind blow, Fire leap and the rivers flow? Away melancholy. The ant is busy He carrieth his meat, All things hurry To be eaten or eat. Away, melancholy. Man, too, hurries, Eats, couples, buries, He […]...
9. Now What Is Love Now what is Love, I pray thee, tell? It is that fountain and that well Where pleasure and repentance dwell; It is, perhaps, the sauncing bell That tolls all into heaven or hell; And this is Love, as I hear tell. Yet what is Love, I prithee, say? It is a work on holiday, It […]...
10. The Gardener XXVII: Trust Love “Trust love even if it brings sorrow. Do not close up your heart.” “Ah no, my friend, your words are Dark, I cannot understand them.” “Pleasure is frail like a dewdrop, While it laughs it dies. But sorrow is Strong and abiding. Let sorrowful Love wake in your eyes.” “Ah no, my friend, your words […]...
11. Love's Blindness Now do I know that Love is blind, for I Can see no beauty on this beauteous earth, No life, no light, no hopefulness, no mirth, Pleasure nor purpose, when thou art not nigh. Thy absence exiles sunshine from the sky, Seres Spring’s maturity, checks Summer’s birth, Leaves linnet’s pipe as sad as plover’s cry, […]...
12. A Pastoral Dialogue Between Two Shepherdesses [Silvia] Pretty Nymph! within this Shade, Whilst the Flocks to rest are laid, Whilst the World dissolves in Heat, Take this cool, and flow’ry Seat: And with pleasing Talk awhile Let us two the Time beguile; Tho’ thou here no Shepherd see, To encline his humble Knee, Or with melancholy Lays Sing thy dangerous Beauty’s […]...
13. Hence, All You Vain Delights from the Nice Valour Hence, all you vain delights, As short as are the nights Wherein you spend your folly: There’s nought in this life sweet, If man were wise to see’t, But only melancholy, O sweetest melancholy! Welcome, folded arms, and fixed eyes, A sigh that piercing mortifies, A look that’s fastened to the ground, A tongue chained […]...
14. Melancholy HENCE, all you vain delights, As short as are the nights Wherein you spend your folly! There ‘s naught in this life sweet, If men were wise to see’t, But only melancholy O sweetest melancholy! Welcome, folded arms and fixed eyes, A sight that piercing mortifies, A look that ‘s fasten’d to the ground, A […]...
15. Modern Love XIX: No State Is Enviable No state is enviable. To the luck alone Of some few favoured men I would put claim. I bleed, but her who wounds I will not blame. Have I not felt her heart as ’twere my own Beat thro’ me? could I hurt her? heaven and hell! But I could hurt her cruelly! Can I […]...
16. My Love Was Warm MY love was warm; for that I crossed The mountains and the sea, Nor counted that endeavour lost That gave my love to me. If that indeed were love at all, As still, my love, I trow, By what dear name am I to call The bond that holds me now...
17. Sonnet 102: My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear; That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming The owner’s tongue doth publish everywhere. Our love was new, and then but in the spring When I was wont to greet it with my lays, As Philomel in summer’s […]...
18. Sonnet 11 – And therefore if to love can be desert And therefore if to love can be desert, I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale As these you see, and trembling knees that fail To bear the burden of a heavy heart,- This weary minstrel-life that once was girt To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail To pipe now ‘gainst the valley nightingale A […]...
19. The Land God Forgot The lonely sunsets flare forlorn Down valleys dreadly desolate; The lordly mountains soar in scorn As still as death, as stern as fate. The lonely sunsets flame and die; The giant valleys gulp the night; The monster mountains scrape the sky, Where eager stars are diamond-bright. So gaunt against the gibbous moon, Piercing the silence […]...
20. Modern Love XL: I Bade My Lady Think I bade my Lady think what she might mean. Know I my meaning, I? Can I love one, And yet be jealous of another? None Commits such folly. Terrible Love, I ween, Has might, even dead, half sighing to upheave The lightless seas of selfishness amain: Seas that in a man’s heart have no rain […]...
21. Abide and Abide and Better Abide I abide and abide and better abide, And after the old proverb, the happy day; And ever my lady to me doth say, “Let me alone and I will provide.” I abide and abide and tarry the tide, And with abiding speed well ye may. Thus do I abide I wot alway, Nother obtaining nor […]...
22. Sonnet XXXVIII: Sitting Alone, Love Sitting alone, Love bids me go and write; Reason plucks back, commanding me to stay, Boasting that she doth still direct the way, Or else Love were unable to endite. Love, growing angry, vexed at the spleen And scorning Reason’s maimed argument, Straight taxeth Reason, wanting to invent, Where she with Love conversing hath not […]...
23. Snow SNOW took us away from the smoke valleys into white mountains, we saw velvet blue cows eating a vermillion grass and they gave us a pink milk. Snow changes our bones into fog streamers caught by the wind and spelled into many dances. Six bits for a sniff of snow in the old days bought […]...
24. The Life of Love XVI Spring Come, my beloved; let us walk amidst the knolls, For the snow is water, and Life is alive from its Slumber and is roaming the hills and valleys. Let us follow the footprints of Spring into the Distant fields, and mount the hilltops to draw Inspiration high above the cool green plains. Dawn of […]...
25. Love Lives Beyond The Tomb Love lives beyond the tomb, And earth, which fades like dew! I love the fond, The faithful, and the true. Love lives in sleep: ‘Tis happiness of healthy dreams: Eve’s dews may weep, But love delightful seems. ‘Tis seen in flowers, And in the morning’s pearly dew; In earth’s green hours, And in the heaven’s […]...
26. Love Will Wane When your love begins to wane, Spare me from the cruel pain Of all speech that tells me so – Spare me words, for I shall know, By the half-averted eyes, By the breast that no more sighs By the rapture I shall miss From your strangely-altered kiss; By the arms that still enfold But […]...
27. The Hill Maples Here on a hill of the occident stand we shoulder to shoulder, Comrades tried and true through a mighty swath of the years! Spring harps glad laughter through us, and ministrant rains of the autumn Sing us again the songs of ancient dolor and tears. The glory of sunrise smites on our fair, free brows […]...
28. Modern Love XVII: At Dinner She Is Hostess At dinner, she is hostess, I am host. Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps The Topic over intellectual deeps In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost. With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball: It is in truth a most contagious game: HIDING THE SKELETON, shall be its name. Such play as this the devils […]...
29. Hiding Place Hail sov’reign love that first began, The scheme to rescue fallen man; Hail matchless, free, eternal grace, That gave my soul a Hiding-Place. Against the God that rules the sky, I fought with hands uplifted high; Despis’d the mentions of his grace, Too proud to seek a Hiding-Place. Enwrapt in thick Egyptian night, And fond […]...
30. The Song Of The Chattahoochee Out of the hills of Habersham, Down the valleys of Hall, I hurry amain to reach the plain, Run the rapid and leap the fall, Split at the rock and together again, Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, And flee from folly on every side With a lover’s pain to attain the plain Far […]...
31. The Poet's Love-Song In noon-tide hours, O Love, secure and strong, I need thee not; mad dreams are mine to bind The world to my desire, and hold the wind A voiceless captive to my conquering song. I need thee not, I am content with these: Keep silence in thy soul, beyond the seas! But in the desolate […]...
32. Love's Emblems NOW the lusty spring is seen; Golden yellow, gaudy blue, Daintily invite the view: Everywhere on every green Roses blushing as they blow, And enticing men to pull, Lilies whiter than the snow, Woodbines of sweet honey full: All love’s emblems, and all cry, ‘Ladies, if not pluck’d, we die.’ Yet the lusty spring hath […]...
33. New Love, New Life I. She, who so long has lain Stone-stiff with folded wings, Within my heart again The brown bird wakes and sings. Brown nightingale, whose strain Is heard by day, by night, She sings of joy and pain, Of sorrow and delight. II. ‘Tis true, in other days Have I unbarred the door; He knows the […]...
34. COMFORT TO A YOUTH THAT HAD LOST HIS LOVE What needs complaints, When she a place Has with the race Of saints? In endless mirth, She thinks not on What’s said or done In earth: She sees no tears, Or any tone Of thy deep groan She hears; Nor does she mind, Or think on’t now, That ever thou Wast kind: But changed above, […]...
35. A Calendar of Sonnets: April No days such honored days as these! While yet Fair Aphrodite reigned, men seeking wide For some fair thing which should forever bide On earth, her beauteous memory to set In fitting frame that no age could forget, Her name in lovely April’s name did hide, And leave it there, eternally allied To all the […]...
36. The Passionate Shepherd To His Love Come live with me, and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That hills and valleys, dales and fields, And all the craggy mountain yields. There we will sit upon the rocks, And see the shepherds feed their flocks By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will […]...
37. To A. L. Persuasions to Love THINK not, ’cause men flattering say You’re fresh as April, sweet as May, Bright as is the morning star, That you are so ; or, though you are, Be not therefore proud, and deem All men unworthy your esteem : For, being so, you lose the pleasure Of being fair, since that rich treasure Of […]...
38. Sonnet 10 – Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright, Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed: And love is fire. And when I say at need I love thee. . . mark! . . . I love thee-in thy sight I […]...
39. Amidst the Flowers a Jug of Wine Amidst the flowers a jug of wine, I pour alone lacking companionship. So raising the cup I invite the Moon, Then turn to my shadow which makes three of us. Because the Moon does not know how to drink, My shadow merely follows the movement of my body. The moon has brought the shadow to […]...
40. The Definition Of Love My love is of a birth as rare As ’tis for object strange and high: It was begotten by Despair Upon Impossibility. Magnanimous Despair alone Could show me so divine a thing, Where feeble Hope could ne’er have flown But vainly flapped its tinsel wing. And yet I quickly might arrive Where my extended soul […]...