1247 Love poems

Inside, inside the return, inside, the hero diminishes. Over her vessel they place a veil, and when it is lifted the name of the vessel has been lost. Consider the darkness of the water which has no scent and neither can it swallow. Yet the ship’s bow extends over the proscenium like a horse at a fence and the orchestra stands and files out. On the long walk home, I long to see your face.

Child, with many a childish wile, Timid look, and blushing smile, Downy wings to steal thy way, Gilded bow, and quiver gay, Who in thy simple mien would trace The tyrant of the human race? Who is he whose flinty heart Hath not felt the flying dart? Who is he that from the wound Hath not pain and pleasure found? Who is he that hath not shed Curse and blessing on thy head?

I cry your mercy—pity—love! Aye, love! Merciful love that tantalizes not, One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love, Unmasked, and being seen—without a blot! O! let me have thee whole,—all—all—be mine! That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest Of love, your kiss,—those hands, those eyes divine, That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,— Yourself—your soul—in pity give me all, Withhold no atom’s atom or I die, Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall, Forget, in the mist of idle misery, Life’s purposes,—the palate of my mind Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!

Learning to love differently is hard, love with the hands wide open, love with the doors banging on their hinges, the cupboard unlocked, the wind roaring and whimpering in the rooms rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds that thwack like rubber bands in an open palm. It hurts to love wide open stretching the muscles that feel as if they are made of wet plaster, then of blunt knives, then of sharp knives. It hurts to thwart the reflexes of grab, of clutch ; to love and let go again and again. It pesters to remember the lover who is not in the bed, to hold back what is owed to the work that gutters like a candle in a cave without air, to love consciously, conscientiously, concretely, constructively. I can’t do it, you say it’s killing me, but you thrive, you glow on the street like a neon raspberry, You float and sail, a helium balloon bright bachelor’s button blue and bobbing on the cold and hot winds of our breath, as we make and unmake in passionate diastole and systole the rhythm of our unbound bonding, to have and not to hold, to love with minimized malice, hunger and anger moment by moment balanced.

Beloved beauty who inspires love in me from afar, your face obscured except when your celestial image stirs my heart in sleep, or in the fields where light and nature's laughter shine more lovely— was it maybe you who blessed the innocent age called golden, and do you now, blithe spirit, fly among men? Or does that miser fate who hides you from us save you for the future? No hope of seeing you alive remains for me now, except when, naked and alone, my soul will go down a new street to its unknown home. Already at the dawn of my dark, uncertain day I imagined you a fellow traveler on this arid ground. But there's no thing that resembles you on earth. And if someone had a face like yours, in act and word she'd be, though something like you, far less beautiful. In spite of all the suffering fate decreed for human time, if there were anyone on earth who truly loved you as my thought depicts you, this life for him would be a blessing. And I see clearly how your love would lead me still to strive for praise and virtue, as I used to in my early years. Though heaven gave no comfort for our troubles, yet with you mortal life would be like what in heaven leads to divinity. In the valleys, where the song of the weary farmer sounds, and when I sit and mourn the illusions of youth fading, and on the hills where I recall and grieve for my lost desires and my life's lost hope, I think of you and start to shake. If only I, in this sad age and unhealthy atmosphere, could keep hold of your noble look; for since the real thing's missing I must make do with the image. Whether you are the only one of the eternal ideas eternal wisdom refuses to see arrayed in sensible form to know the pains of mortal life in transitory spoils, or if in the supernal spheres another earth from among unnumbered worlds receives you and a near star lovelier than the Sun warms you and you breathe benigner ether, from here, where years are both ill-starred and brief, accept this hymn from your unnoticed lover.

Best and brightest, come away! Fairer far than this fair Day, Which, like thee to those in sorrow, Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow To the rough Year just awake In its cradle on the brake. The Brightest hour of unborn Spring, Through the winter wandering, Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn To hoar February born. Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, It kissed the forehead of the Earth, And smiled upon the silent sea, And bade the frozen streams be free, And waked to music all their fountains, And breathed upon the frozen mountains, And like a prophetess of May Strewed flowers upon the barren way, Making the wintry world appear Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs— To the silent wilderness Where the soul need not repress Its music lest it should not find An echo in another’s mind. While the touch of Nature’s art Harmonizes heart to heart. I leave this notice on my door For each accustomed visitor:— “I am gone into the fields To take what this sweet hour yields;— Reflection, you may come tomorrow, Sit by the fireside with Sorrow.— You with the unpaid bill, Despair,— You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care,— I will pay you in the grave,— Death will listen to your stave. Expectation too, be off! Today is for itself enough; Hope, in pity mock not Woe With smiles, nor follow where I go; Long having lived on thy sweet food, At length I find one moment’s good After long pain—with all your love, This you never told me of.” Radiant Sister of the Day, Awake! arise! And come away! To the wild woods and the plains, And the pools where winter rains Image all their roof of leaves, Where the pine its garland weaves Of sapless green, and ivy dun Round stems that never kiss the sun: Where the lawns and pastures be, And the sandhills of the sea:— Where the melting hoar-frost wets The daisy-star that never sets, And wind-flowers, and violets, Which yet join not scent to hue, Crown the pale year weak and new; When the night is left behind In the deep east, dun and blind, And the blue noon is over us, And the multitudinous Billows murmur at our feet, Where the earth and ocean meet, And all things seem only one In the universal sun.

make out with him a bit, this is what my friend would like to do oh these too many dead summers later, and as much as I want to stroll with her into the poet's hazy fancy all I can see is O'Hara's long-gone lips fallen free of the bone, slumbering beneath the grainy soil. I can hear Frank's dry voice combing the air for song, but what I see is his skeleton entombed in dust, wrapped in his dapper suit, his razzle-dazzle sunglasses. She sees him alive, ambling down a sidewalk, all of New York clambering into the sky behind him, cuff links winking, his dear friends waving, calling him by name like they do in the city: 800,000 people and you step outside for a smoke and see someone you know. That's how it is with death. Those you love come at you like lightning, crackle for an instant—so kissable— and then lips and all, they're gone.

They call it sacrifice—            imagine me a tiny poppy on a field of green felt—brief blip of color, limitless expanse. I’ve never felt foreign, or like a lash in his eye. If it’s not love, it’s very like. Most days it feels the same— exacting—he tweezes the stray thoughts from my speech, cleans up my heart with a tortoiseshell comb. Every lady should have such a man, edging her lawn with a sharp rotary blade. Year by year—let’s call it always— editor and editrix. Engaged against a flurry of typos, showered in revisionist white out. I erase his crow’s feet, buff away his frown. My head—he yawns it open, scoops out dark foam, yesses I’ve regretted, the tiny poppy everyone sees flapping to pieces— And so, we are growing taller, sweeter, ratified in the glow of the big correction.

(On some Verses he writ, and asking more for his Heart than ‘twas worth.) I Take back that Heart, you with such Caution give, Take the fond valu’d Trifle back; I hate Love-Merchants that a Trade wou’d drive And meanly cunning Bargains make. II I care not how the busy Market goes, And scorn to Chaffer for a price: Love does one Staple Rate on all impose, Nor leaves it to the Trader’s Choice. III A Heart requires a Heart Unfeign’d and True, Though Subt’ly you advance the Price, And ask a Rate that Simple Love ne’er knew: And the free Trade Monopolize. IV An humble Slave the Buyer must become, She must not bate a Look or Glance You will have all or you’ll have none; See how Love’s Market you inhance. V Is’t not enough, I gave you Heart for Heart, But I must add my Lips and Eies; I must no friendly Smile or Kiss impart; But you must Dun me with Advice. VI And every Hour still more unjust you grow, Those Freedoms you my life deny, You to Adraste are oblig’d to show, And giver her all my Rifled Joy. VII Without Controul she gazes on that Face, And all the happy Envyed Night, In the pleas’d Circle of your fond imbrace: She takes away the Lovers Right. VIII From me she Ravishes those silent hours, That are by Sacred Love my due; Whilst I in vain accuse the angry Powers, That make me hopeless Love pursue. IX Adrastes Ears with that dear Voice are blest, That Charms my Soul at every Sound, And with those Love-Inchanting Touches prest: Which I ne’er felt without a Wound. X She has thee all: whilst I with silent Greif, The Fragments of they Softness feel, Yet dare not blame the happy licenc’d Thief: That does my Dear-bought Pleasures steal. XI Whilst like a Glimering Taper still I burn, And waste my self in my own flame, Adraste takes the welcome rich Return: And leaves me all the hopeless Pain. XII Be just, my lovely Swain, and do not take Freedoms you’ll not to me allow; Or give Amynta so much Freedom back: That she may Rove as well as you. XIII Let us then love upon the honest Square, Since Interest neither have design’d, For the sly Gamester, who ne’er plays me fair, Must Trick for Trick expect to find.

When thou, poor excommunicate From all the joys of love, shalt see The full reward and glorious fate Which my strong faith shall purchase me, Then curse thine own inconstancy. A fairer hand than thine shall cure That heart, which thy false oaths did wound; And to my soul, a soul more pure Than thine shall by Love's hand be bound, And both with equal glory crown'd. Then shalt thou weep, entreat, complain To Love, as I did once to thee; When all thy tears shall be as vain As mine were then, for thou shalt be Damn'd for thy false apostasy.