1247 Love poems

Joy to the bridegroom and the bride That lie by one another’s side! O fie upon the virgin beds, No loss is gain but maidenheads. Love quickly send the time may be When I shall deal my rosemary! I long to simper at a feast, To dance, and kiss, and do the rest. When I shall wed, and bedded be O then the qualm comes over me, And tells the sweetness of a theme That I ne’er knew but in a dream. You ladies have the blessed nights, I pine in hope of such delights. And silly damsel only can Milk the cows’ teats and think on man: And sigh and wish to taste and prove The wholesome sillabub of love. Make haste, at once twin-brothers bear; And leave new matter for a star. Women and ships are never shown So fair as when their sails be blown. Then when the midwife hears your moan, I’ll sigh for grief that I have none. And you, dear knight, whose every kiss Reaps the full crop of Cupid’s bliss, Now you have found, confess and tell That single sheets do make up hell. And then so charitable be To get a man to pity me.

It is the miller’s daughter, And she is grown so dear, so dear, That I would be the jewel That trembles at her ear: For hid in ringlets day and night, I’d touch her neck so warm and white. And I would be the girdle About her dainty, dainty waist, And her heart would beat against me, In sorrow and in rest: And I should know if it beat right, I’d clasp it round so close and tight. And I would be the necklace, And all day long to fall and rise Upon her balmy bosom, With her laughter or her sighs: And I would lie so light, so light, I scarce should be unclasped at night.

Summoned by conscious recollection, she would be smiling, they might be in a kitchen talking, before or after dinner. But they are in this other room, the window has many small panes, and they are on a couch embracing. He holds her as tightly as he can, she buries herself in his body. Morning, maybe it is evening, light is flowing through the room. Outside, the day is slowly succeeded by night, succeeded by day. The process wobbles wildly and accelerates: weeks, months, years. The light in the room does not change, so it is plain what is happening. They are trying to become one creature, and something will not have it. They are tender with each other, afraid their brief, sharp cries will reconcile them to the moment when they fall away again. So they rub against each other, their mouths dry, then wet, then dry. They feel themselves at the center of a powerful and baffled will. They feel they are an almost animal, washed up on the shore of a world— or huddled against the gate of a garden— to which they can’t admit they can never be admitted.

It is not the moon, I tell you. It is these flowers lighting the yard. I hate them. I hate them as I hate sex, the man’s mouth sealing my mouth, the man’s paralyzing body— and the cry that always escapes, the low, humiliating premise of union— In my mind tonight I hear the question and pursuing answer fused in one sound that mounts and mounts and then is split into the old selves, the tired antagonisms. Do you see? We were made fools of. And the scent of mock orange drifts through the window. How can I rest? How can I be content when there is still that odor in the world?

And what is love? It is a doll dress’d up For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle; A thing of soft misnomers, so divine That silly youth doth think to make itself Divine by loving, and so goes on Yawning and doting a whole summer long, Till Miss’s comb is made a pearl tiara, And common Wellingtons turn Romeo boots; Then Cleopatra lives at number seven, And Antony resides in Brunswick Square. Fools! if some passions high have warm’d the world, If Queens and Soldiers have play’d deep for hearts, It is no reason why such agonies Should be more common than the growth of weeds. Fools! make me whole again that weighty pearl The Queen of Egypt melted, and I’ll say That ye may love in spite of beaver hats.

By this he knew she wept with waking eyes: That, at his hand's light quiver by her head, The strange low sobs that shook their common bed Were called into her with a sharp surprise, And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes, Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes Her giant heart of Memory and Tears Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet Were moveless, looking through their dead black years, By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall. Like sculptured effigies they might be seen Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between; Each wishing for the sword that severs all.

He felt the wild beast in him betweenwhiles So masterfully rude, that he would grieve To see the helpless delicate thing receive His guardianship through certain dark defiles. Had he not teeth to rend, and hunger too? But still he spared her. Once: ‘Have you no fear?’ He said: ’twas dusk; she in his grasp; none near. She laughed: ‘No, surely; am I not with you?’ And uttering that soft starry ‘you,’ she leaned Her gentle body near him, looking up; And from her eyes, as from a poison-cup, He drank until the flittering eyelids screened. Devilish malignant witch! and oh, young beam Of heaven’s circle-glory! Here they shape To squeeze like an intoxicating grape – I might, and yet thou goest safe, supreme.

Thus piteously Love closed what he begat: The union of this ever-diverse pair! These two were rapid falcons in a snare, Condemned to do the flitting of the bat. Lovers beneath the singing sky of May, They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers: But they fed not on the advancing hours: Their hearts held cravings for the buried day. Then each applied to each that fatal knife, Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole. Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul When hot for certainties in this our life!— In tragic hints here see what evermore Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force, Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse, To throw that faint thin line upon the shore!

Yet it was plain she struggled, and that salt Of righteous feeling made her pitiful. Poor twisting worm, so queenly beautiful! Where came the cleft between us? whose the fault? My tears are on thee, that have rarely dropped As balm for any bitter wound of mine: My breast will open for thee at a sign! But, no: we are two reed-pipes, coarsely stopped: The God once filled them with his mellow breath; And they were music till he flung them down, Used! used! Hear now the discord-loving clown Puff his gross spirit in them, worse than death! I do not know myself without thee more: In this unholy battle I grow base: If the same soul be under the same face, Speak, and a taste of that old time restore!

What soul would bargain for a cure that brings Contempt the nobler agony to kill? Rather let me bear on the bitter ill, And strike this rusty bosom with new stings! It seems there is another veering fit Since on a gold-haired lady's eyeballs pure, I looked with little prospect of a cure, The while her mouth's red bow loosed shafts of wit. Just heaven! can it be true that jealousy Has decked the woman thus? and does her head Swim somewhat for possessions forfeited? Madam, you teach me many things that be. I open an old book, and there I find That "Women still may love whom they deceive." Such love I prize not, madam: by your leave, The game you play at is not to my mind.