69 Romantic poems

You call me to the bath, where by evening light before bed I rub the ointment into your maculate back. I place my hand between the wings of your scapulae, where you cannot reach, cannot see—the arc of your life revealed in its pattern of coffee-colored spots—and hover there awhile, remembering how we watched the lover read the manuscript painted on the skin of his beloved; how he pressed the words to his chest and face—and cried out. The arteries in my palm open, their warmth rising between us as I massage you, neither sexual nor umbilical, this connection—you trusting your back to me, and me with no deceit. Only salve, only unguent. Only balm.

I felt both pleasure and a shiver as we undressed on the slippery bank and then plunged into the wild river. I waded in; she entered as a diver. Watching her pale flanks slice the dark I felt both pleasure and a shiver. Was this a source of the lake we sought, giver of itself to that vast, blue expanse? We’d learn by plunging into the wild river and letting the current take us wherever it willed. I had that yielding to thank for how I felt both pleasure and a shiver. But what she felt and saw I’ll never know: separate bodies taking the same risk by plunging together into the wild river. Later, past the rapids, we paused to consider if chance or destiny had brought us here; whether it was more than pleasure and a shiver we’d found by plunging into the wild river.

After all, there’s no need to say anything at first. An orange, peeled and quartered, flares like a tulip on a wedgewood plate Anything can happen. Outside the sun has rolled up her rugs and night strewn salt across the sky. My heart is humming a tune I haven’t heard in years! Quiet’s cool flesh— let’s sniff and eat it. There are ways to make of the moment a topiary so the pleasure’s in walking through.

Supper comes at five o'clock, At six, the evening star, My lover comes at eight o'clock— But eight o'clock is far. How could I bear my pain all day Unless I watched to see The clock-hands laboring to bring Eight o'clock to me.

Emily, A ship is floating in the harbour now, A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow; There is a path on the sea's azure floor, No keel has ever plough'd that path before; The halcyons brood around the foamless isles; The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles; The merry mariners are bold and free: Say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me? Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest Is a far Eden of the purple East; And we between her wings will sit, while Night, And Day, and Storm, and Calm, pursue their flight, Our ministers, along the boundless Sea, Treading each other's heels, unheededly. It is an isle under Ionian skies, Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise, And, for the harbours are not safe and good, This land would have remain'd a solitude But for some pastoral people native there, Who from the Elysian, clear, and golden air Draw the last spirit of the age of gold, Simple and spirited; innocent and bold. The blue Aegean girds this chosen home, With ever-changing sound and light and foam, Kissing the sifted sands, and caverns hoar; And all the winds wandering along the shore Undulate with the undulating tide: There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide; And many a fountain, rivulet and pond, As clear as elemental diamond, Or serene morning air; and far beyond, The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer (Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year) Pierce into glades, caverns and bowers, and halls Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls Illumining, with sound that never fails Accompany the noonday nightingales; And all the place is peopled with sweet airs; The light clear element which the isle wears Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers, Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers, And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep; And from the moss violets and jonquils peep And dart their arrowy odour through the brain Till you might faint with that delicious pain. And every motion, odour, beam and tone, With that deep music is in unison: Which is a soul within the soul—they seem Like echoes of an antenatal dream. It is an isle 'twixt Heaven, Air, Earth and Sea, Cradled and hung in clear tranquillity; Bright as that wandering Eden Lucifer, Wash'd by the soft blue Oceans of young air. It is a favour'd place. Famine or Blight, Pestilence, War and Earthquake, never light Upon its mountain-peaks; blind vultures, they Sail onward far upon their fatal way: The wingèd storms, chanting their thunder-psalm To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew, From which its fields and woods ever renew Their green and golden immortality. And from the sea there rise, and from the sky There fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright, Veil after veil, each hiding some delight, Which Sun or Moon or zephyr draw aside, Till the isle's beauty, like a naked bride Glowing at once with love and loveliness, Blushes and trembles at its own excess: Yet, like a buried lamp, a Soul no less Burns in the heart of this delicious isle, An atom of th' Eternal, whose own smile Unfolds itself, and may be felt not seen O'er the gray rocks, blue waves and forests green, Filling their bare and void interstices. But the chief marvel of the wilderness Is a lone dwelling, built by whom or how None of the rustic island-people know: 'Tis not a tower of strength, though with its height It overtops the woods; but, for delight, Some wise and tender Ocean-King, ere crime Had been invented, in the world's young prime, Rear'd it, a wonder of that simple time, An envy of the isles, a pleasure-house Made sacred to his sister and his spouse. It scarce seems now a wreck of human art, But, as it were, Titanic; in the heart Of Earth having assum'd its form, then grown Out of the mountains, from the living stone, Lifting itself in caverns light and high: For all the antique and learned imagery Has been eras'd, and in the place of it The ivy and the wild-vine interknit The volumes of their many-twining stems; Parasite flowers illume with dewy gems The lampless halls, and when they fade, the sky Peeps through their winter-woof of tracery With moonlight patches, or star atoms keen, Or fragments of the day's intense serene; Working mosaic on their Parian floors. And, day and night, aloof, from the high towers And terraces, the Earth and Ocean seem To sleep in one another's arms, and dream Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we Read in their smiles, and call reality. This isle and house are mine, and I have vow'd Thee to be lady of the solitude. And I have fitted up some chambers there Looking towards the golden Eastern air, And level with the living winds, which flow Like waves above the living waves below. I have sent books and music there, and all Those instruments with which high Spirits call The future from its cradle, and the past Out of its grave, and make the present last In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die, Folded within their own eternity. Our simple life wants little, and true taste Hires not the pale drudge Luxury to waste The scene it would adorn, and therefore still, Nature with all her children haunts the hill. The ring-dove, in the embowering ivy, yet Keeps up her love-lament, and the owls flit Round the evening tower, and the young stars glance Between the quick bats in their twilight dance; The spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight Before our gate, and the slow, silent night Is measur'd by the pants of their calm sleep. Be this our home in life, and when years heap Their wither'd hours, like leaves, on our decay, Let us become the overhanging day, The living soul of this Elysian isle, Conscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile We two will rise, and sit, and walk together, Under the roof of blue Ionian weather, And wander in the meadows, or ascend The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend With lightest winds, to touch their paramour; Or linger, where the pebble-paven shore, Under the quick, faint kisses of the sea, Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy— Possessing and possess'd by all that is Within that calm circumference of bliss, And by each other, till to love and live Be one: or, at the noontide hour, arrive Where some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep The moonlight of the expir'd night asleep, Through which the awaken'd day can never peep; A veil for our seclusion, close as night's, Where secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights; Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again. And we will talk, until thought's melody Become too sweet for utterance, and it die In words, to live again in looks, which dart With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart, Harmonizing silence without a sound. Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound, And our veins beat together; and our lips With other eloquence than words, eclipse The soul that burns between them, and the wells Which boil under our being's inmost cells, The fountains of our deepest life, shall be Confus'd in Passion's golden purity, As mountain-springs under the morning sun. We shall become the same, we shall be one Spirit within two frames, oh! wherefore two? One passion in twin-hearts, which grows and grew, Till like two meteors of expanding flame, Those spheres instinct with it become the same, Touch, mingle, are transfigur'd; ever still Burning, yet ever inconsumable: In one another's substance finding food, Like flames too pure and light and unimbu'd To nourish their bright lives with baser prey, Which point to Heaven and cannot pass away: One hope within two wills, one will beneath Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death, One Heaven, one Hell, one immortality, And one annihilation. Woe is me! The winged words on which my soul would pierce Into the height of Love's rare Universe, Are chains of lead around its flight of fire— I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire!

How much shall I love her? For life, or not long? “Not long.” Alas! When forget her? In years, or by June? “By June.” And whom woo I after? No one, or a throng? “A throng.” Of these shall I wed one Long hence, or quite soon? “Quite soon.” And which will my bride be? The right or the wrong? “The wrong.” And my remedy – what kind? Wealth-wove, or earth-hewn? “Earth-hewn.”

There is a garden in her face Where roses and white lilies blow; A heavenly paradise is that place, Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow: There cherries grow which none may buy Till “Cherry-ripe” themselves do cry. Those cherries fairly do enclose Of orient pearl a double row, Which when her lovely laughter shows, They look like rose-buds filled with snow; Yet them no peer nor prince can buy Till “Cherry-ripe” themselves do cry. Her eyes like angels watch them still; Her brows like bended bows do stand, Threat'ning with piercing frowns to kill All that attempt with eye or hand Those sacred cherries to come nigh, Till “Cherry-ripe” themselves do cry.

We got lost the restaurant was closed we ate noodles from a place we found by accident it was perfect not because anything went right but because you were there while it went wrong

The girl from the satellite town holds berries in the fast stream supermarket queue. She carries her longing like a stream of song, her melody a body over the boundary of what is solid and what flows. The guys in the depression- hit town are tripping in the fruit aisle. Falling for her berry lightness they slip out from their outlines. One guy says she takes the form of a dream, or the dream of a form. On the page of the regional night berries pulse like the notes of a song in the stream. The girl who sheds the skin of her longing escapes into more longing. In a dream on the margins of town one of the guys hears a girl sing, her voice like strings, a basket of ripe berries floating into the night on a stream. The girl, the guy, in derelict bedrooms hear lucent songs undressing, streaming from their outlines through the boundaries of town wrapping around them the scent of fresh berries. And I was the guy and the girl was within the page of the town ever, over, after, never, the song long, long, long, long. The stream is slipped as the ground you stand on. Build houses out of song. The berries are undressing. The stream is long, gone, long. The girl dreams a form of dream, or forms a dream of form: the boundaries of song in the night undressed as a stream in the morning.

And ye shall walk in silk attire, And siller hae to spare, Gin ye’ll consent to be his bride, Nor think o’ Donald mair. O wha wad buy a silken goun Wi’ a poor broken heart! Or what’s to me a siller croun, Gin frae my love I part! The mind wha’s every wish is pure Far dearer is to me; And ere I’m forc’d to break my faith, I’ll lay me down an’ dee! For I hae pledg’d my virgin troth Brave Donald’s fate to share; And he has gi’en to me his heart, Wi’ a’ its virtues rare. His gentle manners wan my heart, He gratefu’ took the gift; Could I but think to seek it back, It wad be waur than theft! For langest life can ne’er repay The love he bears to me; And ere I’m forc’d to break my troth, I’ll lay me doun an’ dee.