• There is something about Death
    Like love itself!
    If with some one with whom you have known passion,
    And the glow of youthful love,
    You also, after years of life
    Together, feel the sinking of the fire,
    And thus fade away together,
    Gradually, faintly, delicately,
    As it were in each other's arms,
    Passing from the familiar room --
    That is a power...

  • My love is like to ice, and I to fire:
    How comes it then that this her cold is so great
    Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
    But harder grows the more I her entreat?
    Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
    Is not allayed by her heart frozen cold,
    But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
    And...

  • One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
    But came the waves and washed it away:
    Again I wrote it with a second hand,
    But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
    Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay
    A mortal thing so to immortalize!
    For I myself shall like to this decay,
    And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
    Not so (quoth I), let baser...

  • Go, lovely rose!
    Tell her that wastes her time and me
    That now she knows,
    When I resemble her to thee,
    How sweet and fair she seems to be.

    Tell her that's young,
    And shuns to have her graces spied,
    That hadst thou sprung
    In deserts, where no men abide,
    Thou must have uncommended died.

    Small is the worth
    Of beauty from the light...

  • I love thee, as I love the calm
    Of sweet, star-lighted hours!
    I love thee, as I love the balm
    Of early jes'mine flow'rs.

    I love thee, as I love the last
    Rich smile of fading day,
    Which lingereth, like the look we cast,
    On rapture pass'd away.

    I love thee as I love the tone
    Of some soft-breathing flute
    Whose soul is wak'd for me...

  • I leave thee for awhile, my love, I leave thee with a sigh;
    The fountain spring within my soul is playing in mine eye;
    I do not blush to own the tear, let, let it touch my cheek,
    And what my lip has failed to tell, that drop perchance may speak.
    Mavourneen! when again I seek my green isle in the West,
    Oh, promise thou wilt share my lot, and set this heart at rest...

  • At last, when all the summer shine
      That warmed life's early hours is past,
    Your loving fingers seek for mine
      And hold them close at last at last!
    Not oft the robin comes to build
      Its nest upon the leafless bough
    By autumn robbed, by winter chilled,
      But you, dear heart, you love me now.

    Though there are shadows on my brow
      And furrows on...

  • If thou must love me, let it be for nought
    Except for love's sake only. Do not say
    'I love her for her smile---her look---her way
    Of speaking gently...

  • How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
    I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
    My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
    For the ends...

  • Yet, gentle shade! whether thou now does rove,
    Thro' some blest vale, or ever verdant grove,
    One moment listen to my grief and take
    The softest vows that ever love can make.
    For thee, all thoughts of pleasure I forgo,
    For Thee, my tears shall never cease to flow;
    For thee at once I from the world retire,
    To feed in silent shades a hopeless fire.
    My bosom...