Love poems

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For Catherine: Juana, Infanta of Navarre

© Erin Belieu

Once you were a daughter, too,
then a wife and now the mother
of a baby with a Spanish name.

All Distance

© Erin Belieu

but something comes before
Before car or cow, before
sky becomes...

Lincoln, The Man Of The People

© Edwin Markham

WHEN the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on,
She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down
To make a man to meet the mortal need.

O luminous and lovely! Let your flowers,
Your ageless-squadroned wings, your surge and gleam,
Drown me in quivering brightness: let me fade
In the warm, rustling music of the hours
That guard your ancient wisdom, till my dream
Moves with the chant and whisper of the glade.

Wraiths

© Siegfried Sassoon

They know not the green leaves;
In whose earth-haunting dream
Dimly the forest heaves,
And voiceless goes the stream.

The Road

© Siegfried Sassoon

The road is thronged with women; soldiers pass
And halt, but never see them; yet theyre here
A patient crowd along the sodden grass,
Silent, worn out with waiting, sick with fear.

Conscripts

© Siegfried Sassoon

Fall in, that awkward squad, and strike no more
Attractive attitudes! Dress by the right!
The luminous rich colours that you wore
Have changed to hueless khaki in the night.
Magic? Whats magic got to do with you?
Theres no such thing! Bloods red, and skies are blue.

Parted

© Siegfried Sassoon

Sleepless I listen to the surge and drone
And drifting roar of the towns undertone;
Till through quiet falling rain I hear the bells
Tolling and chiming their brief tune that tells

Break of Day

© Siegfried Sassoon

There seemed a smell of autumn in the air
At the bleak end of night; he shivered there
In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay,
Legs wrapped in sand-bags,lumps of chalk and clay

Vision

© Siegfried Sassoon

I love all things that pass: their briefness is
Music that fades on transient silences.
Winds, birds, and glittering leaves that flare and fall
They fling delight across the world; they call

Their Frailty

© Siegfried Sassoon

He's got a Blighty wound. Hes safe; and then
Wars fine and bold and bright.
She can forget the doomed and prisoned men
Who agonize and fight.

The Dark House

© Siegfried Sassoon

Dusk in the rain-soaked garden,
And dark the house within.
A door creaked: someone was early
To watch the dawn begin.

The Last Meeting

© Siegfried Sassoon

Because the night was falling warm and still
Upon a golden day at Aprils end,
I thought; I will go up the hill once more
To find the face of him that I have lost,
And speak with him before his ghost has flown
Far from the earth that might not keep him long.

Ancient History

© Siegfried Sassoon

Grimly he thought of Abel, soft and fair
A lover with disaster in his face,
And scarlet blossom twisted in bright hair.
Afraid to fight; was murder more disgrace?
God always hated Cain He bowed his head
The gaunt wild man whose lovely sons were dead.

The Imperfect Lover

I never asked you to be perfectdid I?
Though often Ive called you sweet, in the invasion
Of mastering love. I never prayed that you
Might stand, unsoiled, angelic and inhuman,
Pointing the way toward Sainthood like a sign-post.

A Wanderer

Sometimes, returning down his breezy miles,
A snatch of wayward April he will bring,
Piping the daffodilly that beguiles
Foolhardy lovers in the surge of spring.
And then once more by lanes and field-path stiles
Up the green world he wanders like a king.

October

Now do ye dream of Spring when greening shaws
Confer with the shrewd breezes, and of slopes
Flower-kirtled, and of April, virgin guest;
Days that ye love, despite their windy flaws,
Since they are woven with all joys and hopes
Whereof ye nevermore shall be possessed.

Miracles

I dreamt I saw a huge grey boat in silence steaming
Down a canal; it drew the dizzy landscape after;
The solemn world was sucked along with ita streaming
Land-slide of loveliness. O, but I rocked with laughter,
Staring, and clinging to my tree-top. For a lake
Of gleaming peace swept on behind. (I mustnt wake.)

Banishment

The darkness tells how vainly I have striven
To free them from the pit where they must dwell
In outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and riven
By grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel.
Love drives me back to grope with them through hell;
And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven.

Blind

His headstrong thoughts that once in eager strife
Leapt sure from eye to brain and back to eye,
Weaving unconscious tapestries of life,
Are now thrust inward, dungeoned from the sky.