"gavest" poems
At morn I plucked a rose and gave it Thee,
A rose of joy and happy love and peace,
A rose with scarce a thorn:
But in the chillness of a second morn
My rose bush drooped, and all its gay increase
Was but one thorn that wounded me.
I plucked the thorn and offered it to Thee;
And for my thorn Thou gavest love and peace,
Not joy this mortal morn:
If Thou hast given much treasure for a thorn,
Wilt thou not give me for my rose increase
Of gladness, and all sweets to me?
My thorny rose, my love and pain, to Thee
I offer; and I set my heart in peace,
And rest upon my thorn:
For verily I think to-morrow morn
Shall bring me Paradise, my gift's increase,
Yea, give Thy very Self to me.
3.3k
If yet I have not all thy love,
Dear, I shall never have it all;
I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move,
Nor can intreat one other tear to fall;
And all my treasure, which should purchase thee--
Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters--I have spent.
Yet no more can be due to me,
Than at the bargain made was meant;
That some to me, some should to others fall,
Dear, I shall never have thee all.
Or if then thou gavest me all,
All was but all, which thou hadst then;
But if in thy heart, since, there be or shall
New love created be, by other men,
Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears,
In sighs, in oaths, and letters, outbid me,
For this love was not vow'd by thee.
And yet it was, thy gift being general;
The ground, thy heart, is mine; whatever shall
Grow there, dear, I should have it all.
Yet I would not have all yet,
He that hath all can have no more;
And since my love doth every day admit
New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store;
Thou canst not every day give me thy heart,
If thou canst give it, then thou never gavest it;
Love's riddles are, that though thy heart depart,
It stays at home, and thou with losing savest it;
But we will have a way more liberal,
Than changing hearts, to join them; so we shall
Be one, and one another's all.
2.4k
If yet I have not all thy love,
Dear, I shall never have it all;
I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move,
Nor can intreat one other tear to fall;
And all my treasure, which should purchase thee--
Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters--I have spent.
Yet no more can be due to me,
Than at the bargain made was meant;
If then thy gift of love were partial,
That some to me, some should to others fall,
Dear, I shall never have thee all.
Or if then thou gavest me all,
All was but all, which thou hadst then;
But if in thy heart, since, there be or shall
New love created be, by other men,
Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears,
In sighs, in oaths, and letters, outbid me,
This new love may beget new fears,
For this love was not vow'd by thee.
And yet it was, thy gift being general;
The ground, thy heart, is mine; whatever shall
Grow there, dear, I should have it all.
Yet I would not have all yet,
He that hath all can have no more;
And since my love doth every day admit
New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store;
Thou canst not every day give me thy heart,
If thou canst give it, then thou never gavest it;
Love's riddles are, that though thy heart depart,
It stays at home, and thou with losing savest it;
But we will have a way more liberal,
Than changing hearts, to join them; so we shall
Be one, and one another's all.
2.3k
To my Creator I sing
Who did soothe me in my great loss;
To the Merciful and Kind
Who in my troubles gave me repose.
Thou with that pow'r of thine
Said: Live! And with life myself I found;
And shelter gave me thou
And a soul impelled to the good
Like a compass whose point to the North is bound.
Thou did make me descend
From honorable home and respectable stock,
And a homeland thou gavest me
Without limit, fair and rich
Though fortune and prudence it does lack.
Oct 13, 2014
Oct 13, 2014 at 10:02 AM UTC
Thyself it was to heal a heart distress'd,
Thine eyes were on me fixed to blow the pain,
When thou didst fill it lovingly, still ravaged,
Did I redeem the night of loving rain.
Those amative stares I can't recall,
believe me, for I've found my best choice.
Unhurt, a glance upon thee I stole,
For my belle, indeed me, with her love cloys.
She hath the pleasure to love me well enough,
Or a world of love she fostereth in her heart
For me; thou gavest of thine the gentlest bluff,
By playing with me with no fault on my part.
Thou cling'st to sheer agony day by day,
While seest my heart to her I gave away.
Aug 31, 2016
Aug 31, 2016 at 1:11 AM UTC
-a fragment. For MD.
We must not speak of this. ******** and nonsense swirls around old age. It’s truths are inconvenient. Golden Years. Honored old age. Valuable old age. Deserved Rest. Most never get what they imagined: honor, comfort, love, troops of friends. We must not speak of this. They no longer look to have those things. Drugs and medicine have turned old age into an endurance race, difficult to endure, much of it unrelenting, inert, isolated boredom. Forced longevity has ****** up pensions, health care, housing and happiness. It has ****** up the entire experience of retirement. Life everlasting, mummified. What disturbs our blood is this longing for the tomb. Oh Reason not the need. We must not speak of this. Memory becomes diaphanous, stretches and thins until it is all skin, no snake. Those who delivered important opinions or stinging rebukes fade to faces without names. Or vice versa. The old become greedy and selfish (we must not speak of this), because they have been abandoned by the living world and must look out for themselves. It becomes more difficult to share the joys and pains of others. Our own impending deaths render other’s less substantial. No matter. Even *** becomes selfish. There are needs which succeed *** and affection. We must not speak of this. Many older folks who are perfectly capable abandon it because it involves relationships which are (we must not speak of this) too much trouble. Been there, bought that T-shirt, wore it out. Primates die, the oceans become poisoned potions, the very weather conspires against life. **** it. The future is no longer our concern. We must not speak of this. We are ghosts in a country no one visits or forgotten photographs without identifying marks. We are the muddled memory of our generation, dead but walking. Young people look through us as if we aren’t there. We look at them and think (schadenfreude) they deserve exactly the world they got. Good luck with that. Grin. We must not speak of this. We have entered the realm of No More Second Chances, where all that happens is just more of what has. We are riding the Turnpike of Infirmity which has only one, involuntary exit. Wishing the destination more distant, we drive on through the Valuable, the Honored, the Deserved Rest, The Golden Years, waiting for the bony hand to collect the final toll. The one that, in the end, we all must pay. The day thou gavest Lord is ended. We must never, young or old, ever think of this.
Feb 24, 2017
Feb 24, 2017 at 6:32 AM UTC