Waiting

Still moon, empty nights,
A lonely owl hoots unheard;
Gentle breeze, whispering trees,
A lonely soul cries unseen;
Falling leaves, chill air,
All are me waiting for you.


lopamudra

Love Poem

Here with you

I could remain

For countless days and years,

Silent as the bright moon,

We gazed at together.

--- Teishin

If your heart

Remains unchanged,

We will be bound as tightly,

As an endless vine

For ages and ages.

--- Ryokan

Those Who Love The Most

Those who love the most,
Do not talk of their love,
Francesca, Guinevere,
Deirdre, Iseult, Heloise,
In the fragrant gardens of heaven
Are silent, or speak if at all
Of fragile inconsequent things.

And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in somber pride
Never spoke of this thing,
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face.

.....Those Who Love by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933

La Vita Nuova

Love Poem between Ryokan and Teishin

The moon, I'm sure

Is shining brightly

High above the mountains

But gloomy clouds

Shroud the peak in darkness

--Teishin

You must rise above

The gloomy clouds

Covering the mountaintop

Otherwise, how will you

Ever see the brightness?

--Ryokan

Love Poems between Teishin and Ryokan

Have you forgotten me
Or lost the path here?
I wait for you
All day, every day
But you do not appear.

--Ryokan

Here with you
I could remain
For countless days and years
Silent as the bright moon
We watched together.

--Teishin

Echoes

Two Stars

Across a sky of indigo blue

On a cold and lonely night

Two twinkling stars hung silently

Just out of each other's sight

Each star looking wistfully

At a moon that turned to blue

Wishing on another star

To find a love so true

Then came a comet across the sky

A sparkling flashing light

Causing the stars to spin about

On that cold and lonely night

The twinkling stars looked across the sky

They stared in star struck wonder

As if drawn by some greater force

They moved toward one another

Suspended in the heavens

The stars began to dance

Spinning ever gracefully

In a heavenly romance

Two twinkling stars in the heavens

Now shine as one sparkling light

Across a sky of indigo blue

Suspended in the night

-- Allison Chambers Coxsey

Those Who Love The Most

Those who love the most,
Do not talk of their love,
Francesca, Guinevere,
Deirdre, Iseult, Heloise,
In the fragrant gardens of heaven
Are silent, or speak if at all
Of fragile inconsequent things.

And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in somber pride
Never spoke of this thing,
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face.

When You Are Old

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face among a crowd of stars.

--- William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

Do You Love Me?

A lover asked his beloved,
Do you love yourself more

than you love me?
The beloved replied,

I have died to myself

and I live for you.
I’ve disappeared from myself

and my attributes.

I am present only for you.

I have forgotten all my learning,

but from knowing you

I have become a scholar.

I have lost all my strength,

but from your power

I am able.

If I love myself

I love you.

If I love you

I love myself.

--- Jalaluddin Rumi

Gifts

I gave my first love laughter,

I gave my second tears,

I gave my third love silence,

Through all the years.

My first love gave me singing,

My second eyes to see,

But oh, it was my third love

Who gave my soul to me.

SARAH TEASDALE

Unending Love

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms,
Numberless times,
In life after life, in age after age forever.
My spell-bound heart has made and re-made the necklace of songs
That you take as a gift, wear around your neck in
Your many forms
In life after life, in age after age forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love,
Its age old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together,
As I stare on and on into the past,
In the end you emerge
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount
At the heart of time love of one for another.
We played alongside millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-
Old love, but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you,
The love of all man’s days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life,
The memories of all of loves merging with this one love of ours-
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

Rabindranath Thakur, 1861-1941

Love Poems

Was it really you I saw,

Or is this joy

I still feel

Only a dream?

~Teishin

In this dream world

We doze and talk of dreams--

Dream, dream on,

As much as you wish.

~Ryokan

Love's Trinity

Soul, heart, and body, we thus singly name,
Are not in love divisible and distinct,
But each with each inseparably link'd.
One is not honour, and the other shame,
But burn as closely fused as fuel, heat, and flame.

They do not love who give the body
and keep the heart ungiven; nor they who yield the soul,
And guard the body. Love doth give the whole;
Its range being high as heaven, as ocean deep,
Wide as the realms of air or planet's curving sweep.

--- Alfred Austin

I Ask For

I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side. The works that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.

Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite, and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.

Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.

Now it is time to sit quite, face to face with thee, and to sing dedication of live in this silent and overflowing leisure.

- GEETANJALI, Rabindranath Thakur.

Beyond The Sea

Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,

My heart is gone, far,far from me;

And ever on its track will flee

My thoughts, my dreams, beyond the sea.

Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,

The swallow wanders fast and free:

Oh, happy bird! were I like thee,

I, too, would fly beyond the sea.

Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,

Are kindly hearts and social glee:

But here for me they may not be;

My heart is gone beyond the sea.

- Thomas Love Peacock