Love’s Power

How Love brings both winter and spring!

The fire is smouldering while the daylight wanes;
Rain taps impatient on the window-panes;
The waves roll high, and the cold wind complains.
The wind complains.

Reluctant start the embers to a blaze;
Among the ashy drifts the red coal plays;
In fairy rings the circling smoke delays.
The smoke delays.

Ah, lonely life! it is the wind’s sad cry;
Ah, only life! calls Echo, floating by;
Ah, love is life! it is my heart’s reply.
My heart’s reply.

Burn low, ye fires that on the hearthstone play!
Beat out your life, O waves in dashing spray!
My heart chants not your monotone to-day.
Oh, not to-day!

I hear no dirge, I see no ashes gray—
Love! love! love! love! its rapture fills the day!
The winter brings to me the bloom of May.
The bloom of May.

Love Poems by Lydia Avery Coonley

Love Art – The Plate Mansion by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), the Library of Congress.