John Freeman Poems

I have never loved you yet, if now I love.

If Love was born in that bright April sky
And ran unheeding when the sun was high,
...

I rose up with the sun
And climbed the hill.
I saw the white mists run
And shadows run
...

Bring your beauty, bring your laughter, bring even your fears,
Bring the grief that is, the joy that was in other years,
...

I know how fire burns,
How from the wrangling fumes
Rose and amber blooms,
And slowly dies.
...

Of caterpillars Fabre tells how day after day
Around the rim of a vast earth pot they crawled,
...

Do not, O do not use me
As you have used others.
Better you did refuse me:
You have refused others.
...

I did not say, 'Yes, we had better part
Since love is over or must be suppressed.'
I did not say, 'I'll hold you in my heart
...

Now pipe no more, glad Shepherd,
Your joys from this fair hill
Through golden eves and still:
There sounds from yon dense quarry
...

They loiter round the Dock that holds yon Ship
Shuddering at the dark pool's defiled lip
From springing bows to foam-deriding stern;
...

Come over, come over the deepening river,
Come over again the dark torrent of years,
Come over, come back where the green leaves quiver,
...