[Skip Navigation]

Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Love’s Doubt

John Hay

’Tis love that blinds my heart and eyes,—
  I sometimes say in doubting dreams,—
  The face that near me perfect seems
Cold Memory paints in fainter dyes.

‘T was but love’s dazzled eyes—I say—
  That made her seem so strangely bright;
  The face I worshipped yesternight,
I dread to meet it changed to-day.

As, when dies out some song’s refrain,
  And leaves your eyes in happy tears,
  Awake the same fond idle fears,—
It cannot sound so sweet again.

You wait and say with vague annoy,
  “It will not sound so sweet again,”
  Until comes back the wild refrain
That floods your soul with treble joy.

So when I see my love again
  Fades the unquiet doubt away,
  While shines her beauty like the day
Over my happy heart and brain.

And in that face I see no more
  The fancied faults I idly dreamed,
  But all the charms that fairest seemed,
I find them, fairer than before.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Pike County Ballads and Other Poems | 1890
Add Keyword Tags

Separate each tag with a space. You may add as many tags as you'd like to each poem.

What are tags?
Tags, sometimes called “folksonomies,” are words that describe or categorize a poem, like “20th century modernism” or “Italian sonnet”. Tags can help you find poems that have something in common, based on how other people classify them.

More Info

This site will work and look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any Internet device.