Love

AND

Romance

 



Loving In Truth, And Fain In Verse My Love To Show

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

That She, dear She, might take some pleasure of my pain,

Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,

Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,

I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,

Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,

Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow

Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburnt brain.

But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay;

Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows;

And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.

Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,

Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:

‘Fool!’ said my Muse to me, ‘Look in thy heart, and write!’

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

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How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

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The Garden Of Love

I went to the Garden of Love,

And saw what I never had seen;

A Chapel was built in the midst,

Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,

And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;

So I turned to the Garden of Love

That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,

And tombstones where flowers should be;

And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,

And binding with briars my joys and desires.

WILLIAM BLAKE

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My Luve’s Like A Red, Red Rose

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,

That’s newly sprung in June:

O my Luve’s like the melodie,

That’s sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!

And fare-thee-weel, a while!

And I will come again, my Luve,

Tho’ ’twere ten thousand mile!

ROBERT BURNS

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Go, Lovely Rose

Go, lovely rose!

Tell her that wastes her time and me,

That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that’s young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,

That hadst thou sprung

In deserts where no men abide,

Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired;

Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,

And not blush so to be admired.

Then die! that she

The common fate of all things rare

May read in thee;

How small a part of time they share

That are so wondrous sweet and fair.

EDMUND WALLER

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Cherry-Ripe

There is a garden in her face

Where roses and white lilies grow;

A heavenly paradise is that place,

Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow:

There cherries grow which none may buy

Till ‘Cherry-ripe’ themselves do cry.

Those cherries fairly do enclose

Of orient pearl a double row,

Which when her lovely laughter shows,

They look like rose-buds fill’d with snow;

Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy

Till ‘Cherry-ripe’ themselves do cry.

Her eyes like angels watch them still;

Her brows like bended bows do stand,

Threat’ning with piercing frowns to kill

All that attempt with eye or hand

Those sacred cherries to come nigh,

Till ‘Cherry-ripe’ themselves do cry.

THOMAS CAMPION

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She Walks In Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

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Love’s Philosophy

The Fountains mingle with the river

And the rivers with the ocean,

The winds of heaven mix for ever

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single,

All things by a law divine

In one another’s being mingle —

Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister-flower would be forgiven

If it disdain’d its brother:

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea —

What are all these kissings worth,

If thou kiss not me?

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

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One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon The Strand

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away:

Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay

A mortal thing so to immortalize!

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eke my name be wiped out likewise.

Not so quoth I, let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens write your glorious name;

Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,

Our love shall live, and later life renew.

EDMUND SPENSER

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The Good-Morrow

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the seven sleepers’ den?

’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, ‘twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,

Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres

Without sharp North, without declining West?

Whatever dies was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or thou and I

Love so alike that none do slacken, none can die.

JOHN DONNE

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The Clod And The Pebble

‘Love seeketh not itself to please,

Nor for itself hath any care,

But for another gives its ease,

And builds a heaven in hell’s despair.’

So sung a little clod of clay,

Trodden with the cattle’s feet,

But a pebble of the brook

Warbled out these metres meet:

‘Love seeketh only Self to please,

To bind another to its delight,

Joys in another’s loss of ease,

And builds a hell in heaven’s despite.’

WILLIAM BLAKE

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The Sun Rising

Busy old fool, unruly Sun,

Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?

Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?

Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

Late school-boys and sour prentices,

Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,

Call country ants to harvest offices;

Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend, and strong

Why shouldst thou think?

I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,

But that I would not lose her sight so long.

If her eyes have not blinded thine,

Look, and to-morrow late tell me,

Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine

Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me.

Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,

And thou shalt hear, ‘All here in one bed lay.’

She’s all states, and all princes, I;

Nothing else is;

Princes do but play us; compared to this,

All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.

Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,

In that the world’s contracted thus;

Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be

To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;

This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

JOHN DONNE

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You Smiled, You Spoke And I Believed’

You smiled, you spoke and I believed,

By every word and smile – deceived.

Another man would hope no more;

Nor hope I – what I hoped before.

But let not this last wish be vain;

Deceive, deceive me once again!

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

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The Definition Of Love

My Love is of a birth as rare

As ’tis, for object, strange and high;

It was begotten by Despair,

Upon Impossibility.

Magnanimous Despair alone

Could show me so divine a thing,

Where feeble hope could ne’er have flown,

But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.

And yet I quickly might arrive

Where my extended soul is fixed;

But Fate does iron wedges drive,

And always crowds itself betwixt.

For Fate with jealous eye does see

Two perfect loves, nor lets them close;

Their union would her ruin be,

And her tyrannic power depose.

And therefore her decrees of steel

Us as the distant poles have placed,

(Though Love’s whole world on us doth wheel),

Not by themselves to be embraced,

Unless the giddy heaven fall,

And earth some new convulsion tear.

And, us to join, the world should all

Be cramp’d into a planisphere.

As lines, so Love’s oblique, may well

Themselves in every angle greet:

But ours, so truly parallel,

Though infinite, can never meet.

Therefore the Love which us doth bind,

But Fate so enviously debars,

Is the conjunction of the mind,

And opposition of the stars.

ANDREW MARVELL

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To Celia

Drink to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup

And I’ll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise

Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,

I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,

Not so much honouring thee

As giving it a hope that there

It could not wither’d be;

But thou thereon didst only breathe,

And sent’st it back to me;

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,

Not of itself but thee!

BEN JONSON

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Severed Selves

Two separate divided silences,

Which, brought together, would find loving voice;

Two glances which together would rejoice

In love, now lost like stars beyond dark trees;

Two hands apart whose touch alone gives ease;

Two bosoms which, heart-shrined with mutual flame,

Would, meeting in one clasp, be made the same;

Two souls, the shores wave-mocked of sundering seas: —

Such are we now. Ah! may our hope forecast

Indeed one hour again, when on this stream

Of darkened love once more the light shall gleam? —

An hour how slow to come, how quickly past, —

Which blooms and fades, and only leaves at last,

Faint as shed flowers, the attenuated dream.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

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Love’s Secret

Never seek to tell thy love,

Love that never told can be;

For the gentle wind doth move

Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,

I told her all my heart,

Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.

Ah! she did depart!

Soon after she was gone from me,

A traveller came by,

Silently, invisibly:

He took her with a sigh.

WILLIAM BLAKE

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To My Inconstant Mistress

When thou, poor excommunicate

From all the joys of love, shalt see

The full reward and glorious fate

Which my strong faith shall purchase me,

Then curse thine own inconstancy.

A fairer hand than thine shall cure

That heart which thy false oaths did wound;

And to my soul a soul more pure

Than thine shall by Love’s hand be bound,

And both with equal glory crowned.

Then shalt thou weep, entreat, complain

To Love, as I did once to thee;

When all thy tears shall be as vain

As mine were then, for thou shalt be

Damned for thy false apostasy.

THOMAS CAREW

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The Appeal

And wilt thou leave me thus!

Say nay, say nay, for shame!

— To save thee from the blame

Of all my grief and grame.

And wilt thou leave me thus?

Say nay! say nay!

And wilt thou leave me thus,

That hath loved thee so long

In wealth and woe among:

And is thy heart so strong

As for to leave me thus?

Say nay! say nay!

And wilt thou leave me thus,

That hath given thee my heart

Never for to depart

Neither for pain nor smart:

And wilt thou leave me thus?

Say nay! say nay!

And wilt thou leave me thus,

And have no more pitye

Of him that loveth thee?

Alas, thy cruelty!

And wilt thou leave me thus?

Say nay! say nay!

SIR THOMAS WYATT

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His Lady’s Cruelty

With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb’st the skies!

How silently, and with how wan a face!

What! may it be that even in heavenly place

That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?

Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes

Can judge of love, thou feel’st a lover’s case:

I read it in thy looks; thy languish’d grace

To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.

Then, even of fellowship, O moon, tell me,

Is constant love deem’d there but want of wit?

Are beauties there as proud as here they be?

Do they above love to be loved, and yet

Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?

Do they call ‘virtue’ there — ungratefulness?

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

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Carrier Letter

My hands have not touched water since your hands, —

No; — nor my lips freed laughter since ‘farewell’.

And with the day, distance again expands

Between us, voiceless as an uncoiled shell.

Yet, — much follows, much endures… Trust birds alone:

A dove’s wings clung about my heart last night

With surging gentleness; and the blue stone

Set in the tryst-ring has but worn more bright.

HART CRANE

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Let Me Not To The Marriage Of True Minds

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixèd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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To His Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough, and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day;

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the Flood;

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires, and more slow.

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear

Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found,

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long preserv’d virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust.

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none I think do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may;

And now, like am’rous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour,

Than languish in his slow-chapp’d power.

Let us roll all our strength, and all

Our sweetness, up into one ball;

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Thorough the iron gates of life.

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

ANDREW MARVELL

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Silent Noon

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, —

The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:

Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms

’Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.

All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,

Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge

Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.

’Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly

Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky: —

So this wing’d hour is dropt to us from above.

Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,

This close-companioned inarticulate hour

When twofold silence was the song of love.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

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At The Mid Hour Of Night

At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly

To the lone vale we lov’d, when life shone warm in thine eye;

And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air,

To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there,

And tell me our love is remember’d, ev’n in the sky.

Then I sing the wild song, ’twas once such rapture to hear

When our voices commingling, breath’d like one on the ear;

And, as echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls,

I think, oh my love! ’tis thy voice from the kingdom of souls

Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear.

THOMAS MOORE

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The First Day

I wish I could remember the first day,

First hour, first moment of your meeting me,

If bright or dim the season, it might be

Summer or winter for aught I can say;

So unrecorded did it slip away,

So blind was I to see and to foresee,

So dull to mark the budding of my tree

That would not blossom, yet, for many a May.

If only I could recollect it. such

A day of days! I let it come and go

As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;

It seemed to mean so little, meant so much;

If only now I could recall that touch,

First touch of hand in hand — Did one, but know!

CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI

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Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast As Thou Art

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art —

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors —

No — yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever — or else swoon to death.

JOHN KEATS

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Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day?

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest;

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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False Though She Be

False though she be to me and love,

I’ll ne’er pursue revenge;

For still the charmer I approve,

Though I deplore her change.

In hours of bliss we oft have met:

They could not always last;

And though the present I regret,

I’m grateful for the past.

WILLIAM CONGREVE

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My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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Without Her

What of her glass without her? The blank grey

There where the pool is blind of the moon’s face.

Her dress without her? The tossed empty space

Of cloud-rack when the moon has passed away.

Her paths without her? Day’s appointed sway

Usurped by desolate night. Her pillowed place

Without her? Tears, ah me! For love’s good grace,

And cold forgetfulness of night or day.

What of the heart without her? Nay, poor heart,

Of thee what word remains ere speech be still?

A wayfarer by barren ways and chill,

Steep ways and weary, without her thou art,

Where the long cloud, the long wood’s counterpart,

Sheds doubled darkness up the labouring hill.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

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Song

Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all past years are,

Or who cleft the devil’s foot,

Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Or to keep off envy’s stinging,

And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be’st born to strange sights,

Things invisible to see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights,

Till age snow white hairs on thee,

Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me,

All strange wonders that befell thee,

And swear,

No where

Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou find’st one, let me know,

Such a pilgrimage were sweet;

Yet do not, I would not go,

Though at next door we might meet,

Though she were true, when you met her,

And last, till you write your letter,

Yet she

Will be

False, ere I come, to two, or three.

JOHN DONNE

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Ruth

She stood breast-high amid the corn,

Clasp’d by the golden light of morn,

Like the sweetheart of the sun,

Who many a glowing kiss had won.

On her cheek an autumn flush,

Deeply ripen’d; — such a blush

In the midst of brown was born,

Like red poppies grown with corn.

Round her eyes her tresses fell,

Which were blackest none could tell,

But long lashes veil’d a light,

That had else been all too bright.

And her hat, with shady brim,

Made her tressy forehead dim;

Thus she stood amid the stooks,

Praising God with sweetest looks:?

Sure, I said, Heav’n did not mean,

Where I reap thou shouldst but glean,

Lay thy sheaf adown and come,

Share my harvest and my home.

THOMAS HOOD

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Now Sleeps The Crimson Petal

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;

Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;

Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:

The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,

And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,

And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves

A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,

And slips into the bosom of the lake:

So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip

Into my bosom and be lost in me.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

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Farewell, Ungrateful Traitor!

Farewell, ungrateful traitor!

Farewell, my perjur’d swain!

Let never injur’d woman

Believe a man again.

The pleasure of possessing

Surpasses all expressing,

But ’tis too short a blessing,

And love too long a pain.

’Tis easy to deceive us

In pity of your pain,

But when we love, you leave us

To rail at you in vain.

Before we have descried it,

There is no joy beside it,

But she that once has tried it

Will never love again.

The passion you pretended

Was only to obtain,

But once the charm is ended,

The charmer you disdain.

Your love by ours we measure

Till we have lost our treasure,

But dying is a pleasure

When living is a pain.

JOHN DRYDEN

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A Broken Appointment

You did not come,

And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.

Yet less for loss of your dear presence there

Than that I thus found lacking in your make

That high compassion which can overbear

Reluctance for pure loving kindness’ sake

Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,

You did not come.

You love not me,

And love alone can lend you loyalty;

— I know and knew it. But, unto the store

Of human deeds divine in all but name,

Was it not worth a little hour or more

To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came

To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be

You love not me?

THOMAS HARDY

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Elizabeth Of Bohemia

You meaner beauties of the night,

That poorly satisfy our eyes

More by your number than your light,

You common people of the skies;

What are you when the sun shall rise?

You curious chanters of the wood,

That warble forth Dame Nature’s lays,

Thinking your voices understood

By your weak accents; what’s your praise

When Philomel her voice shall raise?

You violets that first appear,

By your pure purple mantles known

Like the proud virgins of the year,

As if the spring were all your own;

What are you when the rose is blown?

So, when my mistress shall be seen

In form and beauty of her mind,

By virtue first, then choice, a Queen,

Tell me, if she were not design’d

Th’ eclipse and glory of her kind?

SIR HENRY WOTTON

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To Mary

Mary! I want a lyre with other strings,

Such aid from Heaven as some have feign’d they drew,

An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new

And undebased by praise of meaner things;

That ere through age or woe I shed my wings,

I may record thy worth with honour due,

In verse as musical as thou art true,

And that immortalizes whom it sings:

But thou hast little need. There is a Book

By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,

On which the eyes of God not rarely look,

A chronicle of actions just and bright —

There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine;

And since thou own’st that praise, I spare thee mine.

WILLIAM COWPER

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Renouncement

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,

I shun the love that lurks in all delight —

The love of thee — and in the blue heaven’s height,

And in the dearest passage of a song.

Oh, just beyond the sweetest thoughts that throng

This breast, the thought of thee waits hidden yet bright;

But it must never, never come in sight;

I must stop short of thee the whole day long.

But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,

When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,

And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,

Must doff my will as raiment laid away, —

With the first dream that comes with the first sleep

I run, I run, I am gather’d to thy heart.

ALICE MEYNELL

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Meeting At Night

The grey sea and the long black land;

And the yellow half-moon large and low;

And the startled little waves that leap

In fiery ringlets from their sleep,

As I gain the cove with pushing prow,

And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;

Three fields to cross till a farm appears;

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch

And blue spurt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, thro’ its joys and fears,

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

ROBERT BROWNING

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When We Two Parted

When we two parted

In silence and tears,

Half broken-hearted

To sever for years,

Pale grew thy cheek and cold,

Colder thy kiss;

Truly that hour foretold

Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning

Sunk chill on my brow

It felt like the warning

Of what I feel now.

Thy vows are all broken,

And light is thy fame:

I hear thy name spoken,

And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,

A knell to mine ear;

A shudder comes o’er me

Why wert thou so dear?

They know not I knew thee,

Who knew thee too well:

Long, long shall I rue thee,

Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met,

In silence I grieve,

That thy heart could forget,

Thy spirit deceive.

If I should meet thee

After long years,

How should I greet thee?

With silence and tears.

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

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Echo

Come to me in the silence of the night;

Come in the speaking silence of a dream;

Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright

As sunlight on a stream;

Come back in tears,

O memory, hope, love of finished years.

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,

Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,

Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;

Where thirsting longing eyes

Watch the slow door

That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live

My very life again tho’ cold in death:

Come back to me in dreams, that I may give

Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:

Speak low, lean low,

As long ago, my love, how long ago.

CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI

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The Ecstasy

Where, like a pillow on a bed,

A pregnant bank swell’d up, to rest

The violet’s reclining head,

Sat we two, one another’s best.

Our hands were firmly cemented

With a fast balm, which thence did spring;

Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread

Our eyes upon one double string.

So to intergraft our hands, as yet

Was all the means to make us one ;

And pictures in our eyes to get

Was all our propagation.

As, ’twixt two equal armies, Fate

Suspends uncertain victory,

Our souls — which to advance their state,

Were gone out — hung ’twixt her and me.

And whilst our souls negotiate there,

We like sepulchral statues lay;

All day, the same our postures were,

And we said nothing, all the day.

If any, so by love refined,

That he soul’s language understood,

And by good love were grown all mind,

Within convenient distance stood,

He — though he knew not which soul spake,

Because both meant, both spake the same —

Might thence a new concoction take,

And part far purer than he came.

This ecstasy doth unperplex

(We said) and tell us what we love;

We see by this, it was not sex;

We see, we saw not, what did move:

But as all several souls contain

Mixture of things they know not what,

Love these mix’d souls doth mix again,

And makes both one, each this, and that.

A single violet transplant,

The strength, the colour, and the size —

All which before was poor and scant —

Redoubles still, and multiplies.

When love with one another so

Interanimates two souls,

That abler soul, which thence doth flow,

Defects of loneliness controls.

We then, who are this new soul, know,

Of what we are composed, and made,

For th’ atomies of which we grow

Are souls, whom no change can invade.

But, O alas! so long, so far,

Our bodies why do we forbear?

They are ours, though not we; we are

Th’ intelligences, they the spheres.

We owe them thanks, because they thus

Did us, to us, at first convey,

Yielded their forces, sense, to us,

Nor are dross to us, but allay.

On man heaven’s influence works not so,

But that it first imprints the air;

So soul into the soul may flow,

Though it to body first repair.

As our blood labours to beget

Spirits, as like souls as it can;

Because such fingers need to knit

That subtle knot, which makes us man;

So must pure lovers’ souls descend

To affections, and to faculties,

Which sense may reach and apprehend,

Else a great prince in prison lies.

To our bodies turn we then, that so

Weak men on love reveal’d may look ;

Love’s mysteries in souls do grow,

But yet the body is his book.

And if some lover, such as we,

Have heard this dialogue of one,

Let him still mark us, he shall see

Small change when we’re to bodies gone.

JOHN DONNE

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To His Mistress Going To Bed

Come madam, come, all rest my powers defy;

Until I labour, I in labour lie.

The foe ofttimes, having the foe in sight,

Is tired with standing, though he never fight.

Off with that girdle, like heaven’s zone glittering,

But a far fairer world encompassing.

Unpin that spangled breast-plate, which you wear,

That th’ eyes of busy fools may be stopp’d there.

Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime

Tells me from you that now it is bed-time.

Off with that happy busk, which I envy,

That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.

Your gown going off such beauteous state reveals,

As when from flowery meads th’ hill’s shadow steals.

Off with your wiry coronet, and show

The hairy diadem which on you doth grow.

Off with your hose and shoes; then softly tread

In this love’s hallow’d temple, this soft bed.

In such white robes heaven’s angels used to be

Revealed to men; thou, angel, bring’st with thee

A heaven-like Mahomet’s paradise; and though

Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know

By this these angels from an evil sprite;

Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.

Licence my roving hands, and let them go

Before, behind, between, above, below.

O, my America, my Newfoundland,

My kingdom, safest when with one man mann’d,

My mine of precious stones, my empery;

How blest am I in this discovering thee!

To enter in these bonds, is to be free;

Then, where my hand is set, my seal shall be.

Full nakedness ! All joys are due to thee;

As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be

To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use

Are like Atlanta’s ball cast in men’s views;

That, when a fool’s eye lighteth on a gem,

His earthly soul may covert theirs, not them:

Like pictures, or like books’ gay coverings made

For laymen, are all women thus array’d.

Themselves are mystic books, which only we

— Whom their imputed grace will dignify —

Must see reveal’d. Then, since that I may know,

As liberally as to thy midwife show

Thyself; cast all, yea, this white linen hence;

There is no penance much less innocence:

To teach thee, I am naked first; why then,

What needst thou have more covering than a man?

JOHN DONNE

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To Mary

I sleep with thee, and wake with thee,

And yet thou art not there;

I fill my arms with thoughts of thee,

And press the common air,

Thy eyes are gazing upon mine,

When thou art out of sight;

My lips are always touching thine,

At morning, noon, and night.

I think and speak of other things

To keep my mind at rest;

But still to thee my memory clings

Like love in woman’s breast.

I hide it from the world’s wide eye,

And think and speak contrary;

But soft the wind comes from the sky,

And whispers tales of Mary.

The night wind whispers in my ear,

The moon shines in my face;

A burden still of chilling fear

I find in every place.

The breeze is whispering in the bush,

And the dews fall from the tree,

All sighing on, and will not hush,

Some pleasant tales of thee.

JOHN CLARE

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The Apparition

When by thy scorne, O murdresse, I am dead,

And that thou thinkst thee free

From all solicitation from mee,

Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,

And thee, fain’d vestall, in worse armes shall see;

Then thy sicke taper will begin to winke,

And he, whose thou art then, being tyr’d before,

Will, if thou stirre, or pinch to wake him, thinke

Thou call’st for more,

And in false sleepe will from thee shrinke,

And then poore Aspen wretch, neglected thou

Bath’d in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lye

A veryer ghost than I;

What I will say, I will not tell thee now,

Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,

I’had rather thou shouldst painfully repent,

Than by my threatenings rest still innocent.

JOHN DONNE

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Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known

Strange fits of passion have I known:

And I will dare to tell,

But in the Lover’s ear alone,

What once to me befell.

When she I loved looked every day

Fresh as a rose in June,

I to her cottage bent my way,

Beneath an evening moon.

Upon the moon I fixed my eye,

All over the wide lea;

With quickening pace my horse drew nigh

Those paths so dear to me.

And now we reached the orchard-plot;

And, as we climbed the hill,

The sinking moon to Lucy’s cot

Came near, and nearer still.

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,

Kind Nature’s gentlest boon!

And all the while my eyes I kept

On the descending moon.

My horse moved on; hoof after hoof

He raised, and never stopped:

When down behind the cottage roof,

At once, the bright moon dropped.

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide

Into a Lover’s head!

‘O mercy!’ to myself I cried,

‘If Lucy should be dead!’

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

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Longing

Come to me in my dreams, and then

By day I shall be well again!

For then the night will more than pay

The hopeless longing of the day.

Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times,

A messenger from radiant climes,

And smile on thy new world, and be

As kind to others as to me!

Or, as thou never cam’st in sooth,

Come now, and let me dream it truth,

And part my hair, and kiss my brow,

And say, My love! why sufferest thou?

Come to me in my dreams, and then

By day I shall be well again!

For then the night will more than pay

The hopeless longing of the day.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

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Sudden Light

I have been here before,

But when or how I cannot tell:

I know the grass beyond the door,

The sweet keen smell,

The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before, —

How long ago I may not know:

But just when at that swallow’s soar

Your neck turned so,

Some veil did fall, — I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before?

And shall not thus time’s eddying flight

Still with our lives our love restore

In death’s despite,

And day and night yield one delight once more?

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

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Love Is Enough

Love is enough: though the World be a-waning,

And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,

Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover

The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,

Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,

And this day draw a veil over all deeds pass’d over,

Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;

The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter

These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.

WILLIAM MORRIS

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