Penguin's Poems for Love by Barber, Laura -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover About the Author Title Page Copyright Page Contents Preface A Note on the Poems Penguin's Poems for Love

How do I love thee?…

Suddenly

Christina G. Rossetti: ‘I wish I could remember that first day’ Elizabeth Jennings: Light Simon Barraclough: Los Alamos Mon Amour John Gower: Pygmaleon, from Confessio Amantis Sylvia Plath: Love Letter Sir Arthur Gorges: ‘Her face Her tongue Her wit’ Emily Dickinson: ‘It was a quiet way – ’ John Milton: ‘That day I oft remember, when from sleep/ I first awaked’, from Paradise Lost, Book IV Hart Crane: Episode of Hands William Shakespeare: ‘When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart’, from Antony and Cleopatra, II, ii Christopher Marlowe: ‘And in the midst a silver altar stood’, from Hero and Leander, Sestiad I Elizabeth Barrett Browning: ‘First time he kissed me, he but only kissed’, from Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXXVIII William Barnes: ‘With you first shown to me’ May Theilgaard Watts: Vision John Donne: The Good Morrow Jenny Joseph: The sun has burst the sky

Secretly

John Clare: ‘I hid my love when young till I’ Robert Browning: ‘Eyes, calm beside thee (Lady, could’st thou know!)’ William Shakespeare: ‘Say that some lady, as perhaps there is’, from Twelfth Night, II, iv Carol Ann Duffy: Warming Her Pearls William Blake: The Sick Rose Wallace Stevens: Gray Room Wilfred Owen: Maundy Thursday Sarah Fyge Egerton: A Song: ‘How pleasant is love’

Nearly

Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze: Dubwise John Dryden: ‘Calm was the Even, and clear was the sky’, Song, from An Evening’s Love Thomas Hardy: A Thunderstorm in Town Connie Bensley: A Friendship

Tentatively

Arthur Hugh Clough: ‘I am in love, meantime, you think; no doubt you would think so’, from Amours de Voyage, Canto II: X Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton: ‘I do not love thee! – no! I do not love thee!’ Brian Patten: Forgetmeknot Sir Philip Sidney: ‘Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show’, from Astrophil and Stella: I Bernard O’Donoghue: Stealing Up William Shakespeare: ‘But soft! what light through yonder window breaks?’, from Romeo and Juliet, II, ii Thom Gunn: Jamesian Jacob Sam-La Rose: Things That Could Happen George Herbert: Love Olivia McCannon: Timing Walt Whitman: Are You the New Person Drawn toward Me? W. B. Yeats: He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven Alice Oswald: Sonnet Galway Kinnell: Kissing the Toad

Haplessly

Amy Lowell: The Bungler Edmund Spenser: ‘My love is like to ice, and I to fire’, from Amoretti: XXX W. B. Yeats: The Song of Wandering Aengus Thomas Campion: ‘Thrice toss these oaken ashes in the air’ Thomas Hardy: A Broken Appointment John Crowe Ransom: Piazza Piece Stevie Smith: Infelice Ephelia: To One That Asked Me Why I Loved J.G. Sir John Suckling: Against Fruition Robert Browning: Life in a Love

Incurably

Dorothy Parkers: Ymptom Recital Samuel Daniel: ‘Love is a sickness full of woes’ Anonymous: Dunt Dunt Dunt Pittie Pattie John Keats: La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey: ‘Alas, so all things now do hold their peace’ William Shakespeare: ‘My love is as a fever, longing still’, Sonnet 147 D. H. Lawrence: Bei Hennef Emily Grosholz: On Spadina Avenue Elizabeth Thomas: Remedia Amoris Walter Savage Landor: Hearts-Ease

Impatiently

Edmund Waller: Song ‘Go, lovely Rose’ Emily Dickinson: ‘If you were coming in the Fall’ Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Mariana Christina G. Rossetti: Twilight Night, II Anne Michaels: Three Weeks Robert Browning: In Three Days Robert Graves: Not to Sleep Elizabeth Bishop: Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore Moniza Alvi: A Bowl of Warm Air John Montague: All Legendary Obstacles

Superlatively

William Shakespeare: ‘My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun’, Sonnet 130 Ian Duhig: From the Irish Ben Jonson: Her Triumph, from A Celebration of Charis, in Ten Lyric Pieces The King James Bible: ‘My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand’, from The Song of Solomon George Gordon, Lord Byron: She Walks in Beauty Austin Clarke: The Planter’s Daughter Austin Clarke: The Planter’s Daughter E. E. Cummings: ‘somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond’ William Shakespeare: ‘The moon shines bright. In such a night as this’, from The Merchant of Venice, V, i Ogden Nash: Reprise

Persuasively

Maya Angelou: Come. And Be My Baby John Keats: To Fanny: ‘I cry your mercy, pity, love – ay love!’ Anonymous: Against Platonic Love Robin Robertson: Trysts Thomas Carew: ‘I will enjoy thee now, my Celia, come’, from A Rapture Barnabe Barnes: Would I Were Changed Robert Herrick: Upon Julia’s Clothes Anne Stevenson: Sous-entendu John Donne: Elegy: To His Mistress Going to Bed Edward Thomas: Will you come?

Passionately

Robert Jones: ‘And is it night? are they thine eyes that shine?’ Robert Browning: Now Jackie Kay: High Land George Gordon, Lord Byron: ‘A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth, and love’, from Don Juan, Canto II: CLXXXVI–IX Emily Dickinson: ‘Come slowly – Eden!’ Hugo Williams: Rhetorical Questions Jo Shapcott: Muse Percy Bysshe Shelley: ‘Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound’, from Epipsychidion Thom Gunn: The Bed Elizabeth Jennings: Passion Michael Donaghy: Pentecost W. H. AUDEN: Lullaby: ‘Lay your sleeping head, my love’ Simon Armitage: ‘Let me put it this way’ Gavin Ewart: Creation Myth Haiku

The morning after

Lesleè Newman: Possibly John Donne: The Sun Rising Louis Macneice: ‘And love hung still as crystal over the bed’, from Trilogy for X:II William Shakespeare: ‘Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day’, from Romeo and Juliet, III, v Philip Larkin: Talking in Bed Liz Lochhead: Morning After Tennessee Williams: Life Story William Shakespeare: ‘The expense of spirit in a waste of shame’, Sonnet 129 Elizabeth Bishop: Breakfast Song D. H. Lawrence: Gloire de Dijon Olivia McCannon: Ironing John Heath-Stubbs: The Unpredicted

Greedily

William Shakespeare: ‘So are you to my thoughts as food to life’, Sonnet 75 Edmund Spenser: ‘Was it a dream, or did I see it plain’, from Amoretti: LXXVII Robert Herrick: Fresh Cheese and Cream Edwin Morgan: Strawberries Helen Dunmore: Wild Strawberries Christina G. Rossetti: ‘Morning and evening/ Maids heard the goblins cry’, from Goblin Market John Davies of Hereford: The Author loving these homely meats specially, viz.: Cream, Pancakes, Buttered Pippin-pies (laugh, good people) and Tobacco; writ to that worthy and virtuous gentlewoman, whom he calleth Mistress, as followeth Gertrude Stein: ‘Kiss my lips. She did’, from Lifting Belly (II) John Berryman: ‘Filling her compact & delicious body’, from Dream Songs: 4 Paul Durcan: My Belovèd Compares Herself to a Pint of Stout

Truly, madly, deeply

Aphra Behn: Song: ‘O Love! that stronger art than wine’ John Skelton: ‘“Behold,” she sayd, “and se’, from The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummynge Hugo Williams: Nothing On Elizabeth Barrett Browning: ‘I think of thee! – my thoughts do twine and bud’, from Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXIX Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Silent Noon John Fuller: Valentine Frank O’Hara: Having a Coke with You John Milton: from Paradise Lost, Book IV Thomas Campion: ‘O sweet delight, O more than human bliss’ Adrian Mitchell: Celia Celia Walt Whitman: When I Heard at the Close of the Day Wilfred Owen: From My Diary, July 1914 Thomas Hood: ‘It was not in the winter’ Roger McGough: ‘they say the sun shone now and again’, from Summer with Monika: I Sir Philip Sidney: ‘When to my deadly pleasure’ A. D. Hope: A Blason William Shakespeare: ‘’Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of’, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, V, i Thomas Middleton: ‘Love is like a lamb, and love is like a lion’ Piet Hein: What Love Is Like

From a distance

Robert Burns: A Red, Red Rose E. B. White: Natural History Edwin Morgan: One Cigarette John Clare: To Mary Anonymous: ‘My love is faren in a land’ Anonymous: ‘Westron wind, when will thou blow’ Edmund Spenser: ‘Lacking my love I go from place to place’, from Amoretti: LXXVIII Matthew Arnold: To Marguerite – Continued Andrew Marvell: The Definition of Love Micheal O’Siadhail: Between John Donne: Air and Angels Louis MacNeice: Coda Carol Ann Duffy: Words, Wide Night Philip Larkin: Broadcast Amy Lowell: The Letter Chinua Achebe: Love Song (for Anna) George MacDonald: The Shortest and Sweetest of Songs Frances Cornford: The Avenue

With a vow

Elizabeth Garrett: Epithalamium Sir Edwin Arnold: Destiny Brian Patten: January Gladsong W. H. Auden: ‘Carry her over the water’ Francis Quarles: ‘Even like two little bank-dividing brooks’ Alice Oswald: Wedding Anonymous: ‘I will give my love an apple without e’er a core’ Lemn Sissay: Invisible Kisses James Fenton: Hinterhof Joshua Sylvester: ‘Were I as base as is the lowly plain’ E. E. Cummings: ‘i carry your heart with me(i carry it in’ George Chapman: Bridal Song, from The Masque of the Middle Temple and Lincoln’s Inn Michael Donaghy: The Present Kate Clanchy: Patagonia

Happily ever after

C. K. Williams Love: Beginnings Muriel Rukeyser: Looking at Each Other Ted Hughes: Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days William Blake: ‘When a Man has Married a Wife’ John Milton: ‘Thus Eve with count’nance blithe her story told’, from Paradise Lost, Book IX Alden Nowlan: Parlour Game William Barnes: Jeäne Seamus Heaney: Scaffolding U. A. Fanthorpe: Atlas Phyllis McGinley: The 5:32 Sharon Olds: True Love Richard Wilbur: For C. John Keats: ‘Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art – ’

Treacherously

Thomas Moore: On Taking a Wife E. E. Cummings: ‘may i feel said he’ Isobel Dixon: You, Me and the Orang-utan George Gordon, Lord Byron: ‘’Twas midnight – Donna Julia was in bed’, from Don Juan, Canto I: CXXXVI–XLIV Mary Coleridge: Jealousy Edward Arlington Robinson: Firelight Adam O’Riordan: Cheat Lavinia Greenlaw: Tryst Julia Copus: In Defence of Adultery

Brutally

Emily Dickinson: ‘He fumbles at your Soul’ George Meredith: ‘He felt the wild beast in him betweenwhiles’, from Modern Love: IX Amy Lowell: Carrefour William Shakespeare: ‘The honey fee of parting tendered is’, from Venus and Adonis Alexander Pope: ‘But when to mischief mortals bend their will’, from The Rape of the Lock, Canto III W. B. Yeats: Leda and the Swan D. H. Lawrence: Love on the Farm Ted Hughes: Lovesong Isobel Dixon: Truce

Bitterly

Thomas Moore: To —— Gavin Ewart: Ending Rosemary Tonks: Orpheus in Soho Babette Deutsch: Solitude Percy Bysshe Shelley: ‘When the lamp is shattered’ Thomas Hardy: Neutral Tones Charlotte Mew: Rooms Sylvia Plath: The Other Two George Meredith: ‘By this he knew she wept with waking eyes’, from Modern Love: I Don Paterson: The Wreck Stephen Crane: ‘In the desert’

Finally

Emily Dickinson: ‘My life closed twice before its close – ’ Thomas Hardy: In the Vaulted Way Katherine Mansfield: The Meeting Jenny Joseph: Dawn walkers Henry King: The Surrender John Donne: The Expiration Elizabeth Bishop: One Art James Merrill: A Renewal Alice Meynell: Renouncement Brian Patten: I Have Changed the Numbers on My Watch Tim Liardet: Needle on Zero Edward Thomas: ‘Go now’ Judith Rodriguez: In-flight Note Sophie Hannah: The End of Love

Forsaken

Matthew Sweeney: The Bridal Suite Lady Augusta Gregory: Donal Og (translated from the Irish, anonymous) Sir Walter Ralegh: ‘As you came from the holy land’ William Soutar: The Tryst Fleur Adcock: Incident Anonymous: The Water is Wide A. E. Housman: ‘He would not stay for me; and who can wonder?’ Jackie Kay: Her

Regretfully

Edna St Vincent Millay: ‘When I too long have looked upon your face’ Matthew Sweeney: Cacti Dora Sigerson Shorter: ‘I want to talk to thee of many things’ John Clare: How Can I Forget Linton Kwesi Johnson: Hurricane Blues T. S. Eliot: La Figlia Che Piange William Empson: Villanelle Thomas Hardy: At Castle Boterel Vikram Seth: Progress Report Gwen Harwood: Anniversary Duncan Forbes: Recension Day

Fatally

Sir Henry Wotton: Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton’s Wife Oscar Wilde: ‘Yet each man kills the thing he loves‘, from The Ballad of Reading Gaol William Shakespeare: ‘It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul’, from Othello, V, ii Robert Browning: Porphyria’s Lover Alfred Noyes: The Highwayman Oliver Goldsmith: ‘When lovely woman stoops to folly’, from The Vicar of Wakefield Alfred, Lord Tennyson: The Lady of Shalott Vicki Feaver: Lily pond Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea: La Passion Vaincue

Indifferently

Wendy Cope: Loss Sir Thomas Wyatt: ‘Farewell Love, and all thy laws for ever!’ Edith Nesbit: Villeggiature Henry King: The Double Rock A. E. Housman: ‘Oh, when I was in love with you’, from A Shropshire Lad: XVIII Geoffrey Chaucer: ‘Sin I fro Love escaped am so fat’, from Merciles Beaute, III: Escape Stephen Dunn: Each from Different Heights Charlotte Mew: I So Liked Spring Derek Walcott: Love after Love

After death

Elaine Feinstein: Hands R. S. Thomas: A Marriage Percy Bysshe Shelley: ‘Music, when soft voices die’ William Morris: Summer Dawn Thomas Hardy: The Voice Douglas Dunn: Reincarnations John Milton: ‘Methought I saw my late espousèd saint’ William Shakespeare: ‘I dreamt there was an emperor Antony’, from Antony and Cleopatra, V, ii William Barnes: The Wife A-Lost Edgar Allan Poe: Annabel Lee Henry King: ‘So close the ground, and ’bout her shade’, from The Exequy

Eternally

Margaret Atwood: Sunset II Edmund Spenser: ‘One day I wrote her name upon the strand’, from Amoretti: LXXV Elizabeth Barrett Browning: ‘If thou must love me, let it be for nought’, from Sonnets from the Portuguese: XIV Alfred, Lord Tennyson: ‘If I were loved, as I desire to be’ Emily Dickinson: ‘I have no Life but this – ’ Leonard Cohen: Dance Me to the End of Love

Acknowledgements Index of Poets Index of Titles and First Lines Footnotes

Suddenly

Page 006 Page 007

← Prev
Back
Next →

← Prev
Back
Next →