What Love Is

Love starts with a little throb in the heart,
And in the end one dies
Like an ill-treated toy.
Love is born in a look or in four words,
The little spark that burnt the whole house.
Love is at first a look,
And then a smile,
And then a word,
And then a promise,
And then a meeting of two among flowers.

From the Arabic.

Edward Powys Mathers

Edward Powys Mathers was an English translator and poet, best known for translating the French Orientalist J.C. Mardrus's translation of 'The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night' in 1923. In addition to translations, Powys Mathers was an influential figure in the realm of cryptic crosswords, devising some of the most challenging puzzles for 'The Observer'. His translations have been lauded for their literary beauty and for introducing English-speaking audiences to classic Persian, Arabic, and Turkish poetry.

Edward Powys Mathers

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English

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How Does Love Speak?

    How does Love speak?
In the faint flush upon the tell-tale cheek,
And in the pallor that succeeds it; by
The quivering lid of an averted eye -
The smile that proves the parent of a sigh:
    Thus doth Love speak.

    How does Love speak?
By the uneven heart-throbs, and the freak
Of bounding pulses that stand still and ache
While new emotions, like strange barges, make
Along vein-channels their disturbing course,
Still as the dawn, and with the dawn's swift force:
    Thus doth Love speak.

    How does Love speak?
In the avoidance of that which we seek
The sudden silence and reserve when near;
The eye that glistens with an unshed tear;
The joy that seems the counterpart of fear,
As the alarmed heart leads in the breast,
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Love.

Love!--what is love? a mere machine, a spring
For freaks fantastic, a convenient thing,
A point to which each scribbling wight most steer,
Or vainly hope for food or favour here;
A summer's sigh; a winter's wistful tale:
A sound at which th' untutor'd maid turns pale;
Her soft eyes languish, and her bosom heaves,
And Hope delights as Fancy's dream deceives.

Thus speaks the heart which cold disgust invades,
When time instructs, and Hope's enchantment fades;
Through life's wide stage, from sages down to kings,
The puppets move, as art directs the strings:
Imperious beauty bows to sordid gold,
Her smiles, whence heaven flows emanent, are sold;
And affectation swells th' entrancing tones,
Which nature subjugates, and truth disowns.

I love th' ingenuous...

Thomas Gent

Love's Language.

    How does Love speak?
        In the faint flush upon the tell-tale cheek,
        And in the pallor that succeeds it; by
        The quivering lid of an averted eye -
        The smile that proves the patent to a sigh -
    Thus doth Love speak.

    How does Love speak?
        By the uneven heart-throbs, and the freak
        Of bounding pulses that stand still and ache,
        While new emotions, like strange barges, make
        Along vein-channels their disturbing course;
        Still as the dawn, and with the dawn's swift force -
    Thus doth Love speak.

    How does Love speak?
        In the avoidance of that which we seek -
        The sudden silence and reserve when near -
        The eye that glistens with an unshed tear -
   ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Love.

Love - love - love - love, -
A tiny hand in a tiny glove;
A witching smile that means, - well, - well,
Whether little or much its hard to tell.
A tiny foot and a springy tread,
Short curls running riot all over her head;
A waist that invites a fond embrace,
Yet by modesty girt seems a holy place;
Not a place where an arm should be idly thrown,
But should gently rest, as would rest my own.
An angel whose wings are but hid from view,
Whose charms are many and faults so few,
As near perfection as mortal can be,
Is the one that I love and that loves but me.
They tell me that love is blind, - .oh, no!
They can never convince a lover so;
Love cannot be blind for it sees much more,
Then others have ever discovered before.
Oh, the restless night with its ple...

John Hartley

When Love Is Kind.

When Love is kind,
    Cheerful and free,
Love's sure to find
    Welcome from me.

But when Love brings
    Heartache or pang,
Tears, and such things--
    Love may go hang!

If Love can sigh
    For one alone,
Well pleased am I
    To be that one,

But should I see
    Love given to rove
To two or three,
    Then--good by Love!

Love must, in short,
    Keep fond and true,
Thro' good report,
    And evil too.

Else, here I swear,
    Young Love may go.
For aught I care--
    To Jericho.

Thomas Moore

Early Love

Who says I wrong thee, my half-opened rose?
Little he knows of thee or me, or love. -
I am so tender of thy fragile youth,
Yea, in my hours of wildest ecstasy,
Keeping close-bitted each careering sense.
Only I give mine eyes unmeasured law
To feed them where they will, and their delight
Was curbed at first, until thy tender shame
Died in the bearing of thy first born joy.

I am not cruel, my half-opened rose,
Though in the sunshine of my own desire
I have uncurled thy petals to the light
And fed the tendrils of thy dawning sense
With delicate caresses, till they leave
Thee tremulous with the newness of thy joy,
Sharing thy lover's fire with innocent flame.

Others will wrong thee, that I well foresee,
Being a man, knowing my fellow men,

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson