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Love's Arithmetic
You often ask me, love, how much I love you,Bidding my fancy findAn answer to your mind;I say: "Past count, as there are stars above you."You shake your head and say,"Many and bright are they,But that is not enough." Again I try:"If all the leaves on all the treesWere counted over,And all the waves on all the seas,More times your lover,Yea! more than twice ten thousand times am I.""'Tis not enough," again you make reply."How many blades of grass," one day I said,"Are there from here to China? how many beesHave gathered honey through the centuries?Tell me how many roses have bloomed redSince the first rose till this rose in your hair?How many butterflies are born each year?How many raindrops are there i...
Richard Le Gallienne
The Beloved Disciple
I.One do I see and twelve; but second thereMethinks I know thee, thou beloved one;Not from thy nobler port, for there are noneMore quiet-featured: some there are who bearTheir message on their brows, while others wearA look of large commission, nor will shunThe fiery trial, so their work is done;But thou hast parted with thine eyes in prayer--Unearthly are they both; and so thy lipsSeem like the porches of the spirit land;For thou hast laid a mighty treasure byUnlocked by Him in Nature, and thine eyeBurns with a vision and apocalypseThy own sweet soul can hardly understand.II.A Boanerges too! Upon my heartIt lay a heavy hour: features like thineShould glow with other message than the shineOf the earth-burrowi...
George MacDonald
The Best.
When head and heart are busy, say,What better can be found?Who neither loves nor goes astray,Were better under ground.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Una.
In the whole wide world there was but one;Others for others, but she was mine,The one fair woman beneath the sun.From her gold-flax curls' most marvellous shineDown to the lithe and delicate feetThere was not a curve nor a waving lineBut moved in a harmony firm and sweetWith all of passion my life could know.By knowledge perfect and faith completeI was bound to her, - as the planets goAdoring around their central star,Free, but united for weal or woe.She was so near and Heaven so far -She grew my heaven and law and fate,Rounding my life with a mystic barNo thought beyond could violate.Our love to fulness in silence nursedGrew calm as morning, when through the gateOf the glimmering east the sun has...
John Hay
Gemini And Virgo.
Some vast amount of years ago,Ere all my youth had vanished from me,A boy it was my lot to know,Whom his familiar friends called Tommy.I love to gaze upon a child;A young bud bursting into blossom;Artless, as Eve yet unbeguiled,And agile as a young opossum:And such was he. A calm-browed lad,Yet mad, at moments, as a hatter:Why hatters as a race are madI never knew, nor does it matter.He was what nurses call a 'limb;'One of those small misguided creatures,Who, though their intellects are dim,Are one too many for their teachers:And, if you asked of him to sayWhat twice 10 was, or 3 times 7,He'd glance (in quite a placid way)From heaven to earth, from earth to heaven:And smile, and look politel...
Charles Stuart Calverley
A Blessing
Be you near, or be you far,Let my blessing, like a star,Shine upon you everywhere!And in each lone evening hour,When the twilight folds the flower,I will fold thy name in prayer.In the dark and in the day,To my heart you know the way,Sorrow's pale hand keeps the key;In your sorrow or your sinYou may always enter in;I will keep a place for thee.If God's blessing pass awayFrom your spirit; if you strayFrom his presence, do not wait.Come to my heart, for I keepFor the hearts that wail and weep,Ever opened wide -- a gate.In your joys to others go,When your feet walk ways of woeOnly then come back to me;I will give you tear for tear,And our tears shall more endearThee to me and me to thee.<...
Abram Joseph Ryan
When Twilight Dews.
When twilight dews are falling soft Upon the rosy sea, love,I watch the star, whose beam so oft Has lighted me to thee, love.And thou too, on that orb so dear, Dost often gaze at even,And think, tho' lost for ever here, Thou'lt yet be mine in heaven.There's not a garden walk I tread, There's not a flower I see, love,But brings to mind some hope that's fled, Some joy that's gone with thee, Love.And still I wish that hour was near, When, friends and foes forgiven,The pains, the ills we've wept thro' here May turn to smiles in heaven.
Thomas Moore
Her Love. (Excerpt From "Maurine")
The sands upon the ocean side That change about with every tide, And never true to one abide, A woman's love I liken to. The summer zephyrs, light and vain, That sing the same alluring strain To every grass blade on the plain - A woman's love is nothing more. The sunshine of an April day That comes to warm you with its ray, But while you smile has flown away - A woman's love is like to this. God made poor woman with no heart, But gave her skill, and tact, and art, And so she lives, and plays her part. We must not blame, but pity her. She leans to man - but just to hear The praise he whispers in her ear, Herself, not him, she holdeth dea...
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
To Julia.
Though Fate, my girl, may bid us part, Our souls it cannot, shall not sever;The heart will seek its kindred heart, And cling to it as close as ever.But must we, must we part indeed? Is all our dream of rapture over?And does not Julia's bosom bleed To leave so dear, so fond a lover?Does she, too, mourn?--Perhaps she may; Perhaps she mourns our bliss so fleeting;But why is Julia's eye so gay, If Julia's heart like mine is beating?I oft have loved that sunny glow Of gladness in her blue eye beaming--But can the bosom bleed with woe While joy is in the glances beaming?No, no!--Yet, love, I will not chide; Although your heart were fond of roving,Nor that, nor all the world ...
Enough
It is enough for me by dayTo walk the same bright earth with him;Enough that over us by nightThe same great roof of stars is dim.I do not hope to bind the windOr set a fetter on the sea,It is enough to feel his love,Blow by like music over me.
Sara Teasdale
Her Thought And His
The gray of the sea, and the gray of the sky,A glimpse of the moon like a half-closed eye.The gleam on the waves and the light on the land,A thrill in my heart,--and--my sweetheart's hand.She turned from the sea with a woman's grace,And the light fell soft on her upturned face,And I thought of the flood-tide of infinite blissThat would flow to my heart from a single kiss.But my sweetheart was shy, so I dared not askFor the boon, so bravely I wore the mask.But into her face there came a flame:--I wonder could she have been thinking the same?
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Love Alone.
If thou wouldst have thy charms enchant our eyes,First win our hearts, for there thy empire lies:Beauty in vain would mount a heartless throne,Her Right Divine is given by Love alone.What would the rose with all her pride be worth,Were there no sun to call her brightness forth?Maidens, unloved, like flowers in darkness thrown,Wait but that light which comes from Love alone.Fair as thy charms in yonder glass appear,Trust not their bloom, they'll fade from year to year:Wouldst thou they still should shine as first they shone,Go, fix thy mirror in Love's eyes alone.
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet XLIII
Faire eyes, sweet lips, dear heart, that foolish ICould hope, by Cupids help, on you to pray,Since to himselfe he doth your gifts apply,As his maine force, choise sport, and easefull stay!For when he will see who dare him gain-say,Then with those eyes he looeks: lo, by and byEach soule doth at Loues feet his weapons lay,Glad if for her he giue them leaue to die.When he will play, then in her lips he is,Where, blushing red, that Loues selfe them doe loue,With either lip he doth the other kisse;But when he will, for quiets sake, remoueFrom all the world, her heart is then his rome,Where well he knowes no man to him can come.
Philip Sidney
Preference.
Not in scorn do I reprove thee,Not in pride thy vows I waive,But, believe, I could not love thee,Wert thou prince, and I a slave.These, then, are thine oaths of passion?This, thy tenderness for me?Judged, even, by thine own confession,Thou art steeped in perfidy.Having vanquished, thou wouldst leave me!Thus I read thee long ago;Therefore, dared I not deceive thee,Even with friendship's gentle show.Therefore, with impassive coldnessHave I ever met thy gaze;Though, full oft, with daring boldness,Thou thine eyes to mine didst raise.Why that smile? Thou now art deemingThis my coldness all untrue,But a mask of frozen seeming,Hiding secret fires from view.Touch my hand, thou self-deceiver;Nay-be calm, for I am so:D...
Charlotte Bronte
The Old Man's Love.
("Dérision! que cet amour boiteux.")[HERNANI, Act III.]O mockery! that this halting loveThat fills the heart so full of flame and transport,Forgets the body while it fires the soul!If but a youthful shepherd cross my path,He singing on the way - I sadly musing,He in his fields, I in my darksome alleys -Then my heart murmurs: "O, ye mouldering towers!Thou olden ducal dungeon! O how gladlyWould I exchange ye, and my fields and forests,Mine ancient name, mine ancient rank, my ruins -My ancestors, with whom I soon shall lie,For his thatched cottage and his youthful brow!"His hair is black - his eyes shine forth like thine.Him thou might'st look upon, and say, fair youth,Then turn to me, and think that I am old...
Victor-Marie Hugo
Adoration
Ah, if you worship anything,In deepest hush of silence bendThe lone adoring knee,And only silence bringInto the sanctuary.Trust not the fairest wordYour soul to wrong:Even the Rose's birdHath not a songSweet as the silenceRound about the Rose.Ah, something goes,Fails, and is lost in speechThat silence knows.How should I speakThe hush about my heartThat holds your nameShrined in a burning coreOf central flame,Like names of seraphimMystically writ on cloud?To speak your name aloudWere to unhallowSuch a holy thing;Therefore I bringTo your white feetAnd your immortal eyesSilence forever,But in such a wiseAm silent as the quiet waters are,Hiding some holy starA...
Bequest.
You left me, sweet, two legacies, --A legacy of loveA Heavenly Father would content,Had He the offer of;You left me boundaries of painCapacious as the sea,Between eternity and time,Your consciousness and me.
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
In Love's Own Time.
S' i' avessi creduto.Had I but earlier known that from the eyes Of that bright soul that fires me like the sun, I might have drawn new strength my race to run, Burning as burns the phoenix ere it dies;Even as the stag or lynx or leopard flies To seek his pleasure and his pain to shun, Each word, each smile of her would I have won, Flying where now sad age all flight denies.Yet why complain? For even now I find In that glad angel's face, so full of rest, Health and content, heart's ease and peace of mindPerchance I might have been less simply blest, Finding her sooner: if 'tis age alone That lets me soar with her to seek God's throne.
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni