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Canzone IX.
Gentil mia donna, i' veggio.IN PRAISE OF LAURA'S EYES: THEY LEAD HIM TO CONTEMPLATE THE PATH OF LIFE. Lady, in your bright eyesSoft glancing round, I mark a holy light,Pointing the arduous way that heavenward lies;And to my practised sight,From thence, where Love enthroned, asserts his might,Visibly, palpably, the soul beams forth.This is the beacon guides to deeds of worth,And urges me to seek the glorious goal;This bids me leave behind the vulgar throng,Nor can the human tongueTell how those orbs divine o'er all my soulExert their sweet control,Both when hoar winter's frosts around are flung,And when the year puts on his youth again,Jocund, as when this bosom first knew pain.Oh! if in that high sphere,<...
Francesco Petrarca
Summer Songs
IHow thick the grass, How green the shade -All for love And lovers made.Wood-lilies white As hidden lace -Open your bodice, That's their place.See how the sun-god OverpowersThe summer lying Deep in flowers;With burning kisses Of bright goldFills her young womb With joy untold;And all the world Is lad and lass,A blue sky And a couch of grass.Summer is here - let us drainIt all! it may Not come again.IIHow the leaves thicken On the boughs,And the birds makeTheir lyric vows.O the beating, breaking Heart of things,The pulse and passion - How it ...
Richard Le Gallienne
Hope.
See through yon cloud that rolls in wrath,One little star benignant peep,To light along their trackless pathThe wanderers of the stormy deep.And thus, oh Hope! thy lovely formIn sorrow's gloomy night shall beThe sun that looks through cloud and stormUpon a dark and moonless sea.When heaven is all serene and fair,Full many a brighter gem we meet;'Tis when the tempest hovers there,Thy beam is most divinely sweet.The rainbow, when the sun declines,Like faithless friend will disappear;Thy light, dear star! more brightly shinesWhen all is wail and weeping here.And though Aurora's stealing beamMay wake a morning of delight,'Tis only thy consoling beamWill smile amid affliction's night.
Joseph Rodman Drake
Lovers' Lane
This cool quiet of treesIn the grey dusk of the north,In the green half-dusk of the west,Where fires still glow;These glimmering fantasiesOf foliage branching forthAnd drooping into rest;Ye lovers, knowThat in your wanderingsBeneath this arching brakeYe must attune your loveTo hushed words.For here is the dreaming wisdom ofThe unmovable things...And more: - walk softly, lest ye wakeA thousand sleeping birds.
Thomas Moult
Sleep.
Come, gentle sleep, with the holy night,Come with the stars and the white moonbeams,Come with your train of handmaids bright,Blessed and beautiful dreams.Bring the exile to his home again,Let him catch the gleam of its low white wall;Let his wife cling to his neck and weep,And his children come at their father's call.Give to the mother the child she lost,Laid from her heart to a clay-cold bed;Let its breath float over her tear-wet cheek,And her cold heart warm 'neath its bright young head.Take the sinner's hand and lead him backTo his sinless youth and his mother's knee;Let him kneel again 'neath her tender look,And murmur the prayer of his infancy.Lead the aged into that wondrous clime,Home of their youth and land...
Marietta Holley
Love's Justification. Second Reading.
Ben può talor col casto.It must be right sometimes to entertain Chaste love with hope not over-credulous; Since if all human loves were impious, Unto what end did God the world ordain?If I love thee and bend beneath thy reign, 'Tis for the sake of beauty glorious Which in thine eyes divine is stored for us, And drives all evil thought from its domain.That is not love whose tyranny we own In loveliness that every moment dies; Which, like the face it worships, fades away:True love is that which the pure heart hath known, Which alters not with time or death's decay, Yielding on earth earnest of Paradise.
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
To Laura In Death. Canzone II.
Amor, se vuoi ch' i' torni al giogo antico.UNLESS LOVE CAN RESTORE HER TO LIFE, HE WILL NEVER AGAIN BE HIS SLAVE. If thou wouldst have me, Love, thy slave again,One other proof, miraculous and new,Must yet be wrought by you,Ere, conquer'd, I resume my ancient chain--Lift my dear love from earth which hides her now,For whose sad loss thus beggar'd I remain;Once more with warmth endowThat wise chaste heart where wont my life to dwell;And if as some divine, thy influence so,From highest heaven unto the depths of hell,Prevail in sooth--for what its scope below,'Mid us of common race,Methinks each gentle breast may answer well--Rob Death of his late triumph, and replaceThy conquering ensign in her lovely face!...
Amour 41
Rare of-spring of my thoughts, my dearest Loue,Begot by fancy on sweet hope exhortiue,In whom all purenes with perfection stroue,Hurt in the Embryon makes my ioyes abhortiue.And you, my sighes, Symtomas of my woe,The dolefull Anthems of my endelesse care,Lyke idle Ecchoes euer answering; so,The mournfull accents of my loues dispayre.And thou, Conceite, the shadow of my blisse,Declyning with the setting of my sunne,Springing with that, and fading straight with this,Now hast thou end, and now thou wast begun: Now was thy pryme, and loe! is now thy waine; Now wast thou borne, now in thy cradle slayne.
Michael Drayton
First Love.
O my earliest love, who, ere I number'dTen sweet summers, made my bosom thrill!Will a swallow - or a swift, or some bird -Fly to her and say, I love her still?Say my life's a desert drear and arid,To its one green spot I aye recur:Never, never - although three times married -Have I cared a jot for aught but her.No, mine own! though early forced to leave you,Still my heart was there where first we met;In those "Lodgings with an ample sea-view,"Which were, forty years ago, "To Let."There I saw her first, our landlord's oldestLittle daughter. On a thing so fairThou, O Sun, - who (so they say) beholdestEverything, - hast gazed, I tell thee, ne'er.There she sat - so near me, yet remoterThan a star - a blue-eyed bashful ...
Charles Stuart Calverley
Things Worth While.
To sit and dream in a shady nookWhile the phantom clouds roll by;To con some long-remembered bookWhen the pulse of youth beats high.To thrill when the dying sunset glowsThrough the heart of a mystic wood,To drink the sweetness of some wild rose,And to find the whole world good.To bring unto others joy and mirth,And keep what friends you can;To learn that the rarest gift on earthIs the love of your fellow man.To hold the respect of those you know,To scorn dishonest pelf;To sympathize with another's woe,And just be true to yourself.To find that a woman's honest loveIn this great world of strifeGleams steadfast like a star, aboveThe dark morass of life.To feel a baby's clinging hand,To wa...
Edwin C. Ranck
Love Letters of a Violinist. Letter VII. Hope.
Letter VII. Hope.I. O tears of mine! Ye start I know not why, Unless, indeed, to prove that I am glad, Albeit fast wedded to a thought so sad I scarce can deem that my despair will die, Or that the sun, careering up the sky, Will warm again a world that seem'd so mad.II. And yet, who knows? The world is, to the mind, Much as we make it; and the things we tend Wear, for the nonce, the liveries that we lend. And some such things are fair, though ill-defined, And some are scathing, like...
Eric Mackay
A Portrait.
All sweet and various things do lend themselvesAnd blend and intermix in her rare soul,As chorded notes, which were untuneful else,Clasp each the other in a perfect whole.Within her spirit, dawn, all dewy-pearled,Seems held and folded in by golden noons,While past the sunshine gleams a further worldOf deep star-spaces and mysterious moons.Like widths of blowing ocean wet with spray,Like breath of early blooms at morning caught,Like cool airs on the cheek of heated day,Come the fair emanations of her thought.Her movement, like the curving of a vine,Seems an unerring accident of grace,And like a flower's the subtle change and shineAnd meaning of her brightly tranquil face.And like a tree, unconscious of her shade,She...
Susan Coolidge
Our Saviour's Boyhood.
With what a flood of wondrous thoughts Each Christian breast must swellWhen, wandering back through ages past, With simple faith they dwellOn quiet Nazareth's sacred sod,Where the Child Saviour's footsteps trod.Awe-struck we picture to ourselves That brow serene and fair,That gentle face, the long rich curls Of wavy golden hair,And those deep wondrous, star-like eyes,Holy and calm as midnight skies.We see Him in the work-shop shed With Joseph, wise and good,Obedient to His guardian's word, Docile and meek of mood;The Mighty Lord of Heaven and EarthToiling like one of lowly birth.Or else, with His young Mother fair - That sinless, spotless one,Who watched with fond and reverent care,...
Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCXC. Love And Matrimony.
Love your own, kiss your own. Love your own mother, hinny, For if she was dead and gone, You'd ne'er get such another, hinny.
Unknown
The High Oaks
Fourscore years and sevenLight and dew from heavenHave fallen with dawn on these glad woods each daySince here was born, even here,A birth more bright and dearThan ever a younger yearHath seen or shall till all these pass away,Even all the imperious pride of these,The woodland ways majestic now with towers of trees.Love itself hath noughtTouched of tenderest thoughtWith holiest hallowing of memorial graceFor memory, blind with bliss,To love, to clasp, to kiss,So sweetly strange as this,The sense that here the sun first hailed her face,A babe at Her glad mother's breast,And here again beholds it more beloved and blest.Love's own heart, a livingSpring of strong thanksgiving,Can bid no strength of welling song find way
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Love Me
Brown-thrush singing all day longIn the leaves above me,Take my love this April song,"Love me, love me, love me!"When he harkens what you say,Bid him, lest he miss me,Leave his work or leave his play,And kiss me, kiss me, kiss me!
Sara Teasdale
The Ruling Thought.
Most sweet, most powerful, Controller of my inmost soul; The terrible, yet precious gift Of heaven, companion kind Of all my days of misery, O thought, that ever dost recur to me; Of thy mysterious power Who speaketh not? Who hath not felt Its subtle influence? Yet, when one is by feeling deep impelled Its secret joys and sorrows to unfold, The theme seems ever new however old. How isolated is my mind, Since thou in it hast come to dwell! As by some magic spell, My other thoughts have all, Like lightning, disappeared; And thou, alone, like some huge tower, In a deserted plain, Gigantic, solitary, dost remain. How worthless quite, S...
Giacomo Leopardi
Some Time
Last night, my darling, as you slept,I thought I heard you sigh,And to your little crib I crept,And watched a space thereby;And then I stooped and kissed your brow,For oh! I love you so--You are too young to know it now,But some time you shall know!Some time when, in a darkened placeWhere others come to weep,Your eyes shall look upon a faceCalm in eternal sleep,The voiceless lips, the wrinkled brow,The patient smile shall show--You are too young to know it now,But some time you may know!Look backward, then, into the years,And see me here to-night--See, O my darling! how my tearsAre falling as I write;And feel once more upon your browThe kiss of long ago--You are too young to know it now,But ...
Eugene Field