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Some find Love late, some find him soon,
Some with the rose in May,
Some with the nightingale in June,
And some when skies are gray;
Love comes to some with smiling eyes,
And comes with tears to some;
For some Love sings, for some Love sighs,
For some Love's lips are dumb.How will you come to me, fair Love?
Will you co... |
I came once more to the House of Love
And knocked, ah, softly and wistfully,
And my true love cried "Who knocks?" and I said
"None now but thee."And the great doors opened wide apart
And a voice rang out from a glory of light,
"Make room, make room for a faithful heart
In the House of Love, to-night."Alfred Noyes [1880... |
Who hath the eyes which marry state with pleasure?
Who keeps the key of Nature's chiefest treasure?
To you! to you! all song of praise is due;
Only for you the heaven forgat all measure.Who hath the lips where wit in fairness reigneth?
Who womankind at once both decks and staineth?
To you! to you! all song of praise is... |
If I love Amarillis,
She gives me fruit and flowers:
But if we love these ladies,
We must give golden showers.
Give them gold, that sell love,
Give me the Nut-brown lass,
Who, when we court and kiss,
She cries, Forsooth, let go:
But when we come where comfort is,
She never will say No.These ladies must have pillows,
An... |
She obeys with speedy will
Her grave parents' wise commands;
And so innocent, that ill
She nor acts, nor understands.
Women's feet run still astray
If to ill they know the way.She sails by that rock, the court,
Where oft virtue splits her mast;
And retiredness thinks the port
Where her fame may anchor cast.
Virtue safe... |
Now lightsome o'er the level mead,
Where midnight fairies rove,
Like them the jocund dance we'll lead,
Or tune the reed to love:
For see the rosy May draws nigh,
She claims a virgin Queen;
And hark, the happy shepherds cry,
'Tis Kate of Aberdeen.John Cunningham [1729-1773]SONGWho has robbed the ocean cave,
To tinge thy... |
And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep,
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep:
So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee;
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's ocean.George Gordon Byron [1788-1824]"FLOWERS I WOULD BRING"Flowers I would bring if ... |
Because you spend your lives in praising;
To praise, you search the wide world over:
Then why not witness, calmly gazing,
If earth holds aught - speak truth - above her?
Above this tress, and this, I touch
But cannot praise, I love so much!Robert Browning [1812-1889]THE HENCHMANMy lady walks her morning round,
My lady'... |
All the girls are out with their baskets for the primrose;
Up lanes, woods through, they troop in joyful bands.
My sweet leads: she knows not why, but now she loiters,
Eyes the bent anemones, and hangs her hands.
Such a look will tell that the violets are peeping,
Coming the rose: and unaware a cry
Springs in her bosom... |
So beautiful and kind they are,
But most times looking out afar,
Waiting for something, not for me.
Beata mea Domina!I wonder if the lashes long
Are those that do her bright eyes wrong,
For always half tears seem to be
Beata mea Domina!Lurking below the underlid,
Darkening the place where they lie hid:
If they should r... |
If she be filled with love and scorn,
As all divinest natures are;
If 'twixt her lips such words are born,
As can but Heaven or Hell confer:
Bid Love be still, nor ever speak,
Lest he his own rejection seek.Herbert P. Horne [1864-THE LOVER'S SONGLend me thy fillet, Love!
I would no longer see:
Cover mine eyelids close ... |
All heaven drew nigh to hear her sing,
When from her lips her soul took wing;
The oaks forgot their pondering,
The pines their reverie.And O, her happy, queenly tread,
And O, her queenly golden head!
But O, her heart, when all is said,
Her woman's heart for me!William Watson [1858-1935]ANY LOVER, ANY LASSWhy are her ey... |
But could youth last, and love still breed,
Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy Love.Walter Raleigh [1552?-1618]"WRONG NOT, SWEET EMPRESS OF MY HEART"Wrong not, sweet empress of my heart,
The merit of true passion,
With thinking that he feels no smart,
... |
If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible go 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.... |
But if the love that hath and still doth burn me
No love at length return me,
Out of my thoughts I'll set her:
Heart, let her go, O heart I pray thee, let her!
Say, shall she go?
O no, no, no, no, no!
Fixed in the heart, how can the heart forget her?Francis Davison [fl. 1602]TO ROSES IN THE BOSOM OF CASTARAYe blushing ... |
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, ref... |
The world a vast meander is,
Where hearts confusedly stray;
Where few do hit, whilst thousands miss,
The happy mutual way.Anne Finch [? -1720]"WHY, LOVELY CHARMER"Why, lovely charmer, tell me why,
So very kind, and yet so shy?
Why does that cold, forbidding air
Give damps of sorrow and despair?
Or why that smile my sou... |
But when they find that you have blessed
Another with your heart,
They'll bid aspiring passion rest,
And act a brother's part:
Then, lady, dread not here deceit
Nor fear to suffer wrong;
For friends in all the aged you'll meet,
And brothers in the young.Richard Brinsley Sheridan [1751-1816]MEETINGMy Damon was the first... |
You and I can mock his fabled wing,
For a kiss is an immortal thing.
And the throb wherein those old lips met
Is a living music in us yet.A. E. (George William Russell) [1867-1935]THE FLOWER OF BEAUTYSweet in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers,
Lulled by the faint breezes sighing through her hair;
Sleeps she,... |
O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892]RONSARD TO HIS MISTRESS"Quand vous serez bien vieille, le s... |
A MATCHIf love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf,
Our lives would grow together
In sad or singing weather,
Blown fields or flowerful closes,
Green pleasure or gray grief;
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf.If I were what the words are,
And love were like the tune,
With double sound an... |
I went into the wood anon,
And heard the wild birds sing,
How sweet you were, they warbled on,
Piped, trilled, the selfsame thing.
Thrush, blackbird, linnet, without pause
The burden did repeat,
And still began again because
You were more sweet.And then I went down to the sea,
And heard it murmuring too,
Part of an anc... |
I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.
I will make a palace fit for you and me,
Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,
Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom,
And you shall wash your... |
Our pride! Ah, should we miss it,
Or will it serve at last?
Our anger, if we kiss it,
Is like a sorrow past.
While roses deck the garden,
While yet the sun is high,
Doff sorry pride: for pardon,
Or ever love go by.Ernest Dowson [1867-1900]IN A ROSE GARDENA hundred years from now, dear heart,
We shall not care at all.
... |
So warbling birds lift higher notes
Than to our ears belong;
The music fills their throbbing throats,
But silence steals the song.George Edward Woodberry [1855-1930]THE CYCLAMENOver the plains where Persian hosts
Laid down their lives for glory
Flutter the cyclamens, like ghosts
That witness to their story.
Oh, fair! ... |
When I have folded up this tent
And laid the soiled thing by,
I shall go forth 'neath different stars,
Under an unknown sky.And yet whatever house I find
Beneath the grass or snow
Will ne'er be tenantless of love
Or lack the face I know.O lips - wild roses wet with rain!
Blown hair of drifted brown!
O passionate eyes! ... |
Love for such a cherry lip
Would be glad to pawn his arrows;
Venus here to take a sip
Would sell her doves and team of sparrows.
But they shall not so;
Hey nonny, nonny no!
None but I this lip must owe;
Hey nonny, nonny no!Did Jove see this wanton eye,
Ganymede must wait no longer;
Phoebe here one night did lie,
Would ... |
The moth's kiss, first!
Kiss me as if you made believe
You were not sure, this eve,
How my face, your flower, had pursed
Its petals up; so, here and there
You brush it, till I grow aware
Who wants me, and wide ope I burst.The bee's kiss, now!
Kiss me as if you entered gay
My heart at some noonday,
A bud that dares not ... |
The merchant bows unto the seaman's star,
The ploughman from the sun his season takes;
But still the lover wonders what they are,
Who look for day before his mistress wakes;
Awake, awake, break through your veils of lawn!
Then draw your curtains and begin the dawn.William D'Avenant [1606-1668]MATIN-SONG
From "The Rape ... |
I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me - who knows how?
To thy chamber window, sweet!The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream;
The champak odors... |
From the Desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book ... |
In the merry month of May,
In a morn by break of day,
Forth I walked by the wood-side
When as May was in his pride:
There I spied all alone
Phillida and Coridon.
Much ado there was, God wot!
He would love and she would not.
She said, Never man was true;
He said, None was false to you.
He said, He had loved her long;
Sh... |
She hath a clout of mine
Wrought with blue coventry,
Which she keeps for a sign
Of my fidelity:
But i' faith, if she flinch
She shall not wear it;
To Tib, my t'other wench,
I mean to bear it.
And yet it grieves my heart
So soon from her to part:
Death strike me with his dart!
Phillada flouts me.Thou shalt eat crudded c... |
There's a certain young lady,
Who's just in her hey-day,
And full of all mischief, I ween;
So teasing! so pleasing!
Capricious! delicious!
And you know very well whom I mean.With an eye dark as night,
Yet than noonday more bright,
Was ever a black eye so keen?
It can thrill with a glance,
With a beam can entrance,
And ... |
She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu,
A-raspin' on the scraper, -
All ways to once her feelin's flew
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the sekle,
His heart kep' goin' pitty-pat,
But hern went pity Zekle.An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk
Ez though she wished him furder,
An' on ... |
Since time was short and blood was bold,
I drew me closer to her side,
And watched her freckles change from gold
To pink beneath a blushing tide.
But though she turned her face away,
How much her panting heart confessed!
Love played at Find-me-for-you-May
In Mary's breast.Norman Gale [1862-A ROSE'Twas a Jacqueminot ros... |
Her wily glance I'll ne'er forget,
The dear, the lovely blinkin' o't
Has pierced me through an' through the heart,
An' plagues me wi' the prinkling o't.
I tried to sing, I tried to pray,
I tried to drown 't wi' drinkin' o't,
I tried wi' sport to drive 't away,
But ne'er can sleep for thinkin' o't.Nae man can tell what ... |
With a blush and a smile, Kitty rose up the while,
Her eye in the glass, as she bound her hair, glancing;
'Tis hard to refuse when a young lover sues,
So she couldn't but choose to go off to the dancing.
And now on the green the glad groups are seen,
Each gay-hearted lad with the lass of his choosing;
And Pat, without ... |
"Ah, where are ye goin', ses I, "wid the shawl,
An' the gray eyes a-dreamin' beneath it an' all?
The road by the mountain's a long one, depend
Ye'll be done for, alannah, ere reachin' the end;
Ye'll be bate wid the wind on each back-breakin' bit on it,
Wet wid the puddles and lamed wid the grit on it, -
Since lonesome ... |
Well can they judge of nappy ale,
And tell at large a winter tale;
Climb up to the apple loft,
And turn the crabs till they be soft.
Tib is all the father's joy,
And little Tom the mother's boy.
All their pleasure is content;
And care, to pay their yearly rent.Joan can call by name her cows,
And deck her windows with g... |
To see her cousin she cam' there;
And oh! the scene was passing fair,
For what in Scotland can compare
Wi' the Carse o' Gowrie?
The sun was setting on the Tay,
The blue hills melting into gray,
The mavis and the blackbird's lay
Were sweetly heard in Gowrie.O lang the lassie I had wooed,
And truth and constancy had vowe... |
The dimples eddying o'er her cheek, -
The rosy cheek that won't be still: -
O, who could blame what flatterers speak,
Did smiles like this reward their skill?For such another smile, I vow,
Though loudly beats the midnight rain,
I'd take the mountain-side e'en now,
And walk to Luggelaw again!Samuel Ferguson [1810-1886]M... |
"I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied; -
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide, -
And now am I come, with this lost love of mine,
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."The bride kissed ... |
Time passed. My eldest girl was married,
And I am now a grandsire gray;
One pet of four years old I've carried
Among the wild-flowered meads to play.
In our old fields of childish pleasure,
Where now, as then, the cowslips blow,
She fills her basket's ample measure, -
And that is not ten years ago.But though first lov... |
O western wind, do you think it was fair
To play such tricks with her floating hair?
To gladly, gleefully, do your best
To blow her against the young man's breast,
Where he as gladly folded her in,
And kissed her mouth and her dimpled chin?Ah! Ellery Vane, you little thought,
An hour ago, when you besought
This country... |
You're released! With some wooer replace me
More worthy to be your life's light;
From the tablet of memory efface me,
If you don't mean your Yes of last night.
But - unless you are anxious to see me a
Wreck of the pipe and the cup
In my birthplace and graveyard, Bohemia -
Love, don't give me up!Henry Cuyler Bunner [18... |
Never more will I protest
To love a woman but in jest:
For as they cannot be true,
So to give each man his due,
When the wooing fit is past,
Their affection cannot last.Therefore if I chance to meet
With a mistress fair and sweet,
She my service shall obtain,
Loving her for love again:
Thus much liberty I crave
Not to ... |
But the spite on't is, no praise
Is due at all to me:
Love with me had made no stays,
Had it any been but she.Had it any been but she,
And that very face,
There had been at least ere this
A dozen in her place.John Suckling [1609-1642]SONG
From "Aglaura"Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when l... |
Never a hint of a challenging hope
Nor a hope laid sick and low,
But a longing dead as its kindred sped
A thousand years ago!William Ernest Henley [1849-1903]DA CAPOShort and sweet, and we've come to the end of it -
Our poor little love lying cold.
Shall no sonnet, then, ever be penned of it?
Nor the joys and pains of ... |
Woman! experience might have told me
That all must love thee who behold thee;
Surely experience might have taught
Thy firmest promises are naught;
But, placed in all thy charms before me,
All I forget, but to adore thee.
Oh, Memory! thou choicest blessing,
When joined with hope, when still possessing;
But how much curs... |
A common grayness silvers everything, -
All in a twilight, you and I alike
- You, at the point of your first pride in me
(That's gone you know), - but I, at every point;
My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down
To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top;
That length of convent... |
King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights
When I look up from painting, eyes tired out,
The walls become illumined, brick from brick
Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold,
That gold of his I did cement them with!Let us but love each other.Must you go?That Cousin here again?he waits outside?Must see you - you... |
When thou must home to shades of underground,
And there arrived, a new admired guest,
The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round,
White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest,
To hear the stories of thy finished love
From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move;Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,
Of masques and... |
Along the field as we came by
A year ago, my love and I,
The aspen over stile and stone
Was talking to itself alone.
"Oh, who are these that kiss and pass?
A country lover and his lass;
Two lovers looking to be wed;
And time shall put them both to bed,
But she shall lie with earth above,
And he beside another love."And... |
Sorrow was there made fair,
And Passion, wise; Tears, a delightful thing;
Silence, beyond all speech, a wisdom rare:
She made her sighs to sing,
And all things with so sweet a sadness move
As made my heart at once both grieve and love.O fairer than aught else
The world can show, leave off in time to grieve!
Enough, eno... |
Still some sweet improvement
In her beauty shone;
Every graceful movement
Won me, - one by one!
As the breath of Venus
Seemed the breeze of morn,
Blowing thus between us,
'Midst the golden corn.
Little time for wooing
Had we, for the wind
Still kept on undoing
What we sought to bind.Oh! that autumn morning
In my heart ... |
I said - Then, dearest, since 'tis so,
Since now at length my fate I know,
Since nothing all my love avails,
Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails,
Since this was written and needs must be -
My whole heart rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness!
Take back the hope you gave, - I claim
Only a memory o... |
I would that you were all to me,
You that are just so much, no more.
Nor yours, nor mine - nor slave nor free!
Where does the fault lie? What the core
Of the wound, since wound must be?I would I could adopt your will,
See with your eyes, and set my heart
Beating by yours, and drink my fill
At your soul's springs, - yo... |
I hope that, to get to the kingdom of heaven,
Through a needle's eye he had not to pass.
I wish him well, for the jointure given
To my lady of Carabas.Meanwhile, I was thinking of my first love,
As I had not been thinking of aught for years,
Till over my eyes there began to move
Something that felt like tears.I thought... |
A little while, when light and twilight meet, -
Behind, our broken years; before, the deep
Weird wonder of the last unfathomed sleep, -
A little while I still would clasp thee, Sweet,
A little while, when night and twilight meet.A little while I fain would linger here;
Behold! who knows what soul-dividing bars
Earth's ... |
Say, is it day, is it dusk in thy bower,
Thou whom I long for, who longest for me?
Oh! be it light, be it night, 'tis Love's hour,
Love's that is fettered as Love's that is free.
Free Love has leaped to that innermost chamber,
Oh! the last time, and the hundred before:
Fettered Love, motionless, can but remember,
Yet s... |
In vain, in vain; we meet no more,
Nor dream what fates befall;
And long upon the stranger's shore
My voice on thee may call,
When years have clothed the line in moss
That tells thy name and days,
And withered, on thy simple cross,
The wreaths of Pere-la-Chaise!Oliver Wendell Holmes [1809-1894]THE DARK MANRose o' the W... |
Beloved, such thoughts have peril;
The wish is in my mind
That I had fired the jungle,
And left no leaf behind, -
Burnt all bamboos to ashes,
And made their music mute, -
To save thee from the magic
Of Khristna and his flute.Laurence Hope [1865-1904]IMPENITENTIA ULTIMABefore my light goes out forever, if God should giv... |
Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes
Haunts me night and day.Sara Teasdale [1884-1933]"WHEN MY BELOVED SLEEPING LIES"When my beloved sleeping lies
I cannot look at him... |
What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty:
Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.William Shakespeare [1564-1616]"GO, LOVELY ROSE"Go, lovely Rose -
Tell her that wastes her time and me,
That now she ... |
In vain you tell your parting lover,
You wish fair winds may waft him over.
Alas! what winds can happy prove
That bear me far from what I love?
Alas! what dangers on the main
Can equal those that I sustain
From slighted vows, and cold disdain?Be gentle, and in pity choose
To wish the wildest tempests loose:
That, throw... |
And on that night (when all the crew
The memory of their former lives,
O'er flowing cans of flip renew,
And drink their sweethearts and their wives),
I'll heave a sigh,
And think of thee.
And, as the ship toils through the sea,
The burden of my Song shall be,
Blow high, blow low! let tempest tear. . . .Charles Dibdin [... |
"Hark! the swelling bugle sings,
Yielding joy to thee, laddie,
But the dolefu' bugle brings
Waefu' thoughts to me, laddie.
Lanely I maun climb the mountain,
Lanely stray beside the fountain,
Still the weary moments countin',
Far frae love and thee, laddie.
O'er the gory fields of war,
When Vengeance drives his crimson ... |
'Twas then we luvit ilk ither weel,
'Twas then we twa did part;
Sweet time, sad time! - twa bairns at schule,
Twa bairns, and but ae heart!
'Twas then we sat on ae laigh bink,
To leir ilk ither lear;
And tones, and looks, and smiles were shed,
Remembered evermair.I wonder, Jeanie, aften yet,
When sitting on that bink,
... |
I do not love thee! - yet thy speaking eyes,
With their deep, bright, and most expressive blue,
Between me and the midnight heaven arise,
Oftener than any eyes I ever knew.I know I do not love thee! - yet, alas!
Others will scarcely trust my candid heart;
And oft I catch them smiling as they pass,
Because they see me g... |
Flit on the beck; for her long grass parteth
As hair from a maid's bright eyes blown back:
And, lo, the sun like a lover darteth
His flattering smile on her wayward track.Sing on! we sing in the glorious weather
Till one steps over the tiny strand,
So narrow, in sooth, that still together
On either brink we go hand in ... |
Our past of London days and nights,
When every night we dreamed
Of Love and Art and Happiness,
And every day it seemed
Ah! little room, you held my life,
In you I found my all;
A white hand on the mantelpiece,
A shadow on the wall.My dear, what dinners we have had,
What cigarettes and wine
In faded corners of Soho,
You... |
Figure that moves like a song through the even;
Features lit up by a reflex of heaven;
Eyes like the skies of poor Erin, our mother,
Where shadow and sunshine are chasing each other;
Smiles coming seldom, but childlike and simple,
Planting in each rosy cheek a sweet dimple; -
O, thanks to the Saviour, that even thy see... |
For I, though I am far away,
Feel safe and strong,
To trust you thus, dear love, and yet
The night is long.
I say with sobbing breath the old fond prayer,
"Good night! Sweet dreams! God keep you everywhere!"Charles B. Hawley [1858-FOR EVERThrice with her lips she touched my lips,
Thrice with her hand my hand,
And thr... |
O if I were the sea, upon your northern land I'd beat
Until my waves flowed over all, and kissed your wandering feet;
And if I were the winds, I'd waft you perfumes from the South,
And give my pleadings to your ears, my kisses to your mouth.Though many ships are sailing, never one will carry me,
I may not hurry northwa... |
The rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;... |
Oh! the vain joy it is to see her lie
Beside me once again; beyond release,
Her hair, her hand, her body, till she die,
All mine, for me to do with what I please!
For, after all, I find no chain whereby
To chain her heart to love me as before,
Nor fetter for her lips, to make them cease
From saying still she loveth me ... |
"Who is it knocking in the night,
That fain would enter in?"
"The ghost of Lost Delight am I,
The sin you would not sin,
Who comes to look in your two eyes
And see what might have been.""Oh, long ago and long ago
I cast you forth," he said,
"For that your eyes were all too blue,
Your laughing mouth too red,
And my torn... |
Call her once before you go. -
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know:
"Margaret! Margaret!"
Children's voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother's ear;
Children's voices, wild with pain, -
Surely she will come again!
Call her once and come away;
This way, this way!
"Mother dear, we cannot stay!
The wild... |
The setting is all of rubies red,
And pearls which a Peri might have kept.
For each ruby there my heart hath bled:
For each pearl my eyes have wept.Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton [1831-1891]THE ROSE AND THORNShe's loveliest of the festal throng
In delicate form and Grecian face, -
A beautiful, incarnate song,
A marvel of ... |
Grandmither, gie me your sightless eyes, that I may never see
His own a-burnin' full o' love that must not shine for me.
Grandmither, gie me your peaceful lips, white as the kirkyard snow,
For mine be tremblin' wi' the wish that he must never know.
Grandmither, gie me your clay-stopped ears, that I may never hear
My la... |
The angel answered, "Nay, sad soul, go higher!
To be deceived in your true heart's desire
Was bitterer than a thousand years of fire!"John Hay [1838-1905]A TRAGEDYShe was only a woman, famished for loving,
Mad with devotion, and such slight things;
And he was a very great musician,
And used to finger his fiddle-strings... |
She wanders in the April woods,
That glisten with the fallen shower;
She leans her face against the buds,
She stops, she stoops, she plucks a flower.
She feels the ferment of the hour:
She broodeth when the ringdove broods;
The sun and flying clouds have power
Upon her cheek and changing moods.
She cannot think she is ... |
So sweet! Hold fast my hands. Can God
Make all this joy revert to sod,
And leave to me but this for dower -
My love gave me a passion-flower.Margaret Fuller [1871-NORAHI knew his house by the poplar-trees,
Green and silvery in the breeze;"A heaven-high hedge," were the words he said,
"And holly-hocks, pink and white ... |
O Helen fair, beyond compare!
I'll mak a garland o' thy hair,
Shall bind my heart for evermair,
Until the day I dee!O that I were where Helen lies
Night and day on me she cries;
Out of my bed she bids me rise,
Says, Haste, and come to me!"O Helen fair! O Helen chaste!
If I were with thee, I'd be blest,
Where thou lie... |
But patches of the sea-pink shine,
The pied crows poise and come;
The mallow hangs, the bind-weeds twine,
Where her sweet lips are dumb.The passion of the wave is mute;
No sound or ocean shock;
No music save the trilling flute
That marks the curlew flock.But yonder when the wind is keen,
And rainy air is clear,
The mer... |
IV
Three years she grew in sun and shower;
Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own."Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse: and with me
The girl, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and bo... |
Not often shall I speak your name,
For what would strangers care
That once a sudden tempest came
And swept my gardens bare,
And then you passed, and in your place
Stood Silence with her lifted face.Not always shall this parting be,
For though I travel slow,
I, too, may claim eternity
And find the way you go;
And so I d... |
Word was brought to the Danish king
(Hurry!)
That the love of his heart lay suffering,
And pined for the comfort his voice would bring;
(O, ride as though you were flying!)
Better he loves each golden curl
On the brow of that Scandinavian girl
Than his rich crown jewels of ruby and pearl:
And his rose of the isles is d... |
I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!
My heart seemed full as it could hold;
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,
And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.
So, hush, - I will give you this leaf to keep:
See, I shut it inside the sweet, cold hand!
There, that is our secret: go to sleep!
You wi... |
'Mong angels, do you think
Of the precious golden link
I clasped around your happy arm while sitting by yon brink?
Or when that night of gliding dance, of laughter and guitars,
Was emptied of its music, and we watched, through lattice-bars,
The silent midnight heaven creeping o'er us with its stars,
Till the day broke,... |
And ah! let it never
Be foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy,
And narrow my bed;
For man never slept
In a different bed -
And, to sleep, you must slumber
In just such a bed.My tantalized spirit
Here blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never
Regretting, its roses -
Its old agitations
Of myrtles and roses:For now, while ... |
When you come, my lover,
Sorrowful-eyed to me,
Earth mine eyes will cover;
I shall not see.Though with sad words splendid,
Praising, you call me dear,
It will be all ended;
I shall not hear.You may live love's riot
Laughingly over my head,
But I shall lie quiet
With the gray dead.Love, you will not wake me
With all you... |
Bury me deep when I am dead,
Far from the woods where sweet birds sing;
Lap me in sullen stone and lead,
Lest my poor dust should feel the Spring.Never a flower be near me set,
Nor starry cup nor slender stem,
Anemone nor violet,
Lest my poor dust remember them.And you - wherever you may fare -
Dearer than birds, or fl... |
For it was in my heart you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes.
And in my heart they will remember always:
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise!Conrad Aiken [1889-HER DWELLING-PLACEAmid the fairest things that grow
My lady hath her dwelling-place;
Where runnels flow, and frail buds... |
When your swift hair is quiet in death,
And through the lips corruption thrust
Has stilled the labor of my breath -
When we are dust, when we are dust! -Not dead, not undesirous yet,
Still sentient, still unsatisfied,
We'll ride the air, and shine, and flit,
Around the places where we died,And dance as dust before the ... |
A. E. (George William Russell) [1867-1935]AT SUNSETClasp her and hold her and love her,
Here in the arching green
Of boughs that bend above her
With belts of blue between.Clasp her and hold her and love her,
Swift! Ere the splendor dies;
The blue grows black above her,
The earth in shadow lies.Flowers of dream enfold ... |
I know that the grass and the leaves will not tell,
And I'm sure that the wind, precious rover,
Will carry my secret so safely and well
That no being shall ever discover
One word of the many that rapidly fell
From the soul-speaking lips of my lover;
And the moon and the stars that looked over
Shall never reveal what a ... |
The gray 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 in the slushy sand.Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap ... |
O, dinna ask me gin I lo'e ye:
Troth, I daurna tell!
Dinna ask me gin I lo'e ye,-
Ask it o' yoursel'.O, dinna look sae sair at me,
For weel ye ken me true;
O, gin ye look sae sair at me,
I daurna look at you.When ye gang to yon braw, braw town,
And bonnier lassies see,
O, dinna, Jamie, look at them,
Lest ye should mind... |
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