Written by
John Keats |
MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, 5
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-wing¨¨d Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 10
O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delv¨¨d earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Proven?al song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South! 15
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stain¨¨d mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim: 20
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, 25
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 30
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night, 35
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 40
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalm¨¨d darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 45
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 50
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mus¨¨d rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 55
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain¡ª
To thy high requiem become a sod. 60
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 65
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 70
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades 75
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:¡ªdo I wake or sleep? 80
|
Written by
Donald Hall |
To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging, everybody knows it.
Even when we are young,
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters
into debris on the shore,
and a friend from school drops
cold on a rocky strand.
If a new love carries us
past middle age, our wife will die
at her strongest and most beautiful.
New women come and go. All go.
The pretty lover who announces
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman,
middle-aged against our old age,
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.
Another friend of decades estranges himself
in words that pollute thirty years.
Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything.
|
Written by
John Donne |
Some man unworthy to be possessor
Of old or new love, himself being false or weak,
Thought his pain and shame would be lesser
If on womankind he might his anger wreak,
And thence a law did grow,
One might but one man know;
But are other creatures so?
Are Sun, Moon, or Stars by law forbidden
To smile where they list, or lend away their light?
Are birds divorced, or are they chidden
If they leave their mate, or lie abroad a-night?
Beasts do no jointures lose
Though they new lovers choose,
But we are made worse than those.
Who e'er rigged fair ship to lie in harbours
And not to seek new lands, or not to deal withal?
Or built fair houses, set trees, and arbors,
Only to lock up, or else to let them fall?
Good is not good unless
A thousand it possess,
But dost waste with greediness.
|
Written by
Galway Kinnell |
Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.
Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.
|
Written by
Thomas Hardy |
December 1899
I
She sits in the tawny vapour
That the Thames-side lanes have uprolled,
Behind whose webby fold-on-fold
Like a waning taper
The street-lamp glimmers cold.
A messenger's knock cracks smartly,
Flashed news in her hand
Of meaning it dazes to understand
Though shaped so shortly:
He--he has fallen--in the far South Land...
II
'Tis the morrow; the fog hangs thicker,
The postman nears and goes:
A letter is brought whose lines disclose
By the firelight flicker
His hand, whom the worm now knows:
Fresh--firm--penned in highest feather--
Page-full of his hoped return,
And of home-planned jaunts of brake and burn
In the summer weather,
And of new love that they would learn.
|
Written by
Rudyard Kipling |
"Soldier, soldier come from the wars,
Why don't you march with my true love?"
"We're fresh from off the ship an' 'e's maybe give the slip,
An' you'd best go look for a new love."
New love! True love!
Best go look for a new love,
The dead they cannot rise, an' you'd better dry your eyes,
An' you'd best go look for a new love.
"Soldier, soldier come from the wars,
What did you see o' my true love?"
"I seed 'im serve the Queen in a suit o' rifle-green,
An' you'd best go look for a new love."
"Soldier, soldier come from the wars,
Did ye see no more o' my true love?"
"I seed 'im runnin' by when the shots begun to fly --
But you'd best go look for a new love."
"Soldier, soldier come from the wars,
Did aught take 'arm to my true love?"
"I couldn't see the fight, for the smoke it lay so white --
An' you'd best go look for a new love."
"Soldier, soldier come from the wars,
I'll up an' tend to my true love!"
"'E's lying on the dead with a bullet through 'is 'ead,
An' you'd best go look for a new love."
"Soldier, soldier come from the wars,
I'll down an' die with my true love!"
"The pit we dug'll 'ide 'im an' the twenty men beside 'im --
An' you'd best go look for a new love."
"Soldier, soldier come from the wars,
Do you bring no sign from my true love?"
"I bring a lock of 'air that 'e allus used to wear,
An' you'd best go look for a new love."
"Soldier, soldier come from the wars,
O then I know it's true I've lost my true love!"
"An' I tell you truth again -- when you've lost the feel o' pain
You'd best take me for your true love."
True love! New love!
Best take 'im for a new love,
The dead they cannot rise, an' you'd better dry your eyes,
An' you'd best take 'im for your true love.
|
Written by
Katherine Philips |
I Have examin'd and do find,
Of all that favour me
There's none I grieve to leave behind
But only only thee.
To part with thee I needs must die,
Could parting sep'rate thee and I.
But neither Chance nor Complement
Did element our Love ;
'Twas sacred Sympathy was lent
Us from the Quire above.
That Friendship Fortune did create,
Still fears a wound from Time or Fate.
Our chang'd and mingled Souls are grown
To such acquaintance now,
That if each would resume their own,
Alas ! we know not how.
We have each other so engrost,
That each is in the Union lost.
And thus we can no Absence know,
Nor shall we be confin'd ;
Our active Souls will daily go
To learn each others mind.
Nay, should we never meet to Sense,
Our Souls would hold Intelligence.
Inspired with a Flame Divine
I scorn to court a stay ;
For from that noble Soul of thine
I ne're can be away.
But I shall weep when thou dost grieve ;
Nor can I die whil'st thou dost live.
By my own temper I shall guess
At thy felicity,
And only like my happiness
Because it pleaseth thee.
Our hearts at any time will tell
If thou, or I, be sick, or well.
All Honour sure I must pretend,
All that is Good or Great ;
She that would be Rosania's Friend,
Must be at least compleat.
If I have any bravery,
'Tis cause I have so much of thee.
Thy Leiger Soul in me shall lie,
And all thy thoughts reveal ;
Then back again with mine shall flie,
And thence to me shall steal.
Thus still to one another tend ;
Such is the sacred name of Friend.
Thus our twin-Souls in one shall grow,
And teach the World new Love,
Redeem the Age and Sex, and shew
A Flame Fate dares not move :
And courting Death to be our friend,
Our Lives together too shall end.
A Dew shall dwell upon our Tomb
Of such a quality,
That fighting Armies, thither come,
Shall reconciled be.
We'll ask no Epitaph, but say
ORINDA and ROSANIA.
|
Written by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox |
Love is enough. Let us not ask for gold.
Wealth breeds false aims, and pride and selfishness;
In those serene, Arcadian days of old
Men gave no thought to princely homes and dress.
The gods who dwelt on fair Olympia's height
Lived only for dear love and love's delight.
Love is enough.
Love is enough. Why should we care for fame?
Ambition is a most unpleasant guest:
It lures us with the glory of a name
Far from the happy haunts of peace and rest.
Let us stay here in this secluded place
Made beautiful by love's endearing grace!
Love is enough.
Love is enough. Why should we strive for power?
It brings men only envy and distrust.
The poor world's homage pleases but an hour,
And earthly honours vanish in the dust.
The grandest lives are ofttimes desolate;
Let me be loved, and let who will be great.
Love is enough.
Love is enough. Why should we ask for more?
What greater gift have gods vouchsafed to men?
What better boon of all their precious store
Than our fond hearts that love and love again?
Old love may die; new love is just as sweet;
And life is fair and all the world complete:
Love is enough!
|
Written by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
[Written at the time of Goethe's connection
with Lily.]
HEART! my heart! what means this feeling?
What oppresseth thee so sore?
What strange life is o'er me stealing!
I acknowledge thee no more.
Fled is all that gave thee gladness,
Fled the cause of all thy sadness,
Fled thy peace, thine industry--
Ah, why suffer it to be?
Say, do beauty's graces youthful,
Does this form so fair and bright,
Does this gaze, so kind, so truthful,
Chain thee with unceasing might?
Would I tear me from her boldly,
Courage take, and fly her coldly,
Back to her. I'm forthwith led
By the path I seek to tread.
By a thread I ne'er can sever,
For 'tis 'twined with magic skill,
Doth the cruel maid for ever
Hold me fast against my will.
While those magic chains confine me,
To her will I must resign me.
Ah, the change in truth is great!
Love! kind love! release me straight!
1775.
|
Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
CANZONE III. Standomi un giorno solo alla finestra. UNDER VARIOUS ALLEGORIES HE PAINTS THE VIRTUE, BEAUTY, AND UNTIMELY DEATH OF LAURA. While at my window late I stood alone,So new and many things there cross'd my sight,To view them I had almost weary grown.A dappled hind appear'd upon the right,In aspect gentle, yet of stately stride,By two swift greyhounds chased, a black and white,Who tore in the poor sideOf that fair creature wounds so deep and wide,That soon they forced her where ravine and rockThe onward passage block:Then triumph'd Death her matchless beauties o'er,And left me lonely there her sad fate to deplore. Upon the summer wave a gay ship danced,Her cordage was of silk, of gold her sails,Her sides with ivory and ebon glanced,The sea was tranquil, favouring were the gales,And heaven as when no cloud its azure veils.A rich and goodly merchandise is hers;But soon the tempest wakes,And wind and wave to such mad fury stirs,That, driven on the rocks, in twain she breaks;My heart with pity aches,That a short hour should whelm, a small space hide,Riches for which the world no equal had beside. [Pg 278]In a fair grove a bright young laurel made—Surely to Paradise the plant belongs!—Of sacred boughs a pleasant summer shade,From whose green depths there issued so sweet songsOf various birds, and many a rare delightOf eye and ear, what marvel from the worldThey stole my senses quite!While still I gazed, the heavens grew black around,The fatal lightning flash'd, and sudden hurl'd,Uprooted to the ground,That blessed birth. Alas! for it laid low,And its dear shade whose like we ne'er again shall know. A crystal fountain in that very groveGush'd from a rock, whose waters fresh and clearShed coolness round and softly murmur'd love;Never that leafy screen and mossy seatDrew browsing flock or whistling rustic nearBut nymphs and muses danced to music sweet.There as I sat and drankWith infinite delight their carols gay,And mark'd their sport, the earth before me sankAnd bore with it awayThe fountain and the scene, to my great grief,Who now in memory find a sole and scant relief. A lovely and rare bird within the wood,Whose crest with gold, whose wings with purple gleam'd,Alone, but proudly soaring, next I view'd,Of heavenly and immortal birth which seem'd,Flitting now here, now there, until it stoodWhere buried fount and broken laurel lay,And sadly seeing thereThe fallen trunk, the boughs all stripp'd and bare,The channel dried—for all things to decaySo tend—it turn'd awayAs if in angry scorn, and instant fled,While through me for her loss new love and pity spread. At length along the flowery sward I sawSo sweet and fair a lady pensive moveThat her mere thought inspires a tender awe;Meek in herself, but haughty against Love,[Pg 279]Flow'd from her waist a robe so fair and fineSeem'd gold and snow together there to join:But, ah! each charm aboveWas veil'd from sight in an unfriendly cloud:Stung by a lurking snake, as flowers that pineHer head she gently bow'd,And joyful pass'd on high, perchance secure:Alas! that in the world grief only should endure. My song! in each sad change,These visions, as they rise, sweet, solemn, strange,But show how deeply in thy master's breastThe fond desire abides to die and be at rest. Macgregor.
|