Symptoms of Love

Love is a universal migraine,

A bright stain on the vision

Blotting out reason.

Symptoms of true love

Are leanness, jealousy,

Laggard dawns;

Are omens and nightmares -

Listening for a knock,

Waiting for a sign:

For a touch of her fingers

In a darkened room,

For a searching look.

Take courage, lover!

Can you endure such grief

At any hand but hers?

ROBERT GRAVES (1895-1985)

from Romeo and Juliet (ACT 1, SECENE IV)

Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,

Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)

As Sweet

It's all because we're so alike -

Twin souls, we two.

We smile at the expression, yes,

And know it's true.

I told the shrink. He gave our love

A different name.

But he can call it what he likes -

It's still the same.

I long to see you, hear your voice,

My narcissistic objetc - choice.

WENDY COPE (1945 - )

The Sun Rising

Busy old fool, unruly Sun,

Why dost thou thus,

Through windoes, and through curtains call on us?

Must to thy motions lover's seasons run?

Saucy pedantic wreth, go chile

Late school-boys, and sour 'prentices,

Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will Ride,

Call country ants to harvest offices,

Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams, so reverend, and stong

Why shouldst thou think?

I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,

But that I would not lose her sight so long:

If her eyes have not blinded thine,

Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,

Whether both the Indians of spice and mine

Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.

Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,

And thou shalt hear, 'All here in one bed lay.'

She is all States, and all Princes, I;

Nothing else is.

Princes do but play us; compar'd to this

all honour's mimic; all wealth alchemy.

Thou Sun an half as happy as we,

In that the world's contracted thus;

Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be

To warm the world, that's done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art every where;

This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.

JOHN DONNE (1572-1631)

           

If you were coming in the fall

If your were coming in the fall,

I'd brush the summer by

With half a smile and half a spurn,

As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,

I'd wind the months in balls,

And put them each in separate drawers,

Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,

I'd count them on my hand,

Subtracting till my fingers dropped

Into Van Diemen's land.

If certain, when this life was out,

That yours and mine should be,

I'd toss it yonder like a rind,

And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length

Of time's uncertain wing,

It goads me, like the goblin bee,

That will not state its sting.

EMILY DICKINSON (1830-86)

To Lord Alfred Douglas, C.1891

My own dear boy - Your sonnet is quite lovely and it is a marvel that those red roseleaf lips of yours should be made no less for the music of song than for the madness of kissin. Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry. I know that Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly, was you in Greek days. Why are you alone in London, and when do you go to Salisbury? Do go there and cool your hands in the grey twilight of gothic things, and come here whenever you like. It is a lovely place; it only lacks you, but to Salisbury first. Always with undying love.

Yours,

Oscar

OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900)

from Romeo and Juliet

ACT II, SCENE II

JULIET:       Good-night, good-night! as sweet repose and rest
                  Come to thy heart as that within my breast!  

ROMEO:      O! wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?  

JULIET:       What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?  

ROMEO:      The exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.  

JULIET:       I gave thee mine before thou didst request it;

                 And yet I would it were to give again.  

ROMEO:     Wouldst thou withdraw it? for what purpose, love?  

JULIET:     But to be frank, and give it thee again.                         

And yet I wish but for the think I have: 

                My bounty is a boundless as the sea, 

                My love as deep; the more I give to thee,  

                The more I have, for both are infinite. 

 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)

Meeting at Night

I

The grey 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 spped 'i' the slushy sand.

II

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;

Three fields to cross till a farm appears;

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch

And blue spurt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

ROBERT BROWNING (1812-89)

Love's Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river,

            And the rivers with the ocean;

The winds of heaven mix forever,

            With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the word is single;

            All things by a law divine

In one another’s being mingle –

            Why not I with thine?

 

See! The mountains kiss high heaven,

            And the waves clasp one another;

Now sister flower would be forgiven

            If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

            And the moonbeams kiss the sea –

What are all these kissings worth,

            If thou kiss not me?

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792 - 1822)

from To Mary

I sleep with theee, and wake with thee, 

And yet thou art not there;

I fill my arms with thoughts of thee,

And press the common air.

Thy eyes are gazing upon time,

When thou art out of sight;

My lips are always thouching thine,

At morning, noon and night.

JOHN CLARE (1793 - 1864)

Celia, Celia

When I am sad and weary

When I think all hope is gone

When I walk along High Holborn

I think of you with nothing on.

ADRIAN MITCHELL (19320 - )

Strawberries

There were never starwberries

like the ones we had

that sultry afternoon

sitting on the step

of the open french window

facing each other

your knees held in mine

the blue plates in our laps

the strawberries glisterning

in the hot sunlight

we dipped them in sugar

looking at each other

not hurrying the feast

for one to come

the empty plates

 laid on the stone together

with the two forks crossed

and I bent towards you

sweet in that air

in my arms

abandoned like a child

from your eager mouth

the taste of strawberries

in my memory

lean back again

let me love you

let the sun beat

on our forgetfulness

one hour of all

the heat intense

and summer lightning

on the Kilpatrick hills

let the storm wash the plates.

EDWIN MORGAN (1920 - )

My True Love Hath My Heart and I Have His

My true love hath my heart and I have his,

By just exchange one for the other given.

I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,

There never was a better bargain driven.

My true love hath my heart and I have his.

His heart in me keeps me and him in one,

My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:

He loves my heart, for once it was his own,

I cherish his because in me it hides

My true love hath my heart and I have his.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (1554-86)

Love's Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river,

And the rivers with the ocean;

The winds of heaven mix forever,

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine

In one another's being mingle:-

Why not I with thine?

See! the mountains kiss high heaven,

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister flower would be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea:-

What are the these kissings worth,

If thou kiss not me?

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822)

Amaturus

Somewhere beneath the sun,

These quivering heart-stirngs prove it,

Somewhere there must be one

Made for this soul, to move it;

Some one that hides her sweetness

From neighbours whom she slights,

Nor can attain completeness,

Nor give her heart its rights;

Some one whom I could court

With no great change of manner,

Still holding reason's fort,

Though waving fancy's banner;

A lady, not so queenly

As to disdain my hand,

Yet born to smile serenely

Like those that rule the land;

Noble, but not too proud;

With soft hair simply folded,

And bright face crescent-browed,

And throat by Muses moulded;

And eyelids lightly falling

On little glistening seas,

Deep-calm, when gales are brawling,

Though stirred by every breeze:

Swift voice, like flight of dove

Through minster arches floating,

With sudden turns, when love 

Gets overnear to doting;

Keep lips, that shape soft sayings

Like crystals of the snow,

With pretty half-betrayings

Of things one may not know;

Fair hand, whose touches thrill,

Like golden rod of wonder,

Which Hermes wields at will 

Sprit and flesh to sunder;

Light foot, to press the stirrup

In fearlessness and glee,

Or dacne, till finches chirrup,

And stars sink to the sea.

Forth Love, and find this maid,

Wherever she be hidden:

Speak, Love, be not afraid,

But plead as thou art bidden;

And say, that he who taught thee

His yearning want and pain,

Too dearly, dearly bought thee

To part with thee in vain.

WILLIAM JOHNSON CORY (1823-1892)

Alicante

An orange on the table

Your dress on the rug

And you in my bed

Sweet present of the present

Cool of night

warmth of my life.

JACQUES PREVERT (1900-77)

(Trans. Lawrence Ferlinghetti 1920-)

Rapture

Thought of by you all the day, I think of you.

The birds sing in the shelter of a tree.

Above the prayer of rain, unacred blue,

not paradise, goes nowhere endlessly.

How does it happen that our lives can drift

far from our selves, while we stay trapped in time,

queuing for death? It seems nothing will shift

the pattern of our days, alter the rhyme

we make with loss to assonance with bliss.

Then love comes, like a sudden flight of birds

from earth to heaven after rain. Your kiss, 

recalled, unstrings, like pearls, this chain of words. 

Huge skies connect us, joining here to there.

Desire and passion on the thinking air.

CAROL ANN DUFFY (1955 - )

The Sun Has Burst the Sky

The sun has burst the sky

Because I love you

And the river its banks.

The sea laps the great rocks

Because I love you

And takes no heed of the moon dragging it away

And saying coldly 'Constancy is not for you'.

The blackbird fills the air

Because I love you

with spring and lawns and shadows falling on lawns.

The people walk in the street and laugh 

I love you

And far down the river ships sound their hooters

Crazy with joy because I love you.

JENNY JOSEPH (1932 - )

To Lesbia

Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love,

and let us judege all the rumours of old men

to be worth just one penny!

The suns are able to fall and rise:

When that brief light has fallen for us,

we must sleep a never ending night.

Give me a thousand kisses, then another hundred,

then another thousand, then a second hundered,

then yet another thousand more, then another hundered.

Then, when we have made many thousands,

we will mix them all up so that we don't know, 

and so that no one can be jealous of us when he finds out

how many kisses we have shared.

CATULLUS (c. 84-c. 54 BC)

(Trans. Ben Jonson 1572-1637)

Valentine

My heart has made its mind up

And I'm afraid it's you.

Whatever you've got lined up,

My heat has made its mind up

And if you can't be signed up

This year, next year will do.

My heart has made its mind up

And I'm afraid it's you.

WENDY COPE (1945 - )

The Night-Piece: To Julia

Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee;

The shooting stars attend the;

And the elves also,

whose little eyes glow

Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.

No will-o'-th'-wisp mislight thee,

Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee

But on, on the way,

Not making a stay,

Sine ghost there's none to affright thee.

Let not the dark theee cumber;

What though the moon does slumber?

The stars of the night

Will lend thee their light

Like tapers clear, without number.

Then, Julia, let me woo thee,

Thus, thus, to come unto me;

And when I shall meet

thy silvery feet,

My soul I'll pour into thee.

ROBERT HERRICK (1591-1674)

Bright Star

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art-

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature's patient, sleeples eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors-

No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever - or else swoon to death.

JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)

On the Balcony

In front of the sombre mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of rainbow;

And between us and it, the thunder;

And down below in the green wheat, the labourers

Stand like dark stumps, still in the green wheat.

You are near to me, and your naked feet in their sandals,

And through the scent of the balcony's naked timber

I distinguish the scent of your hair: so now the limber

Lightning falls from heaven.

Adown the pale.green glacier river floats

A dark boat through the gloom - and whither?

The thunder roars. But still we have each other!

The naked lightnings in the heavens dither

And disappear - what have we but each other?

The boat has gone.

D.H.LAWRENCE (1885-1930)

The Silken Tent

She is as in a field a silken tent

At midday when a sunny summer breeze

Has dried the drew and all its ropes relent,

So that in guys it gently sways at ease,

And its supporting central cedar pole,

That is its pinnacle to heavenward

And signifies the sureness of the soul,

Seems to owe naught to any single cord,

But strictly held by none, is loosely bound

By countless silken ties of love and thought

To everything on earth the compass round,

And only by one's going slightly taut

In the capriciousness of summer air

Is of the slightest bondage made aware.

ROBERT FROST (1875-1963)

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to tome thou grow'st,

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)

Of My First Love

O my first love! You are in my life forever

Like the Eas-Coul-aulin in Sutherlandshire

Where the Amahainnan Loch Bhig burn

Plunges over the desolate slopes of Leitir Dubh.

Silhouetted against grim black rocks

This foaming mountain torrent

With its source in desolate tarns

Is savage in the extreme

As its waters with one wild leap

Hurl over the dizzy brink

Of the perpendicular cliff-face

In that great den of nature,

To be churned into spray

In the steaming depths below.

Near its base the fall splits up

Into cascades spreading out like a fan.

A legend tells how a beautiful maiden

In desperation threw herself

Over the cataract - the waters

Immediately took on the shape

Of her waving hair,

And on moonlight nights she is still to be seen

Lying near the base of the fall,

Gazing up the tremendous cascade

Of some six hundred feet!

O my first love! Even so you lie

near the base of my precipitous, ever lonelier and colder life

With your fair hair still rippling out

As I remember it between my fingers

When you let me unloosen first

(Over thirty chaotic years ago!)

That golden tumult forever!

HUGH MACDIARMID (1892-1978)

Her Reply

If all the world and love were yound,

And truth in every shepherd's tongue,

These pretty pleasures might me move

To live with thee and be thy Love.

But Time drives flocks from field and fold'

When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;

And Philomel becometh dumb;

The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields

To wayward Winter reckoning yields:

A honey tongue, a heart of gall,

Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,

Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,

Soon break, soon wither - soon forgotten,

In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy-buds,

Thy coral clasps and amber studs, -

All these in me no means can move

To come to thee and be thy Love.

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.

(This poem is a response to Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love")

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my Love,

And we will all the pleasures prove

That hills and valleys, dales and fields,

Or woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,

And see the shepherds feed their flocks

By shallow rivers, to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses

And a thousand fragrant posies;

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool

which from our pretty lambs we pull;

Fair-lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold.

A belt of straw and ivy-buds

With coral claps and amber studs:

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me and be my Love.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564-1593)

Bred by Desire

A heat full of coldness, a sweet full of bitterness, a pain full of pleasantness, which maketh thoughts have eyes, and hearts, and ears; bred by desire, nursed by delight, weaned by jealousy, killed by dissembling, buried by ingratitude and this is love.

JOHN LYLY (1554-1606)

Sonnet I47

My love is as a fever, longing still

For that which longer nurseth the disease,

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,

Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please:

My reason, the physician to my love,

Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,

Hath left me, and I, desperate, now approve

Desire to death, which physic did except.

Past cure I am, now reason in past care,

And frantic mad with ever more unrest;

My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,

At random from the truth vainly expressed:

For I hvae sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,

Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)

'One Day I Wrote Her Name upon the Strand'

One Day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away;

Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

'Vain man,' said she, 'that dost in vain assay

A mortal thing so to immortalize,

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eke my name be wiped out likewise.'

'Not so,' quod I, 'let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse your vitues rare shall eternize

And in the heavens write your glorious name,

Where, when as Death shall all the world subdue,

Our love shall live, and later life renew.'

EDMUND SPENSER (1552-1599)

To Evelina Hanka, 1833

To you, my love, a thousantenernesss. Yesterday, I have been rushing about the whole day; I found myself so fatigued that I allowed mysel to sleep all night, and then I made a mental prayer to my idol. I went to sleep in sweet thoughts of you, as if married, I should have slept in the arms of my well-beloved. Good heavens; I am terrified to see how much my life is yours. With what rapidity it rushes towards your heart. Your arteries beat as much for me as for yourself. Adored darling, how much good your letters do me. I believe in you, you see, as I believe in my respiration. I am with regard to this bliss like a child, like a man of science, like a fool taking care of tulips. I weep with rage at not being near you. I collect all my ideas in order to develop this love, and I am here watching incessantly for it to increase without obstructions. Is there not something in this of the child, the man of science, and the botanist?

I must, my angel, resume my drudgery; but it will not be without having laid before you here all the flowers of my heart, a thousand tenderness’s, a thousand caresses, all the vows of a poor solitary who lives between his thoughts and his love.

Goodbye, my cherished beauty; one kiss on those beautiful red lips, so fresh, so tender, a kiss which goes far, which encompasses you. I do not say goodbye to you. Oh! When shall I have your dear portrait? If you happen to get it mounted, let it be kept between two enamel plates and let the whole of it not be thicker than a five-franc piece, for I wish to wear it always over my heart. It will be my talisman; I shall feel it there; I shall gather strength and courage from it. From it will dart forth the rays of that fame which I want to be so great, so wide, so radiant, to envelope you in its light.

Well I must quit you, always with regret. But once free and without worries, what sweet pilgrimage. This is the   reason why I work so hard. Ah, God! How happy the rich are. They travel post haste and fly like swallows. But my thought travels more quickly, and every night it creeps around your heart, it covers you.

HONORE DE BALZAC (1799-1850) 

Wild Nights! Wild Nights!

Wild Nights! Wild Nights!

Were I with thee,

Wild nights should be

Our luxury!

Futile the winds

To a heart in port, -

Done with the compass,

Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!

Ah! the sea!

Might I but moor

To-night in thee!

EMILY DICKINSON (1830-86)

My Love is Like to Ice

My love is like to ice, and I to fire:

How comes it then that this her cold so great

Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,

But harder grows the more I her entreat?

Or how comes it that my exceeding heat 

Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,

But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,

And feel my flames augmented mainfold?

What more miraculous thing may be told,

That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,

And ice, which is congealed with senseless cold,

Should kindle fire by wonderful device?

Such is the power of love in gentle mind, 

That it can alter all the course of kind.

EDMUND SPENSER (1552-99)