Related quotes: What smouldering senses in death's...

Sonnet VI: The Kiss

What smouldering senses in death's sick delay
Or seizure of malign vicissitude
Can rob this body of honour, or denude
This soul of wedding-raiment worn to-day?
For lo! even now my lady's lips did play
With these my lips such consonant interlude
As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed
The half-drawn hungering face with that last lay.
I was a child beneath her touch,—a man
When breast to breast we clung, even I and she,—
A spirit when her spirit looked through me,—
A god when all our life-breath met to fan
Our life-blood, till love's emulous ardours ran,
Fire within fire, desire in deity.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Related quotes

The Kiss

I was a child beneath her touch, -- a man
When breast to breast we clung, even I and she, --
A spirit when her spirit looked through me, --
A god when all our life-breath met to fan
Our life-blood, till love's emulous ardours ran,
Fire within fire, desire in deity.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

The House of the Life: The Kiss

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

The Magic Ring

Your touch on my hand is fire,
Your lips on my lips are flowers.
My darling, my one desire,
Dear crown of my days and hours.
Dear crown of each hour and day
Since ever my life began.
Ah! leave me--ah! go away -
We two are woman and man.

To lie in your arms and see
The stars melt into the sun;
Till there is no you and me,
Since you and I are one.
To loose my soul to your breath,
To bare my heart to your life -
It is death, it is death, it is death!
I am not your wife.

The hours will come and will go,
But never again such an hour
When the tides immortal flow
And life is a flood, a flower . . .
Wait for the ring; it is strong,
It has a magic of might
To make all that was splendid and wrong
Sordid and right.

poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

One Small Act

There was a lady whose face was drawn
and everyone she came upon
looked at her and wondered why
she never smiled at them as they passed by?

But none would question this poor soul.
They turned their face on their daily stroll.
A child went up and touched her hand
and the lady's face lit up the land.

A gesture of kindness was all it took
to change the sadness, to change her look.
She seemed to come alive once more
and her face was not drawn like it was before.

It took the innocence of a child to see
that a face that's drawn needs to be
uplifted by love from one who cares.
There's nothing like a touch that compares.

The lady's face that was drawn every day
is filled with peace as she goes on her way.
And the one small child will never know
how he changed a face and made it glow.

poem by Edwina Reizer
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

When You Touch...

when you touch someone
with desire, let your desire
be driven first by your heart,
then by your soul,
with gratitude by your spirit,
in total awareness...
willing to give beyond receiving,
willing to stand in the face of fire,
willing to wait through lonely winters,
willing to believe in and search out new life...
let love be your hunger...
and only then, feed your body!

poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Hermaphroditus

I.
LIFT UP thy lips, turn round, look back for love,
Blind love that comes by night and casts out rest;
Of all things tired thy lips look weariest,
Save the long smile that they are wearied of.
Ah sweet, albeit no love be sweet enough,
Choose of two loves and cleave unto the best;
Two loves at either blossom of thy breast
Strive until one be under and one above.
Their breath is fire upon the amorous air,
Fire in thine eyes and where thy lips suspire:
And whosoever hath seen thee, being so fair,
Two things turn all his life and blood to fire;
A strong desire begot on great despair,
A great despair cast out by strong desire.

II.
Where between sleep and life some brief space is,
With love like gold bound round about the head,
Sex to sweet sex with lips and limbs is wed,
Turning the fruitful feud of hers and his
To the waste wedlock of a sterile kiss;
Yet from them something like as fire is shed
That shall not be assuaged till death be dead,
Though neither life nor sleep can find out this.
Love made himself of flesh that perisheth
A pleasure-house for all the loves his kin;
But on the one side sat a man like death,
And on the other a woman sat like sin.
So with veiled eyes and sobs between his breath
Love turned himself and would not enter in.

III.
Love, is it love or sleep or shadow or light
That lies between thine eyelids and thine eyes?
Like a flower laid upon a flower it lies,
Or like the night’s dew laid upon the night.
Love stands upon thy left hand and thy right,
Yet by no sunset and by no moonrise
Shall make thee man and ease a woman’s sighs,
Or make thee woman for a man’s delight.
To what strange end hath some strange god made fair
The double blossom of two fruitless flowers?
Hid love in all the folds of all thy hair,
Fed thee on summers, watered thee with showers,
Given all the gold that all the seasons wear
To thee that art a thing of barren hours?

IV.
Yea, love, I see; it is not love but fear.
Nay, sweet, it is not fear but love, I know;
Or wherefore should thy body’s blossom blow
So sweetly, or thine eyelids leave so clear
Thy gracious eyes that never made a tear—
Though for their love our tears like blood should flow,
Though love and life and death should come and go,
So dreadful, so desirable, so dear?
Yea, sweet, I know; I saw in what swift wise
Beneath the woman’s and the water’s kiss
Thy moist limbs melted into Salmacis,
And the large light turned tender in thine eyes,
And all thy boy’s breath softened into sighs;
But Love being blind, how should he know of this?

Au Musée du Louvre, Mars 1863.

poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

A Question

AND so in the death-darkened chamber they met,
The woman that once he had loved and the one he loved yet—
The wife who had warped his desire and the woman he could not forget.
They stood by the bier where between them he slept,
And the love he had lost in his wife to her swimming eyes leapt;
But the woman his life had belonged to—his paramour—spoke not nor wept.
It was only a story of sated desire—
Of a love merely sensual burnt to an ash by its fire,
And a husband who turned to a more luscious love that was his for the hire.
All had sinned. For the husband had killed by his clutch,
Rough-handed, the fruit of a love that had dropped at his touch.
One woman's great sin was not loving, his wife's was in loving too much.

And so he had died; it was over at last;
And across him the two women looked at each other aghast—
Across his cold corse, and across the cold corse of the loathsome dead Past!
Then the smouldering love of the wife leapt to flame,
And she poured forth her kisses upon him, and called on his name.
But the other said “No, he is nothing to you; soul and body I claim!”
They looked at each other awhile. Said the wife wearily,
“He is mine; for I loved him, and ever shall love him; let be!”
But the other sneered, “No, he is mine, and mine only, because he loved me!”
Then the two laid their hands on the body between;
And fought for it, wife against paramour, fiercely, unseen—
For the body diseased and polluted, as ever his spirit had been.
And this is a question for answer in Hell:
To which of the two did his spirit belong, can you tell?
Think, was it the woman he loved, or the one who had loved him too well?

poem by Arthur Henry Adams
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Love-Lily

Between the hands, between the brows,
Between the lips of Love-Lily,
A spirit is born whose birth endows
My blood with fire to burn through me;
Who breathes upon my gazing eyes,
Who laughs and murmurs in mine ear,
At whose least touch my colour flies,
And whom my life grows faint to hear.
Within the voice, within the heart,
Within the mind of Love-Lily,
A spirit is born who lifts apart
His tremulous wings and looks at me;
Who on my mouth his finger lays,
And shows, while whispering lutes confer,
That Eden of Love's watered ways
Whose winds and spirits worship her.

Brows, hands, and lips, heart, mind, and voice,
Kisses and words of Love-Lily,--
Oh! bid me with your joy rejoice
Till riotous longing rest in me!
Ah! let not hope be still distraught,
But find in her its gracious goal,
Whose speech Truth knows not from her thought
Nor Love her body from her soul.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

I Have A Baptism

God’s truth will out and must be preached
Till earth’s four corners have been reached
“My Ghost and Flame shall be outpoured –Joel.2: 28
Receive my child”, thus says The Lord

The bible’s here for man to read
God welcomes all to on Christ to feed –Jn.6: 51
Throughout the flock He spreads The Flame –Lk.12: 50
To guide to heal purge of shame

God’s word is meat to babies tough
Water baptism’s not enough
If endless life is man’s desire
He must receive God’s Ghost & Fire –Jn.3: 6

The Fire of Christ refines till pure
Consumes our ills none else can cure –Heb.12: 29
Burning the chaff midst Jesus’ wheat –Mt.3: 12
Bringing the foe beneath our feet

By grace God’s Holy Ghost is here
Spirit & Flame have none to fear
When safe and sound in Jesus’ hand
The truth we truly understand

God’s Fire burns deep cleansing the heart
Consuming dross from every part
Salvation comes the truth to give
When through The Flame again we’ll live –Gen.3: 24

God’s Fire brings death upon its knees
Who holds the truth receives the keys
Eternal life body and soul
For those in Christ The Flame’s made whole

We need The Fire to win life’s race
But pure of heart will see God’s face
One thing in Christ we need the most
Fire baptism with His Holy Ghost…

poem by Michael P. Johnson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Follow (I Am The Flute)

i follow...
the hoot of the owl,
the smoke that leads
to the fire.
the hollow of the hand,
to the hard and the soft.
the salt of the sea
to the dark and murky unknown.
the erection and the breast,
to the womb that creates.
lightning to the thunder,
and thunder to lightning.
the hammer to the nail,
the bullet through the barrel.
the spirit through the book,
back to the tree in the forest.
the body to the grave,
the universe back to dust.
i follow...
the sound of the flute,
till i come to see...
that i follow nothing,
and no one at all!
for i am the path,
and the feet that walk.
i am the flute,
the sound and the lips.
i am the breath,
the desire, and the vision...
for i am no one,
and nothing at all!

poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Body Capture

Words will fail here
but my touch will not;
it moves from surface
to deep within.

Mere sentiment too,
is not enough
when Souls Speak
and the body gives
all its got-

willingly and involuntarily;

you know what I mean.

Only once or twice in all of life
does this fire ignite
all the rest is pursuit
of re-occurances.

Now let's end that futile pursuit
and have Release Soul-Strip
come direct
even after touch is ceased;
for to know all is to understand
touch is first
but not the last.

What transpires inside Sheer Desire
is Surrender Plus Exploding Need,
trembling inside Love's Flaming Pyre.

So let this flame
burn, cackle like fire wood,
trembling lurches;
body-fire
which is the Soul's way of saying
'I love you best.'

Mind, Heart and Spirit
agree haltingly
take us both
smells, scents, glistening sweats
to where

we both
have never been.

This is what
life's goals really promise
after Love even,
after beautiful romance, love and sentiment
after every precious word
these all lack meaning
if there is no body-capture
deep within
and trembling
surrender
willingly given
and received.

poem by Lonnie Hicks
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Troy Town

HEAVENBORN Helen, Sparta's queen,
(O Troy Town!)
Had two breasts of heavenly sheen,
The sun and moon of the heart's desire:
All Love's lordship lay between.
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Helen knelt at Venus' shrine,
(O Troy Town!)
Saying, “A little gift is mine,
A little gift for a heart's desire.
Hear me speak and make me a sign!
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“Look, I bring thee a carven cup;
(O Troy Town!)
See it here as I hold it up,—
Shaped it is to the heart's desire,
Fit to fill when the gods would sup.
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“It was moulded like my breast;
(O Troy Town!)
He that sees it may not rest,
Rest at all for his heart's desire.
O give ear to my heart's behest!
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“See my breast, how like it is;
(O Troy Town!)
See it bare for the air to kiss!
Is the cup to thy heart's desire?
O for the breast, O make it his!
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“Yea, for my bosom here I sue;
(O Troy Town!)
Thou must give it where 'tis due,
Give it there to the heart's desire.
Whom do I give my bosom to?
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“Each twin breast is an apple sweet.
(O Troy Town!)
Once an apple stirred the beat
Of thy heart with the heart's desire:—
Say, who brought it then to thy feet?
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“They that claimed it then were three:
(O Troy Town!)
For thy sake two hearts did he
Make forlorn of the heart's desire.
Do for him as he did for thee!
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
“Mine are apples grown to the south,
(O Troy Town!)
Grown to taste in the days of drouth,
Taste and waste to the heart's desire:
Mine are apples meet for his mouth.”
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Venus looked on Helen's gift,
(O Troy Town!)
Looked and smiled with subtle drift,
Saw the work of her heart's desire:—
“There thou kneel'st for Love to lift!”
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Venus looked in Helen's face,
(O Troy Town!)
Knew far off an hour and place,
And fire lit from the heart's desire;
Laughed and said, “Thy gift hath grace!”
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Cupid looked on Helen's breast,
(O Troy Town!)
Saw the heart within its nest,
Saw the flame of the heart's desire,—
Marked his arrow's burning crest.
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Cupid took another dart,
(O Troy Town!)
Fledged it for another heart,
Winged the shaft with the heart's desire,
Drew the string and said, “Depart!”
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)
Paris turned upon his bed,
(O Troy Town!)
Turned upon his bed and said,
Dead at heart with the heart's desire—
“Oh to clasp her golden head!”
(O Troy's down,
Tall Troy's on fire!)

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

XXXVI Life-In-Love

Not in thy body is thy life at all
But in this lady's lips and hands and eyes;
Through these she yields thee life that vivifies
What else were sorrow's servant and death's thrall.
Look on thyself without her, and recall
The waste remembrance and forlorn surmise
That liv'd but in a dead-drawn breath of sighs
O'er vanish'd hours and hours eventual.

Even so much life hath the poor tress of hair
Which, stor'd apart, is all love hath to show
For heart-beats and for fire-heats long ago;
Even so much life endures unknown, even where,
'Mid change the changeless night environeth,
Lies all that golden hair undimm'd in death.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

The House of the Life: 36. Life-in-Love

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Without Names

when the destination
is but the journey,
and the fire we seek
is but a reflection
of the fire within us...
when the cross is a part of the body,
and the war we protest,
is the war within us...
when the leaf is known
as always tree...
and the dropp of water
contains a river.
when breath is hunger,
and love is fullness.
when the spirit is a finger,
and the soul is a foot!
when forever is a touch,
and death is a season...
when we speak without words,
and know each other without names!

poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Fire Spirit

(gun club)
I can see clearly from my diamond eyes
Im going to the mountain with a fire spirit
No one will accept all of me, so the fire will stop
And for the straights that got fire cars
Im going to the mountain with a fire spirit
No one will take all of me, and the fire will stop
I will be cheating the whole ritual
Im going to the mountain with a fire spirit
No one will accept all of me, and the fire will stop
Someone weird read: pen down a circle
Yeah, someone left on a burned out world
Someone knows Im dead as hell
Where the old north wind blows through southeast hell, yeah
And then john was betrayed by the machine
A proper circuit was a promise to me
Im going up to the mountain to see
How blessing will set me free, yeah
I had to do something
I was wearing down
I was going down
Why can no one ever touch a fire spirit?
Why can no one ever hold a fire spirit?
Why can no one ever feel a fire spirit?
I am going to the mountain
Yeah, I can see clearly from my diamond eyes
Im going to the mountain with a fire spirit
And no one will accept all of me, so the fire will stop
With too much patience and too much pain
Im going to the mountain with a fire spirit
To make amends for all of me, and the fire will stop

song performed by by 16 Horsepower
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

Sonnet XXXVI: Life-In-Love

Not in thy body is thy life at all,
But in this lady's lips and hands and eyes;
Through these she yields thee life that vivifies
What else were sorrow's servant and death's thrall.
Look on thyself without her, and recall
The waste remembrance and forlorn surmise
That lived but in a dead-drawn breath of sighs
O'er vanished hours and hours eventual.
Even so much life hath the poor tress of hair
Which, stored apart, is all love hath to show
For heart-beats and for fire-heats long ago;
Even so much life endures unknown, even where,
'Mid change the changeless night environeth,
Lies all that golden hair undimmed in death.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Sonnet XXXVI: Life-In-Love

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

The Explorer

Dearest, when I left your side,
I stood a moment, hesitating,
And plunged. The boiling tide
Of darkness took me, and down I went
Swift as a bird with folded wing,
And upward sent
The bubbles of my vital breath
That shuddered from my secret deeps
To freedom and light;
Then, dimly, on my sight
Opened the still abode of living death.
Amid the mire,
In which invisibly sightless horror creeps,
Sat, each intent on his own woe,
The host that burns with inward fire,
Crowded like monuments of memorial stone
Beneath a pitchy sky
Where even the flash of tempest dare not show,
Yet each of them alone;
And each was I.

Breathless I struggled up,
As if the gloom had arms to clutch at me
And drag and hold,
Until the daylight’s gold
Shook faintly above my dizzy head
And parted suddenly, that I might see
The sky, a sheltering cup
Of hopeful azure, and your eyes of blue,
One promise and yet two
Of harbouring bliss;
And your lips parted and said,
“Shall not we twain
Find joy upon joy on earth
Together and see,
In the kinship of all that has birth
From the mutual reach of desire,
A joy beyond this,
A fire at the heart of the fire?”
And we clung till our spirit was free
As the flame of a kiss.

III

So we soared and the earth fell away, and the region of night
Was melted in limitless day of ineffable light
Till the myriad souls of the dead were united as we,
Themselves, and yet merged in the spread of an infinite sea
The joy that is life, and around us, below and above,
The One that all lovers have found, our eternity, Love.

poem by John Le Gay Brereton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Emblems of Love

She

ONLY to be twin elements of joy
In this extravagance of Being, Love,
Were our divided natures shaped in twain;
And to this hour the whole world must consent.
Is it not very marvellous, our lives
Can only come to this out of a long
Strange sundering, with the years of the world between us?

He

Shall life do more than God? for hath not God
Striven with himself, when into known delight
His unaccomplisht joy he would put forth,—
This mystery of a world sign of his striving?
Else wherefore this, a thing to break the mind
With labouring in the wonder of it, that here
Being—the world and we—is suffered to be!—
But, lying on thy breast one notable day,
Sudden exceeding agony of love
Made my mind a trance of infinite knowledge.
I was not: yet I saw the will of God
As light unfashion’d, unendurable flame,
Interminable, not to be supposed;
And there was no more creature except light,—
The dreadful burning of the lonely God’s
Unutter’d joy. And then, past telling, came
Shuddering and division in the light:
Therein, like trembling, was desire to know
Its own perfect beauty; and it became
A cloven fire, a double flaming, each
Adorable to each; against itself
Waging a burning love, which was the world;—
A moment satisfied in that love-strife
I knew the world!—And when I fell from there,
Then knew I also what this life would do
In being twin,—in being man and woman!
For it would do even as its endless Master,
Making the world, had done; yea, with itself
Would strive, and for the strife would into sex
Be cloven, double burning, made thereby
Desirable to itself. Contrivèd joy
Is sex in life; and by no other thing
Than by a perfect sundering, could life
Change the dark stream of unappointed joy
To perfect praise of itself, the glee that loves
And worships its own Being. This is ours!
Yet only for that we have been so long
Sundered desire: thence is our life all praise.—
But we, well knowing by our strength of joy
There is no sundering more, how far we love
From those sad lives that know a half-love only,
Alone thereby knowing themselves for ever
Sealed in division of love, and therefore made
To pour their strength always into their love’s
Fierceness, as green wood bleeds its hissing sap
Into red heat of a fire! Not so do we:
The cloven anger, life, hath left to wage
Its flame against itself, here turned to one
Self-adoration.—Ah, what comes of this?
The joy falters a moment, with closed wings
Wearying in its upward journey, ere
Again it goes on high, bearing its song,
Its delight breathing and its vigour beating
The highest height of the air above the world.

She

What hast thou done to me!—I would have soul,
Before I knew thee, Love, a captive held
By flesh. Now, inly delighted with desire,
My body knows itself to be nought else
But thy heart’s worship of me; and my soul
Therein is sunlight held by warm gold air.
Nay, all my body is become a song
Upon the breath of spirit, a love-song.

He

And mine is all like one rapt faculty,
As it were listening to the love in thee,
My whole mortality trembling to take
Thy body like heard singing of thy spirit.

She

Surely by this, Beloved, we must know
Our love is perfect here,—that not as holds
The common dullard thought, we are things lost
In an amazement that is all unware;
But wonderfully knowing what we are!
Lo, now that body is the song whereof
Spirit is mood, knoweth not our delight?
Knoweth not beautifully now our love,
That Life, here to this festival bid come
Clad in his splendour of worldly day and night,
Filled and empower’d by heavenly lust, is all
The glad imagination of the Spirit?

He

Were it not so, Love could not be at all:
Nought could be, but a yearning to fulfil
Desire of beauty, by vain reaching forth
Of sense to hold and understand the vision
Made by impassion’d body,—vision of thee!
But music mixt with music are, in love,
Bodily senses; and as flame hath light,
Spirit this nature hath imagined round it,
No way concealed therein, when love comes near,
Nor in the perfect wedding of desires
Suffering any hindrance.

She

Ah, but now,
Now am I given love’s eternal secret!
Yea, thou and I who speak, are but the joy
Of our for ever mated spirits; but now
The wisdom of my gladness even through Spirit
Looks, divinely elate. Who hath for joy
Our Spirits? Who hath imagined them
Round him in fashion’d radiance of desire,
As into light of these exulting bodies
Flaming Spirit is uttered?

He

Yea, here the end
Of love’s astonishment! Now know we Spirit,
And Who, for ease of joy, contriveth Spirit.
Now all life’s loveliness and power we have
Dissolved in this one moment, and our burning
Carries all shining upward, till in us
Life is not life, but the desire of God,
Himself desiring and himself accepting.
Now what was prophecy in us is made
Fulfilment: we are the hour and we are the joy,
We in our marvellousness of single knowledge,
Of Spirit breaking down the room of fate
And drawing into his light the greeting fire
Of God,—God known in ecstasy of love
Wedding himself to utterance of himself

poem by Lascelles Abercrombie
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

En.Citatepedia®.ro

Sonnet VI: The Kiss

Related quotes

The Kiss

The House of the Life: The Kiss

The Magic Ring

One Small Act

When You Touch...

Hermaphroditus

A Question

Love-Lily

I Have A Baptism

Follow (I Am The Flute)

Body Capture

Troy Town

XXXVI Life-In-Love

The House of the Life: 36. Life-in-Love

Without Names

Fire Spirit

Sonnet XXXVI: Life-In-Love

Sonnet XXXVI: Life-In-Love

The Explorer

Emblems of Love

En.Citatepedia^®.ro