Sonnet XXVII: Heart's Compass
Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone,
But as the meaning of all things that are;
A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afar
Some heavenly solstice hushed and halcyon;
Whose unstirred lips are music's visible tone;
Whose eyes the sun-gate of the soul unbar,
Being of its furthest fires oracular;—
The evident heart of all life sown and mown.
Even such Love is; and is not thy name Love?
Yea, by thy hand the Love-god rends apart
All gathering clouds of Night's ambiguous art;
Flings them far down, and sets thine eyes above;
And simply, as some gage of flower or glove,
Stakes with a smile the world against thy heart.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Sonnet VIII: Love's Lovers
Some ladies love the jewels in Love's zone,
And gold-tipped darts he hath for painless play
In idle scornful hours he flings away;
And some that listen to his lute's soft tone
Do love to vaunt the silver praise their own;
Some prize his blindfold sight; and there be they
Who kissed his wings which brought him yesterday
And thank his wings to-day that he is flown.
My lady only loves the heart of Love:
Therefore Love's heart, my lady, hath for thee
His bower of unimagined flower and tree:
There kneels he now, and all-anhungered of
Thine eyes grey-lit in shadowing hair above,
Seals with thy mouth his immortality.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Sancire
The thing we love is the thing we can't possess
those who do not have love, know love best
to desire, to imagine, to obsess
our love kindles our most zealous zest
In our bosom we love and jealous rest
Unbosom thyself, thou reveal who thou really are
Anything but a heavenly star
A soul possessed by loves dark mar
Burning for a soul from afar
Love has no limits in thy mind
Its magic passion turns one blind
And in its center thyself you'll find
That what it is that makes one bind
The thing thy love, to thy own pain
By thine obsession, thy so incessantly gain
Nothing from love, but love's vain
To thy detriment thou go insane….
and love a thing thou wilt never possess….
to desire, to imagine, to obsess
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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Give to Love
Love came knocking on thy door
With you in sight to love and adore
But thine did give
All that thou have and
need to live?
You gave thine lips for love to speak
You gave thine heart for love's heart's weak
You gave thine face, to love to trace
its tears across thee a sorrowful place
thou give to thy loss when it comes to love!
You gave thine soul to love's control
You gave love thy hand to hold
You gave thy feet for love to kiss
You gave thy happiness to love's bliss
You gave thy breast for love to touch
You gave thine body for love to clutch.
But what did love give thee?
Love took and took and left thee with nothing!
With nothing now you are at peace, thou art free!
This is what love did to me!
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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Parted Presence
LOVE, I speak to your heart,
Your heart that is always here.
Oh draw me deep to its sphere,
Though you and I are apart,
And yield, by the spirit's art,
Each distant gift that is dear.
O love, my love, you are here!
Your eyes are afar to-day,
Yet, love, look now in mine eyes.
Two hearts sent forth may despise
All dead things by the way.
All between is decay,
Dead hours and this hour that dies.
O love, look deep in mine eyes!
Your hands to-day are not here,
Yet lay them, love, in my hands.
The hourglass sheds its sands
All day for the dead hours' bier;
But now, as two hearts draw near,
This hour like a flower expands.
O love, your hands in my hands!
Your voice is not on the air,
Yet, love, I can hear your voice:
It bids my heart to rejoice
As knowing your heart is there,—
A music sweet to declare
The truth of your steadfast choice.
O love, how sweet is your voice!
To-day your lips are afar,
Yet draw my lips to them, love.
Around, beneath, and above,
Is frost to bind and to bar;
But where I am and you are,
Desire and the fire thereof.
O kiss me, kiss me, my love!
Your heart is never away,
But ever with mine, for ever,
For ever without endeavour,
To-morrow, love, as to-day;
Two blent hearts never astray,
Two souls no power may sever,
Together, O my love, for ever!
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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The Grief Of Love
Love, I am sick for thee, sick with an absolute grief,
Sick with the thought of thy eyes and lips and bosom.
All the beauty I saw, I see to my hurt revealed.
All that I felt I feel to--day for my pain and sorrow.
Love, I would fain forget thee, hide thee in deeper night,
Shut thee where no thought is, in the grave with tears.
Love, I would turn my face to the wall and, if needs be, die;
Death less cruel were than thy eyes which have blinded me.
Since thou art gone from me, glory is gone from my life;
Dumb are the woods and streams, and dumb the voice of my soul;
Dead are the flowers we loved, blackened and sere with blight;
Earth is frost--bound under my foot where our footsteps trod.
Give me back for my sorrow the days of senseless peace,
Days when I thought not of thee, or thought in wisdom;
Let me see thee once more as thou to my folly wert,
A woman senseless as sounding brass or as tinkling cymbal.
Why didst thou show me thy heart, which I thought not of?
Why didst thou bare me thy soul, who to me wert soulless?
Why didst thou kiss my mouth, when my mouth did mock?
Why didst thou speak to my lips of love, ere my lips had spoken?
Love, thou hast made me thine, thine, and in my despite,
Laying thy hand on my heart in the soft Spring weather;
Love, thou hast bought my soul at a price, the price of thine,
Never again to mock at love, ah, never, never!
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Forsaking My Love
I hate you
I wish to tear you away from me
This tumor that clings to my chest
The thing that makes me ache
That haunts my dreams
And tears at my desires
You have brought me only pain
My untamed heart
That beast that gnaws at my soul
That pitifully whines
Bringing my mind into unwanted pain
Yet how can I blame you
How can I chastise you when I listen intently to your pleas
Why should I punish you for what my eyes feed upon
How can I blame my eyes for falling upon her
She who brings light to the eternal darkness of my soul
She whose eyes bring me to subjection
Whose smile leaves me in awe
How can I blame you when my ears are met with her laughter
How they submerge into her song
How they quiver at her voice
Why should I punish you for inclining my soul
Tempting it with the one sense that has been forsaken by her
How could I look over the thought of the brushing of lips
The touching of hands
The binding of the soul, mind, and body
O you wretched heart
What am I to do with this constant companion
How could I tear you away
When she is the cause of my agony
Or rather
It is the lack of her which brings me sorrow
It is the need for her that leaves my heart in pain
Yet she is not mine
She was never mine
She will never be mine
O my poor heart
How can I make you see reason
When all you do is show me the truth
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poem by Michael Silver
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Three Eternities
Lo, thou and I, my love,
And the sad stars above,-
Thou and I, I and thou!
Ah could we lie as now
Ever and aye, my love,
Hand within hand, my love,
Heart within heart, my dove,
Through night and day
For ever!
Lo, thou and I, my love,
Up in the sky above,
Where the sun makes his home
And the gods are, my love,
One day may wander from
Star unto star, my love,-
Soul within soul, my love,
Yonder afar
For ever!
Lo, thou and I, my love,
Some time shall lie, my love,
Knowing not night from day,
Knowing not toil from rest,-
Breast unto breast, my love,
Even as now for aye:
Clay within clay, my love,
Clay within clay
For ever!
poem by William Watson
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Sweet Love
Love
You are still my friend
Though you took away my flower
Each lamplit evening has an end
Tears on a page our april shower.
My heart, so lightly squeezed
By the ghost that did depart
My soul that her memory eased
The faintest hope would fire start.
So, love of jasmine scent
I look above
For romance lent
- Until the day on distant sand
I'll lose my way
But find her hand.
Oh, love whose heart still beats
Brings me her victory
Through my defeats.
Her eyes unknown burn with the night
One seed was sown in morning light
- To grow our day
When lips do touch
Love takes away
But gives so much.
And that's why love
You're still my friend
Now these two flowers will sway and bend
Our music pulsates
- crescendo of elation
As time the thief awaits
Sweet love
That rainbow of creation.
poem by Kevin East
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Sonnet XXXII: Equal Troth
Not by one measure mayst thou mete our love;
For how should I be loved as I love thee?—
I, graceless, joyless, lacking absolutely
All gifts that with thy queenship best behove;—
Thou, throned in every heart's elect alcove,
And crowned with garlands culled from every tree,
Which for no head but thine, by Love's decree,
All beauties and all mysteries interwove.
But here thine eyes and lips yield soft rebuke:—
“Then only” (say'st thou) “could I love thee less,
When thou couldst doubt my love's equality.”
Peace, sweet! If not to sum but worth we look,—
Thy heart's transcendence, not my heart's excess,—
Then more a thousandfold thou lov'st than I.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Sonnet 14
Here, hold this glove (this milk-white cheveril glove)
Not quaintly over-wrought with curious knots,
Not deckt with golden spangs, nor silver spots,
Yet wholesome for thy hand as thou shall prove.
Ah no; (sweet boy) place this glove neere thy heart,
Weare it, and lodge it still within thy brest,
So shall thou make me (most unhappy), blest.
So shalt thou rid my paine, and ease my smart:
How can that be (perhaps) thou wilt reply,
A glove is for the hand not for the heart,
Nor can it well be prov'd by common art,
Nor reasons rule. To this, thus answere I:
If thou from glove do'st take away the g,
Then glove is love: and so I send it thee.
poem by Richard Barnfield
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Moon's Minion
Thine eyes are like the sea, my dear,
The wand'ring waters, green and grey;
Thine eyes are wonderful and clear,
And deep, and deadly, even as they;
The spirit of the changeful sea
Informs thine eyes at night and noon,
She sways the tides, and the heart of thee,
The mystic, sad, capricious Moon!
The Moon came down the shining stair
Of clouds that fleck the summer sky,
She kissed thee, saying, 'Child, be fair,
And madden men's hearts, even as I;
Thou shalt love all things strange and sweet,
That know me and are known of me;
The lover thou shalt never meet,
The land where thou shalt never be!'
She held thee in her chill embrace,
She kissed thee with cold lips divine,
She left her pallor on thy face,
That mystic ivory face of thine;
And now I sit beside thy feet,
And all my heart is far from thee,
Dreaming of her I shall not meet,
And of the land I shall not see!
poem by Andrew Lang
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Forsaken. (From The German)
Something the heart must have to cherish,
Must love and joy and sorrow learn,
Something with passion clasp, or perish,
And in itself to ashes burn.
So to this child my heart is clinging,
And its frank eyes, with look intense,
Me from a world of sin are bringing
Back to a world of innocence.
Disdain must thou endure for ever;
Strong may thy heart in danger be!
Thou shalt not fail! but ah, be never
False as thy father was to me.
Never will I forsake thee, faithless,
And thou thy mother ne'er forsake,
Until her lips are white and breathless,
Until in death her eyes shall break.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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To The Muse Of The North
O muse that swayest the sad Northern Song,
Thy right hand full of smiting & of wrong,
Thy left hand holding pity; & thy breast
Heaving with hope of that so certain rest:
Thou, with the grey eyes kind and unafraid,
The soft lips trembling not, though they have said
The doom of the World and those that dwell therein.
The lips that smile not though thy children win
The fated Love that draws the fated Death.
O, borne adown the fresh stream of thy breath,
Let some word reach my ears and touch my heart,
That, if it may be, I may have a part
In that great sorrow of thy children dead
That vexed the brow, and bowed adown the head,
Whitened the hair, made life a wondrous dream,
And death the murmur of a restful stream,
But left no stain upon those souls of thine
Whose greatness through the tangled world doth shine.
O Mother, and Love and Sister all in one,
Come thou; for sure I am enough alone
That thou thine arms about my heart shouldst throw,
And wrap me in the grief of long ago.
poem by William Morris
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When I Think.
When I think I am over you
I see you in the sky.
And hear sweet music cry
For our dance
Of times gone by.
When we were new.
And love was lit
In the eyes of the moon
As a gift to you.
Sun shining a happy tune,
And painting it
Across your face.
And my heart
Glowed like a star
Over blue lagoon.
Where all wonder
We would chase.
Halcyon days
In a magical place.
When I think I am over you
I feel your kiss
Upon my lips.
That fruit of love
Without the pips
Of reality.
Smoothing
Soothing my soul.
Guarding my heart
From fatality.
You held my hand
When drums did roll.
Your perfumed hair tickled my cheek.
How wonderful
To be so weak
From the arrows of love divine.
When I think I am over you
Is when
I feel your soul touch mine.
poem by Kevin East
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Her love is my inspiration
Her love is my inspiration
Love is the inspiration for my heart to sing a tune,
love is the inspiration for my ear to hear,
love is the inspiration for my soul to warm,
love is the inspiration for my mouth to smile,
love is the inspiration for my eyes to glisten.
Love is the inspiration to draw my soul near another
love is the inspiration for my mouth to utter sweet words,
love is the inspiration for my eyes to gaze upon her,
love is the inspiration for my heart to speak out.
Love is the inspiration for need, love is the inspiration for my mouth to touch hers,
love is the inspiration for my eyes to close,
love is the inspiration for my heart to race,
love is the inspiration for my tears to burn.
Love is the inspiration for longing,
love is the inspiration for my eyes to see only her,
love is the inspiration for my heart to cry out,
love is the inspiration for my ear to hear her whispers,
love is the inspiration for my soul to join hers forever.
Love is the inspiration for forever,
love is the inspiration for my heart to be whole,
love is the inspiration for my ear to always hear those words,
love is the inspiration for my soul to have hers,
love is the inpiration for my mouth to speak the truth.
Love is the inspiration for my soul to seek life
love is the inspirationfor my ear to hear her words,
love is the inspiration for my soul to reach for her,
love is the inspiration for my mouth to speak her truths,
love is the inspiration for my eyes to always look upon her first,
For she is the inspiration for my Love.
Nathaniel Cole Buddington
poem by Nathan Buddington
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Sonnet LV: My Fair, If Thou Wilt
My Fair, if thou wilt register my love,
A world of volumes shall thereof arise;
Preserve my tears, and thou thyself shalt prove
A second flood, down-raining from mine eyes.
Note by my sighs, and thine eyes shall behold
The sunbeams smother'd with immortal smoke;
And if by thee my prayers may be enroll'd,
They Heav'n and Earth to pity shall provoke.
Look thou into my breast, and thou shalt see
Chaste holy vows for my soul's sacrifice,
That soul, sweet Maid, which so hath honor'd thee,
Erecting trophies to thy sacred eyes,
Those eyes to my heart shining ever bright,
When darkness hath obscur'd each other light.
poem by Michael Drayton
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Spelling LOVE
love you hey
love you from my heart
love you in my soul
love you lead my mind
love you all around
love you near
love you afar
love you with bright eyes
love you in tears
love you laughing
love you with joy
love you full of life
love you in dreams
love you to inspire
love you for peace
love you as mine
love you here
love you for all time
love you believing
love you with passion
love you from desire
love you so true
love you unconditionally
love you loving
love you always
poem by Ange de Lune
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When my soul loves your heart.....
I have your heart within me
that keeps telling me love story every night
God has given us love as the best medicine
to purify our hearts and soul with affections
When your heart and my soul touch each other
then there is no room for sadness
When my eyes close for sleep
then my soul awakes and kisses your heart
When your heart plays music with my soul
then the melodies hover like nightingales
When your heart is longing for my love
then my soul is belonging to beautiful nights
When my soul loves your heart
then its not only what your heart for
but for what my soul lives with you heart
poem by Ravi Sathasivam
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To-- Yet look on me
Yet look on me -- take not thine eyes away,
Which feed upon the love within mine own,
Which is indeed but the reflected ray
Of thine own beauty from my spirit thrown.
Yet speak to me -- thy voice is as the tone
Of my heart’s echo, and I think I hear
That thou yet lovest me; yet thou alone
Like one before a mirror, without care
Of aught but thine own features, imaged there;
And yet I wear out life in watching thee;
A toil so sweet at times, and thou indeed
Art kind when I am sick, and pity me.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Fragoletta
O LOVE! what shall be said of thee?
The son of grief begot by joy?
Being sightless, wilt thou see?
Being sexless, wilt thou be
Maiden or boy?
I dreamed of strange lips yesterday
And cheeks wherein the ambiguous blood
Was like a rose’s—yea,
A rose’s when it lay
Within the bud.
What fields have bred thee, or what groves
Concealed thee, O mysterious flower,
O double rose of Love’s,
With leaves that lure the doves
From bud to bower?
I dare not kiss it, lest my lip
Press harder than an indrawn breath,
And all the sweet life slip
Forth, and the sweet leaves drip,
Bloodlike, in death.
O sole desire of my delight!
O sole delight of my desire!
Mine eyelids and eyesight
Feed on thee day and night
Like lips of fire.
Lean back thy throat of carven pearl,
Let thy mouth murmur like the dove’s;
Say, Venus hath no girl,
No front of female curl,
Among her Loves.
Thy sweet low bosom, thy close hair,
Thy strait soft flanks and slenderer feet,
Thy virginal strange air,
Are these not over fair
For Love to greet?
How should he greet thee? what new name,
Fit to move all men’s hearts, could move
Thee, deaf to love or shame,
Love’s sister, by the same
Mother as Love?
Ah sweet, the maiden’s mouth is cold,
Her breast-blossoms are simply red,
Her hair mere brown or gold,
Fold over simple fold
Binding her head.
Thy mouth is made of fire and wine,
Thy barren bosom takes my kiss
And turns my soul to thine
And turns thy lip to mine,
And mine it is.
Thou hast a serpent in thine hair,
In all the curls that close and cling;
And ah, thy breast-flower!
Ah love, thy mouth too fair
To kiss and sting!
Cleave to me, love me, kiss mine eyes,
Satiate thy lips with loving me;
Nay, for thou shalt not rise;
Lie still as Love that dies
For love of thee.
Mine arms are close about thine head,
My lips are fervent on thy face,
And where my kiss hath fed
Thy flower-like blood leaps red
To the kissed place.
O bitterness of things too sweet!
O broken singing of the dove!
Love’s wings are over fleet,
And like the panther’s feet
The feet of Love.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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