Air and Angels
Twice or thrice had I loved thee,
Before I knew thy face or name;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame
Angels affect us oft, and worshipp'd be.
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing did I see.
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtle than the parent is
Love must not be, but take a body too;
And therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid Love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.
Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,
And so more steadily to have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw I had love's pinnace overfraught;
Thy every hair for love to work upon
Is much too much; some fitter must be sought;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scattering bright, can love inhere;
Then as an angel face and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,
So thy love may be my love's sphere;
Just such disparity
As is 'twixt air's and angels' purity,
'Twixt women's love, and men's, will ever be.
poem by John Donne
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Related quotes
An Answer
Thy love I am. Thy wife I cannot be,
To wear the yoke of servitude — to take
Strange, unknown fetters that I cannot break
On soul and flesh that should be mine, and free.
Better the woman's old disgrace for me
Than this old sin — this deep and dire mistake;
Better for truth and honour and thy sake —
For the pure faith I give and take from thee.
I know thy love, and love thee all I can —
I fain would love thee only till I die;
But I may some day love a better man,
And thou may'st find a fitter mate than I;
Some want, some chill, may steal 'twixt heart and heart.
And then we must be free to kiss and part.
poem by Ada Cambridge
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Written At Sea
What is my quarrel with thee, beautiful sea,
That thus I cannot love thy waves or thee,
Or hear thy voice but it tormenteth me?
Why do I hate thee, who art beautiful
Beyond all beauty, when the nights are cool,
And the stars fade because the moon is full?
Why do I hate thee? Thou art new and young,
And life is thine for loving, and thy tongue
Hath tones that I have known and loved and sung.
Thou hast a smile which would my smiling greet;
Thy brave heart beateth as my own doth beat,
And thou hast tears which should be true and sweet.
Thou art a creature, strong and fair and brave,
Such as I might have given the world to have
And love and cherish;--and thou art my slave.
I have my home in thee. Thy arms enfold
Me all night long, and I am rocked and rolled,
And thou art never weary of thy hold.
Thou art a woman in thy constancy,
And worthy better love than mine could be;
And yet, behold, I cannot suffer thee.
If thou wert dumb; if thou wert like the sky,
Which has not learned to speak our misery
In any voice less rude than the wind's cry;
If thou wert wholly young and didst not know
The secret of our ancient human woe,
Or if thou knewest it wholly as I know;
Or yet if thou wert old with all these years;
If thou wert dull to hopes and loves and fears;
If thou wert blind and couldst not see our tears;
If thou wert bounded by some rocky shore,
And hadst not given thyself thus wholly o'er
To our poor single selves with all thy store;
If thou wert not in thy immensity,
A single circle circling with the sky,
Where we must still be centres changelessly;
If thou wert other than thou art; alas,
If thou wert not of water, but a mass
Of formless earth, a waveless plain of grass;
If thou wert shapeless as the mountains are;
If thou wert clad in some discordant wear;
If thou wert not so blue and trim and fair;
If thou wert decked with towns and villages;
If there was heard, across the silent seas,
The music of church bells upon the breeze;
If thou wert this; or if thou wert not near,
But I could only sit apart and hear
The beating of thy waves, and find it drear,
But wild and quite unknown, and far from me;
Sea, if thou couldst no longer be the sea,
Then I could love thee as thou lovest me.
If thou wouldst have me love thee, beautiful sea,
Build up a wall of dark 'twixt thee and me;
Let me not see thee; call the night to thee.
League with the winds; rise up, and send them driven
To roll mad clouds about thy back at even.
Make thee a desolation of the heaven.
Thou shouldst compel me, with thy angry voice,
To choose 'twixt death and thee; and, at the choice,
If my cheek grew not pale, thou might'st rejoice,
And I might love thee, oh thou monstrous sea;
But now I cannot love thy waves or thee,
Or bear thy beauty in my misery.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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My Love, My Love!
My love, my love! Your love is so pure
My love, my love! Your kiss is so sweet
My love, my love! Your touch is so grand
My love, my love! You have me at your hands
My love, my love! Your faith is so real
My love, my love! Your face do appeal
My love, my love! Your hair is so soft
My love, my love! You make my heart froth
My love, my love! Your voice is so melodic
My love, my love! Your skin is so smooth
My love, my love! You make my heart swoon
My love, my love! You are my love it's true
poem by Alex Fischer
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Her...
I can never get my mind off her,
I wonder if she'd mind if i'd,
make her my own,
and never let her go,
hug her tight,
treat her right,
act all polite,
take her on a date,
make sure i'm never late,
kiss her on her lips,
talk about our kids,
Make her feel like princess,
living in a castle,
hope that is not too much hassle,
But i am so blessed,
hope i can be the best,
hold you tight,
have your BR3A$t,
on my chest,
pass the test,
NOW YOUR MINE!
sorry for word spamming: (
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poem by Jordan Moore
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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To thy heart so sweetly its wrong..
To a memory of happiness thine heart doth yield
Rousing thine sweet face to be kissed by love first
Dreamy thy power behind thy strength's shield
Drinking the dreams of love, thine soul doth thirst
For the love that did first make thee
Is the love thy face doth subtly gleam
Into the springs of thy soul's glee
Wert thy past love reflect and thy heart beam
But thy love is in thy dreams, now thy love not
Rejected and abandoned to thy only love thou hope
As loneliness and despair forge a their Gordian knot
Around thy heart, thy still dream for love to cope
For the love which is lost in thy memory song
Unconsciously playing to thy heart so sweetly its wrong..
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Thou knoweth love not like me
Thou knowth love not like me
Thou whom are beauty bound to grace
And me whom is hideous and ugly
Marred to the soul, marred on my face.
I know love's temptation but loved am not
As thou art loved and love no one
I love love but never felt it, only besought
The love thou have, beloved by all like the sun.
I lament in ugliness and with ugliness alone
As beauteous thee, with love marry
I decay like death, and wither to the bone
Married thou art mythicized into a ferry
Beautiful, angelic, thou know love's power
Ugly and hideous I know love's final hour……
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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To Atthis The Inconstant
Fragments 33, 57A, 44, 41, 70, 58 combined.
I loved thee, Atthis, — even thee! —
Ah, long ago!
As Aphrodite's handmaid bright
As gold wert thou then in my sight.
A very queen of love to me
Then didst thou show.
Fair gifts I sent thee — 'broidery
Of golden thread whose shimmering light
Flashed mid the purple on thy knee,
A gleam and glow.
Then I knew not thine heart aright:
But now I know!
Thou incarnate false inconstancy —
To whom I grow
A thing to hate! — thou takest flight
On wings of love to — who is she?
A rustic wench whose garments flow
About her heels ungracefully!
O yea, let thy false love requite
Andromeda's worship! Take delight
In her — thou who from my love's height
Hast sunk so low!
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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Where Art Thou?
My love where art thou?
Buried in the heart of dead souls grave
In the burdened face, in the sagging brow
Burnt to ashes for evil to deprave—
My love where art thou?
Hidden beneath the voice of beauty
Dangling in the wind like chime
In the sonnets of one's love poetry
Surviving the cruelty of cruel time—
My Love where art thou?
Painted on Christ's prayer his somber plea
In the whine of a my sweet child
Shining bright on the fiery star of the sea
Nourishing the cubs in the earth's natural wild
My love where art thou?
Thou art certainly not in me
With me, my love thou wilt never be
Love everywhere in perfect harmony
Except me, with no love, my life's destiny….
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Bitter Blow of Love
Love! you dealt a bitter blow –
You lay me cross the mortal plains,
Bedewed, bedimmed amongst a show
Of tearful clouds: eternal rains
To weep at my enduring foe
Of harsh reality – searing pains of
Destiny: dependable propensity
To fool myself repeatedly
That I could ever triumph over love!
Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009
Love love love love love love love love love love
Bitter blow
Love love love love love love love love love love
Bitter blow
Love love love love love love love love love love
Bitter blow
Love love love love love love love love love love
Bitter blow
Love love love love love love love love love love
Bitter blow
Love love love love love love love love love love
Bitter blow of love, oh love
Love love love love love love love love love love
Love love love love love love love love love love love love
Love love love love love love love love love love love love love love
Love love love love love love love love love love love love love love
Love love love love love love love love love love love love love love
Love love love love love love love love love love love love love love
Love love love love love love love love love love love love love love
Love love love love love love love love love love love love love love
poem by Mark R Slaughter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Love is It
Love is unpredictable Love is uncontainable
Love is reliable Love is infallible
Love is right Love is wrong
Love is weak Love is strong
Love is good Love is pure
Love is real Love is sure
Love is jealous Love is pain
Love is lost Love is gained
Love is naked Love is raw
Love is everything Love is all
Love is here Love is there
Love is beautiful Love is fair
Love is great Love is shit
Love is demanding Love is it....
poem by Paul LaFalce
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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My Meaning of Love
Love is unpredictable Love is uncontainable
Love is reliable Love is infallible
Love is right Love is wrong
Love is weak Love is strong
Love is good Love is pure
Love is real Love is sure
Love is jealous Love is pain
Love is lost Love is gained
Love is naked Love is raw
Love is everything Love is all
Love is here Love is there
Love is beautiful Love is fair
Love is great Love is shit
Love is demanding Love is it....
poem by Lexer Hernandez
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Love
1 Canst thou love me, lady?
2 I've not learn'd to woo:
3 Thou art on the shady
4 Side of sixty too.
5 Still I love thee dearly!
6 Thou hast lands and pelf:
7 But I love thee merely
8 Merely for thyself.
9 Wilt thou love me, fairest?
10 Though thou art not fair;
11 And I think thou wearest
12 Someone-else's hair.
13 Thou could'st love, though, dearly:
14 And, as I am told,
15 Thou art very nearly
16 Worth thy weight, in gold.
17 Dost thou love me, sweet love?
18 Tell me that thou dost!
19 Women fairly beat one,
20 But I think thou must.
21 Thou art loved so dearly:
22 I am plain, but then
23 Thou (to speak sincerely)
24 Art as plain again.
25 Love me, bashful fairy!
26 I've an empty purse:
27 And I've 'moods,' which vary;
28 Mostly for the worse.
29 Still, I love thee dearly:
30 Though I make (I feel)
31 Love a little queerly,
32 I'm as true as steel.
33 Love me, swear to love me
34 (As, you know, they do)
35 By yon heaven above me
36 And its changeless blue.
37 Love me, lady, dearly,
38 If you'll be so good;
39 Though I don't see clearly
40 On what ground you should.
41 Love me -- ah or love me
42 Not, but be my bride!
43 Do not simply shove me
44 (So to speak) aside!
45 P'raps it would be dearly
46 Purchased at the price;
47 But a hundred yearly
48 Would be very nice.
poem by Charles Stuart Calverley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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O love thou create
O love thou create and thou destroy
The innocent girl, the innocent boy
Tis in love that is, that lover's dwell
In foolish love fallen in foolish spell
One in love makes two hearts grow
None in love, and love stills show
On the melancholic face of beauty
In between the lines of poetry
Painted on the grace of Mary
Soaring on the wing of love's ferry
It's love's spell our life doth make
And life what love doth take
When thou say thou love me not
Thou love me not, but still love I got
So live I will.
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Requiescat in Pace Terra Amare
Bereft of mine love's grace no earthily love to dole
Dearth is her love to the detriment of mine soul
I'll always gaze at her opaque image and wonder
What love could be like if we not lived asunder
Why my soul mate dared to reject me?
And why was love not woven into my destiny?
My love is a phantom, a mistress I cry to
When love I do not have to sweeten mine rue..
I shan't forsake earthily love, for there never was
Love to forsake; it must be dead, when love doth die?
It must died on thy lips when no love thou spoke
Died on thy heart from the dead thou never awoke.
If thou took thy image of me, and took my image of thee
And sweetly blended, thou would get love, transformed completely
But I'll never know as love never knew me, for my love thou killed
when thou chose me not. Now I won't dream of thee alive
so you can live and taunt me with no love and deprive
thy treacherous soul who mates not with me…
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Hymn To Christ At The Author's Last Going Into Germany
In what torn ship soever I embark,
That ship shall be my emblem of thy Ark;
What sea soever swallow me, that flood
Shall be to me an emblem of thy blood;
Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise
Thy face, yet through that mask I know those eyes,
Which, though they turn away sometimes,
They never will despise.
I sacrifice this Island unto thee,
And all whom I loved there, and who loved me;
When I have put our seas 'twixt them and me,
Put thou thy sea betwixt my sins and thee.
As the tree's sap doth seek the root below
In winter, in my winter now I go,
Where none but thee, th' Eternal root
Of true Love, I may know.
Nor thou nor thy religion dost control
The amorousness of an harmonious Soul,
But thou wouldst have that love thyself: as thou
Art jealous, Lord, so I am jealous now,
Thou lov'st not, till from loving more, Thou free
My soul: who ever gives, takes liberty:
O, if thou car'st not whom I love
Alas, thou lov'st not me.
Seal then this bill of my Divorce to All,
On whom those fainter beams of love did fall;
Marry those loves, which in youth scattered be
On Fame, Wit, Hopes (false mistresses) to thee.
Churches are best for Prayer, that have least light:
To see God only, I go out of sight:
And to 'scape stormy days, I choose
An Everlasting night.
poem by John Donne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Intrigue
THOU art my love
And thou art the peace of sundown
When the blue shadows soothe
And the grasses and the leaves sleep
To the song of the little brooks
Woe is me.
Thou art my love,
And thou art a storm
That breaks black in the sky
And, sweeping headlong,
Drenches and cowers each tree
And at the panting end
There is no sound
Save the melancholy cry of a single owl
Woe is me!
Thou art my love
And thou art a tinsel thing
And I in my play
Broke thee easily
And from the little fragments
Arose my long sorrow
Woe is me.
Thou art my love
And thou art a weary violet
Drooping from sun-caresses.
Answering mine carelessly
Woe is me.
Thou art my love
And thou art the ashes of other men's love
And I bury my face in these ashes
And I love them
Woe is me.
Thou art my love
And thou art the beard
On another man's face
Woe is me.
Thou art my love
And thou art a temple
And in this temple is an altar
And on this altar is my heart
Woe is me.
Thou art my love
And thou art a wretch.
Let these sacred love-lies choke thee
For I am come to where I know your lies as truth
And your truth as lies
Woe is me.
Thou art my love
And thou art a priestess
And in thy hand is a bloody dagger
And my doom comes to me surely
Woe is me.
Thou art my love
And thou art a skull with ruby eyes
And I love thee
Woe is me.
Thou art my love
And I doubt thee
And if peace came with my murder
Then would I murder
Woe is me.
Thou art my love
And thou art death
Aye, thou art death
Black and yet black
But I love thee
I love thee
Woe, welcome woe, to me.
poem by Stephen Crane
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Love Is.....
Love should be a decision,
Love should not be emotion,
Love is a work in progress,
Love is not to digress,
Love can hurt sometimes,
Love can strongly binds,
Love resides in the heart,
Love lives for the depart,
Love can be blind,
Love can be sublime,
Love can be one chance,
Love can be a dance,
Love has no boundaries,
Love has it's ambiguities,
An endless love.
Lost love.
Unrequited love.
A new love.
A foolish love.
Pure love.
Deep love.
Undying love.