True of False
NONE could ever say that she,
Lesbia! was so loved by me.
Never all the world around
Faith so true as mind was found.
If no longer it endures
(Would it did!) the fault is yours.
I can never think again
Well of you: I try in vain.
But . . . be false . . . do what you will-
Lesbia! I must love you still.
poem by Gaius Valerius Catullus
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De Suo In Lesbiam Amore Ep. 88.
DE SUO IN LESBIAM AMORE. EP. 88.
Nulla potest mulier tantum se dicere amatam
Vere, quantum a me Lesbia amata mea est;
Nulla fides ullo fuit unquam faedere tanta,
Quanta in amore suo ex parte reperta mea est.
ENGLISHED.
No one can boast her self so much belov'd,
Truely as Lesbia my affections prov'd;
No faith was ere with such a firm knot bound,
As in my love on my part I have found.
poem by Richard Lovelace
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Catullus and His Lesbia
Sweet Lesbia, hold me in your arms,
give me kisses without ceasing.
Your husband fights in Caesar's cause
and is no challenge in deceiving.
Your smooth white shoulders, beautiful,
that never see the Sun.
They are a feast for this poets' eyes
when your stola comes undone.
Beneath your tunica intima
are sweet breasts that fed your child.
I hope you'll bare them to my lips
in just a little while.
The shadows of the autumn Sun
creep clear across the room.
but Lesbia's sweet smile is enough
to brighten up the gloom.
Great Pompey has been put to rout,
Caesar claims the curule chair.
Outside the World has gone to Hades
Not that this poet cares.
For Lesbia is world enough
to treasure and explore.
If more were of my frame of mind
what need had men for war?
poem by John F. McCullagh
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De Quintia Et Sesbia. Ep. 87
DE QUINTIA ET LESBIA. EP. 87.
Quintia formosa est multis, mihi candida, longa,
Recta est; haec ego sic singula confiteor:
Tota illud formosa nego: nam multa venustas;
Nulla in tam magno est corpore mica salis.
Lesbia formosa est quae, cum pulcherrima tota est,
Tum omnibus una omneis surripuit veneres.
ENGLISHED.
Quintia is handsome, fair, tall, straight: all these
Very particulars I grant with ease:
But she all ore 's not handsome; here's her fault:
In all that bulk there's not one corne of salt,
Whilst Lesbia, fair and handsome too all ore,
All graces and all wit from all hath bore.
poem by Richard Lovelace
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If you have loved a brave story
If you have loved a brave story
Tell it but rarely;
And, with due faith in its glory,
Render it barely.
Then must the listener, hearing
Your tale of wonder,
Let his own hoping and fearing
Tear him asunder.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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They say — priests say
They say — priests say —
That God loves the world.
Maybe he does,
When the dew is pearl'd
On the emerald grass,
Or the young dawns shine
Would you be satisfied,
Proteus mine,
Just to be loved
When your hair was curled,
As Earth is beloved
When earth is fine?
I love you more
Than God loves the world.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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In Lesbiam Cat. Ep. 76.
IN LESBIAM CAT. EP. 76.
Huc est mens deducta tua, mea Lesbia, culpa,
Atque ita se officio perdidit ipsa suo.
Ut jam nec bene velle queam tibi, si optima sias:
Nec desistere amare, omnia si facias.
ENGLISHED.
By thy fault is my mind brought to that pass,
That it its office quite forgotten has:
For be'est thou best, I cannot wish thee well,
And be'est thou worst, then I must love thee still.
poem by Richard Lovelace
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To Lesbia
Lesbia! since far from you I've ranged,
Our souls with fond affection glow not;
You say 'tis I, not you, have changed,
I'd tell you why,--but yet I know not.
Your polish'd brow no cares have crost;
And, Lesbia! we are not much older,
Since, trembling, first my heart I lost,
Or told my love, with hope grown bolder
Sixteen was then our utmost age,
Two years have lingering past away, love!
And now new thoughts our minds engage,
At least I feel disposed to stray, love!
'Tis I that am alone to blame,
I, that am guilty of love's treason;
Since your sweet breast is still the same,
Caprice must be my only reason.
I do not, love! suspect your truth,
With jealous doubt my bosom heaves not;
Warm was the passion of my youth,
One trace of dark deceit it leaves not.
No, no, my flame was not pretended,
For, Oh! I loved you most sincerely;
And--though our dream at last is ended--
My bosom still esteems you dearly.
No more we meet in yonder bowers;
Absence has made me prone to roving;
But older, firmer hearts than ours
Have found monotony in loving.
Your cheek's soft bloom is unimpeair'd,
New beauties still are daily bright'ning,
Your eye for conquest beams prepared,
The forge of love's resistless lightning.
Arm'd thus, to make their bosoms bleed,
Many will throng to sigh like me, love!
More constant they may prove, indeed;
Fonder, alas! they ne'er can be, love!
Learning Geography
They have a few little hours
To study the world—
Its lovely absence of clouds,
Or the thunderbolts hurled
By hidden powers—
All the soft shapes of the vales
And the trees of the north
They dream of a minute, no longer,
No longer—then forth
Ere the year fails
To cities where carnival glows
Or the furnace is bright.
So is measured or leisured
According as teachers dispose
Their cosmic delight.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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My Sweetest Lesbia
My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love,
And though the sager sort our deeds reprove,
Let us not weigh them. Heaven’s great lamps do dive
Into their west, and straight again revive,
But soon as once set is our little light,
Then must we sleep one ever-during night.
If all would lead their lives in love like me,
Then bloody swords and armor should not be;
No drum nor trumpet peaceful sleeps should move,
Unless alarm came from the camp of love.
But fools do live, and waste their little light,
And seek with pain their ever-during night.
When timely death my life and fortune ends,
Let not my hearse be vexed with mourning friends,
But let all lovers, rich in triumph, come
And with sweet pastimes grace my happy tomb;
And Lesbia, close up thou my little light,
And crown with love my ever-during night.
poem by Thomas Campion
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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My Sweetest Lesbia
MY sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love,
And though the sager sort our deeds reprove,
Let us not weigh them. Heaven's great lamps do dive
Into their west, and straight again revive.
But, soon as once set our little light,
Then must we sleep one ever-during night.
If all would lead their lives in love like me,
Then bloody swords and armor should not be;
No drum or trumpet peaceful sleeps should move,
Unless alarm came from the camp of Love:
But fools do live and waste their little light,
And seek with pain their ever-during night.
When timely death my life and fortune ends,
Let not my hearse be vext with mourning friends,
But let all lovers rich in triumph come
And with sweet pastimes grace my happy tomb:
And, Lesbia, close up thou my little light,
And crown with love my ever-during night.
poem by Gaius Valerius Catullus
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When my lover put the sea between us
When my lover put the sea between us
And went wandering in Italy
My poor silly heart miscalled his journey—
'Leaving me'.
Towns of Spain and Italy he stayed in,
Each and all of them to me unknown;
How could he find pleasure being a lover,
Being alone!
Truly I was not as fair as Venice,
Noble as Siena, strange as Rome.
Certainly he loved Milan and Florence
More than home.
I believed his absence had estranged us
And across the heart-dividing sea
Sent him word that I no longer loved him.
Foolish me!
Came his answer after months of waiting
Echoing my letter, lie for lie.
Truth or lies I know not. Which unfaithful,
He or I.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Passer Mortuus Est
Death devours all lovely things;
Lesbia with her sparrow
Shares the darkness,—presently
Every bed is narrow.
Unremembered as old rain
Dries the sheer libation,
And the little petulant hand
Is an annotation.
After all, my erstwhile dear,
My no longer cherished,
Need we say it was not love,
Now that love is perished?
poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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Lesbia Hath a Beaming Eye
Lesbia hath a beaming eye,
But no one knows for whom it beameth;
Right and left its arrows fly,
But what they aim at no one dreameth.
Sweeter 'tis to gaze upon
My Nora's lid that seldom rises;
Few its looks, but every one,
Like unexpected light, surprises!
Oh, my Nora Creina, dear,
My gentle, bashful Nora Creina,
Beauty lies
In many eyes,
But Love in yours, my Nora Creina.
Lesbia wears a robe of gold,
But all so close the nymph hath laced it,
Not a charm of beauty's mould
Presumes to stay where Nature placed it.
Oh! my Nora's gown for me,
That floats as wild as mountain breezes,
Leaving every beauty free
To sink or swell as Heaven pleases.
Yes, my Nora Creina, dear,
My simple, graceful Nora Creina,
Nature's dress
Is loveliness --
The dress you wear, my Nora Creina.
Lesbia hath a wit refined,
But, when its points are gleaning round us,
Who can tell if they're design'd
To dazzle merely, or to wound us?
Pillow'd on my Nora's heart,
In safer slumber Love reposes --
Bed of peace! whose roughest part
Is but the crumpling of the roses.
Oh! my Nora Creina, dear,
My mild, my artless Nora Creina!
Wit, though bright,
Hath no such light
As warms your eyes, my Nora Creina.
poem by Thomas Moore
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I used to be afraid to meet
I used to be afraid to meet
The lovers going down our street.
I'd try to shrink to half my size
And blink and turn away my eyes
But now I'm one of them I know
I never need have bothered so.
And they won't mind it if I stare
Because they'll never know I'm there
Or if they do, they're proud to be
Fond lovers for the world to see.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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True Love Endures
True love endures when passion dies.
This should not come as a surprise,
it is a lesson all must learn
at their own pace each in their turn.
True love endures.
In time we learn to recognise
the honest truth from the half lies
and find the love for which we yearn.
True love endures.
There is no room for compromise
The truth is written in the eyes.
What you receive is what you earn
After the flames of passion burn
away the half truths and the lies.
True love endures.
(Poetic piers)
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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I Loved You
I loved you, and I probably still do,
And for a while the feeling may remain...
But let my love no longer trouble you,
I do not wish to cause you any pain.
I loved you; and the hopelessness I knew,
The jealousy, the shyness - though in vain -
Made up a love so tender and so true
As may God grant you to be loved again.
Translated by Genia Gurarie, 11/10/95
poem by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
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When I was still a child
When I was still a child
I thought my love would be
Noble, truthful, brave,
And very kind to me.
Then all the novels said
That if my lover prove
No such man as this
He had to forfeit love.
Now I know life holds
Harder tasks in store.
If my lover fail
I must love him more.
Should he prove unkind,
What am I, that he
Squander soul and strength
Smoothing life for me?
Weak or false or cruel
Love must still be strong.
All my life I'll learn
How to love as long.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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And is love very strong where honour rules?
And is love very strong where honour rules?
Would the world ever speak of Lancelot's love
Or Tristram's love had they put honour first?
What would you think if Guinevere had knelt
And begged for kisses and had begged in vain?
Should she be constant had she been refused
Or would she laugh and turn to love elsewhere?
But Joseph is a hero nowadays
And young Paolo, the Italian blood,
Rather too rash and uncontrollable.
Lovers who are not free should sigh and part—
Lovers, you call them—and not free to love:
They may be wives or husbands, businessmen,
Saints even: they're not lovers. After all
I'd rather be a lover than a saint.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Bible in Poetry: 1 John 4
Do not believe in all spirits;
Find out if they have come from God;
False prophets have come to the world;
But how can you ascertain them?
A spirit that acknowledges
That Jesus came in flesh from God,
Is from God, Almighty Father;
And that which says that Christ isn’t Lord,
Is spirit of the antichrist,
Which you have heard is coming now,
And has already entered world.
You are from God too, dear children;
You’ve overcome the bad spirits;
The one in you is greater than
The one found in the world by man;
They’re from the world and speak like-wise;
The world listens as they entice;
Whoev’r knows God, listens to us,
As we are also from same God;
Whoever isn’t from God does not,
Then listen to us anytime.
This is the way to recognize,
The true spirit from that, that’s false!
God’s Love and Ours:
Dear friends, lets love one another,
As love comes from God the Father;
The ones who love are born of God,
For God is love and love knows God.
God showed His love for all of us,
By sending His one Son Jesus,
Into the world, die for our sins,
Like Lamb of God for sacrifice;
So that, we may then live through Him.
God’s love is not because we loved
Him, but He loved man as beloved;
We ought to love one another,
As God loved us like our Father;
No one has ev’r seen God as yet,
But if we love one another,
God will reside in us forev’r!
We live in Him and He in us,
As He has given His spirit;
We testify we’ve seen the Son,
Whom Father sent as world’s Savior;
If you acknowledge Son Of God,
God lives in him and he in God;
Therefore we know God’s love for us.
As God is love, whoever loves,
Then lives in God and God in Him;
Thus, love is made wholesome in us;
We’ll stand in confidence ‘fore God,
On Judgment-Day as we’re like Him.
There is no need for fear in love,
For, perfect love drives out all fear;
Fear comes when we await God’s rod;
Imperfect is the love with fear.
God loved us first and then we love;
The one who says, ‘I love God but
Hate my brother is a liar! ’
He who does not love his brother,
Although he has seen him so well,
Cannot love God, the unseen one;
God has given this commandment:
‘Whoev’r loves God, loves his brethren.’
poem by John Celes
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I found an orchid in the valley fair,
I found an orchid in the valley fair,
And named it for us both,
And left it there.
Two flowers upon one stem, white-souled, alone.
I couldn't pull them up,
And bring them home.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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