This Lady's Cruelty
WITH how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case:
I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call 'virtue' there--ungratefulness?
poem by Philip Sidney
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Related quotes
People at Night
A night that cuts between you and you
and you and you and you
and me : jostles us apart, a man elbowing
through a crowd. & nbsp; We won't
&nbs p; ; look for each other, either-
wander off, each alone, not looking
in the slow crowd. Among sideshows
& nbsp; under movie signs,
&nb sp; &nbs p; pictures made of a million lights,
&n bsp; &nb sp; giants that move and again move
; again, above a cloud of thick smells,
&n bsp; &nb sp; franks, roasted nutmeats-
Or going up to some apartment, yours
&nbs p; ; or yours, finding
someone sitting in the dark:
who is it really? So you switch the
light on to see: you know the name but
who is it ?
&n bsp; But you won't see.
The fluorescent light flickers sullenly, a
pause. But you command. It grabs
each face and holds it up
by the hair for you, mask after mask.
&nbs p; ; You &nb sp;and you and I repeat
&n bsp; &nb sp; &nbs p;gestures that make do when speech
&nb sp; &nbs p; has failed & nbsp; and talk
; and talk, laughing, saying
&nb sp; &nbs p; 'I', and 'I',
meaning 'Anybody'.
; & nbsp; No one.
poem by Denise Levertov
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Astrophel and Stella: XXXI
With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What, may it be that even in heav'nly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries!
Sure, if that long-with love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case,
I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, ev'n of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be lov'd, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?
poem by Philip Sidney
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Sonnet XXXI: With How Sad Steps, O Moon
With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What, may it be that even in heav'nly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries!
Sure, if that long-with love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case,
I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, ev'n of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be lov'd, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?
poem by Philip Sidney
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Astrophel And Stella-Sonnet XXXI
With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case:
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace,
To me that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?
poem by Philip Sidney
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The Words
Clouds scattered across the sky &nbs p;all so far away
and then the space between this strange 'distance'
What does 'normal' mean, after all? &nb sp;you move
toward the window & nbsp;lights marking the headland
and the night becomes a milestone &nbs p; though
I the fog rolls up the hill from the sea
in waves the town &nb sp;desperate?
Whichever way we look &nb sp;though so much at hand
only held back by obsessions
but 'home' is so long ago &nbs p;don't cry
the light's a very pale blue &nb sp;then maybe &n bsp;the next time too
a faint glimmer across the bay &nbs p;neither moon
nor stars
and your letter making signs &n bsp;concerning 'understanding'
and 'the magic tortoise' &nbs p; what then? &n bsp;or just tiredness
At each alternative &n bsp; the colours in the sky
gradually changing ; until you're lulled into believing
you've seen this before & nbsp;but not quite
The wood-cut of a lone horseman
riding through a deathly countryside &n bsp; raped
'You're very brave' & nbsp;I clean the table-top
and you sat in that chair &n bsp;two red poppies
in the garden below &n bsp;at dawn
This apparent clumsiness is far from true
poem by Lee Harwood
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Sonnet III: With how sad steps
With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case:
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whoom that love doth possess?
Do they call 'virtue' there - ungratefulness?
poem by Philip Sidney
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To The Sad Moon
With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! May it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case:
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call 'virtue' there— ungratefulness?
poem by Philip Sidney
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A Revocation
WHAT should I say?
--Since Faith is dead,
And Truth away
From you is fled?
Should I be led
With doubleness?
Nay! nay! mistress.
I promised you,
And you promised me,
To be as true
As I would be.
But since I see
Your double heart,
Farewell my part!
Thought for to take
'Tis not my mind;
But to forsake
One so unkind;
And as I find
So will I trust.
Farewell, unjust!
Can ye say nay
But that you said
That I alway
Should be obeyed?
And--thus betrayed
Or that I wist!
Farewell, unkist!
poem by Sir Thomas Wyatt
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A Spot
In years defaced and lost,
Two sat here, transport-tossed,
Lit by a living love
The wilted world knew nothing of:
Scared momently
By gaingivings,
Then hoping things
That could not be.
Of love and us no trace
Abides upon the place;
The sun and shadows wheel,
Season and season sereward steal;
Foul days and fair
Here, too, prevail,
And gust and gale
As everywhere.
But lonely shepherd souls
Who bask amid these knolls
May catch a faery sound
On sleepy noontides from the ground:
"O not again
Till Earth outwears
Shall love like theirs
Suffuse this glen!"
poem by Thomas Hardy
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Elizabeth of Bohemia
YOU meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light,
You common people of the skies;
What are you when the moon shall rise?
You curious chanters of the wood,
That warble forth Dame Nature's lays,
Thinking your passions understood
By your weak accents; what 's your praise
When Philomel her voice shall raise?
You violets that first appear,
By your pure purple mantles known
Like the proud virgins of the year,
As if the spring were all your own;
What are you when the rose is blown?
So, when my mistress shall be seen
In form and beauty of her mind,
By virtue first, then choice, a Queen,
Tell me, if she were not design'd
Th' eclipse and glory of her kind.
poem by Henry Wotton
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Music in an Empty House
The house was empty and
the people of the house
gone many months
Months for the weevil
for the patient worm
timbe r-mole softly tunnelling
;for the parliament of rats
Footsteps slink past
damp walls
down
long
& nbsp; corridors
Slow feet
warily scuff
bare boards
The much-bitten
&nbs p;tapestry
; holds
&nb sp; many
&n bsp; moths
In a certain curtain'd room
the halting steps evade
chai rs white shrouded
To twitch the winding-sheet
&n bsp;around a grand piano
thin phalanx of sound
sharp rat's teeth edge yellow
with decay
The much-bitten
&nbs p;tapestry
;holds
man y
moths
On rat's teeth-edge
;fingers preparate
hesitate
Then falling send
as tenantry
darnp-muffied chords
rus ting strings
a still-born song
Their fortissimoThe tattered scarcetapestry stirsholds nearmany cobwebsmoths
poem by Hugh Sykes Davies
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Love will find out the Way
OVER the mountains
And over the waves,
Under the fountains
And under the graves;
Under floods that are deepest,
Which Neptune obey,
Over rocks that are steepest,
Love will find out the way.
When there is no place
For the glow-worm to lie,
When there is no space
For receipt of a fly;
When the midge dares not venture
Lest herself fast she lay,
If Love come, he will enter
And will find out the way.
You may esteem him
A child for his might;
Or you may deem him
A coward for his flight;
But if she whom Love doth honour
Be conceal'd from the day--
Set a thousand guards upon her,
Love will find out the way.
Some think to lose him
By having him confined;
And some do suppose him,
Poor heart! to be blind;
But if ne'er so close ye wall him,
Do the best that ye may,
Blind Love, if so ye call him,
He will find out his way.
You may train the eagle
To stoop to your fist;
Or you may inveigle
The Phoenix of the east;
The lioness, you may move her
To give over her prey;
But you'll ne'er stop a lover--
He will find out the way.
If the earth it should part him,
He would gallop it o'er;
If the seas should o'erthwart him,
He would swim to the shore;
Should his Love become a swallow,
Through the air to stray,
Love will lend wings to follow,
And will find out the way.
There is no striving
To cross his intent;
There is no contriving
His plots to prevent;
But if once the message greet him
That his True Love doth stay,
If Death should come and meet him,
Love will find out the way!
To Life
O life with the sad seared face,
I weary of seeing thee,
And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace,
And thy too-forced pleasantry!
I know what thou would'st tell
Of Death, Time, Destiny -
I have known it long, and know, too, well
What it all means for me.
But canst thou not array
Thyself in rare disguise,
And feign like truth, for one mad day,
That Earth is Paradise?
I'll tune me to the mood,
And mumm with thee till eve;
And maybe what as interlude
I feign, I shall believe!
poem by Thomas Hardy
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Old Woman
I see Senora Sanchez
along the river.
Black catfish
pop the silver
water surface,
waves unroll
as the gnarled
bronze face and
black eyes
remember
cool sea shells
and warm turquoise,
the turkey gobbling
behind bushes,
and the red skirt
hanging on boughs
as she bathed….
She pulls her black sweater
snug around her, folded arms
across her stomach.
She who remembers
cannot say amen
but smiles to sunrise
as she walks through the grass,
&nb sp; &nbs p; ; the tall,
&nbs p; ; green grass,
grass that does not listen to
& nbsp; &n bsp; &nb sp; the priest
in black robes, blooms green
as she walks through the grass
and talks with them.
poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca
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As ye came from the Holy Land
AS ye came from the holy land
Of Walsinghame,
Met you not with my true love
By the way as you came?
How should I know your true love,
That have met many a one
As I came from the holy land,
That have come, that have gone?
She is neither white nor brown,
But as the heavens fair;
There is none hath her form divine
In the earth or the air.
Such a one did I meet, good sir,
Such an angelic face,
Who like a nymph, like a queen, did appear
In her gait, in her grace.
She hath left me here alone
All alone, as unknown,
Who sometime did me lead with herself,
And me loved as her own.
What 's the cause that she leaves you alone
And a new way doth take,
That sometime did love you as her own,
And her joy did you make?
I have loved her all my youth,
But now am old, as you see:
Love likes not the falling fruit,
Nor the withered tree.
Know that Love is a careless child,
And forgets promise past:
He is blind, he is deaf when he list,
And in faith never fast.
His desire is a dureless content,
And a trustless joy;
He is won with a world of despair,
And is lost with a toy.
Of womenkind such indeed is the love,
Or the word love abused,
Under which many childish desires
And conceits are excused.
But true love is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning,
Never sick, never dead, never cold,
From itself never turning.
Winter Nights
NOW winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours,
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze
And cups o'erflow with wine;
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love,
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep's leaden spells remove.
This time doth well dispense
With lovers' long discourse;
Much speech hath some defence,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys,
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.
poem by Thomas Campion
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To Coelia
WHEN, Coelia, must my old day set,
And my young morning rise
In beams of joy so bright as yet
Ne'er bless'd a lover's eyes?
My state is more advanced than when
I first attempted thee:
I sued to be a servant then,
But now to be made free.
I've served my time faithful and true,
Expecting to be placed
In happy freedom, as my due,
To all the joys thou hast:
Ill husbandry in love is such
A scandal to love's power,
We ought not to misspend so much
As one poor short-lived hour.
Yet think not, sweet! I'm weary grown,
That I pretend such haste;
Since none to surfeit e'er was known
Before he had a taste:
My infant love could humbly wait
When, young, it scarce knew how
To plead; but grown to man's estate,
He is impatient now.
poem by Charles Cotton
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Love not me for comely grace, John Wilbye's Second Set of Madrigals
LOVE not me for comely grace,
For my pleasing eye or face,
Nor for any outward part,
No, nor for a constant heart:
For these may fail or turn to ill,
So thou and I shall sever:
Keep, therefore, a true woman's eye,
And love me still but know not why--
So hast thou the same reason still
To doat upon me ever!
Absence
Ah, happy air that, rough or soft,
May kiss that face and stay;
And happy beams that from above
May choose to her their way;
And happy flowers that now and then
Touch lips more sweet than they!
But it were not so blest to be
Or light or air or rose;
Those dainty fingers tear and toss
The bloom that in them glows;
And come or go, both wind and ray
She heeds not, if she knows.
But if I come thy choice should be
Either to love or not --
For if I might I would not kiss
And then be all forgot;
And it were best thy love to lose
If love self-scorn begot.
poem by Thomas William Heney
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Song From Heine
I scanned her picture dreaming,
Till each dear line and hue
Was imaged, to my seeming,
As if it lived anew.
Her lips began to borrow
Their former wondrous smile;
Her fair eyes, faint with sorrow,
Grew sparkling as erstwhile.
Such tears as often ran not
Ran then, my love, for thee;
And O, believe I cannot
That thou are lost to me!
poem by Thomas Hardy
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