Loves
'Sincerity comes with the wine-cup,' my dear:
Then now o'er our wine-cups let us be sincere.
My soul's treasured secret to you I'll impart;
It is this; that I never won fairly your heart.
One half of my life, I am conscious, has flown;
The residue lives on your image alone.
You are kind, and I dream I'm in paradise then;
You are angry, and lo! all is darkness again.
It is right to torment one who loves you? Obey
Your elder; 'twere best; and you'll thank me one day.
Settle down in one nest on one tree (taking care
That no cruel reptile can clamber up there):
As it is with your lovers you're fairly perplexed;
One day you choose one bough, another the next.
Whoe'er at all struck by your graces appears,
Is more to you straight than the comrade of years;
While he's like the friend of a day put aside;
For the breath of your nostrils, I think, is your pride.
Form a friendship, for life, with some likely young lad;
So doing, in honour your name shall be had.
Nor would Love use you hardly; though lightly can he
Bind strong men in chains, and has wrought upon me
Till the steel is as wax-but I'm longing to press
That exquisite mouth with a clinging caress.
No? Reflect that you're older each year than the last;
That we all must grow gray, and the wrinkles come fast.
Reflect, ere you spurn me, that youth at his sides
Wears wings; and once gone, all pursuit he derides:
Nor are men over keen to catch charms as they fly.
Think of this and be gentle, be loving as I:
When your years are maturer, we two shall be then
The pair in the Iliad over again.
But if you consign all my words to the wind
And say, 'Why annoy me? you're not to my mind,'
I-who lately in quest of the Gold Fruit had sped
For your sake, or of Cerberus guard of the dead
Though you called me, would ne'er stir a foot from my door,
For my love and my sorrow thenceforth will be o'er.
poem by Theocritus
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
The Question Remains Unanswered
Strange things happen in our lives
through each passing year.
As we get older, we reflect
on the reasons why they came.
She came into my life
first in my childhood,
but for some reason
no friendship flared.
The years then rolled on
to forty and more
and into my life,
she once again appeared.
It is hard to define
what we were both
looking for
on the second time around.
However, what we found
was a deep, caring friendship
that reached higher than
any parameters we could have set.
We knew one day further on
we would have to part again
when heaven called
for one of us to go.
I reflect now for a reason
why destiny brought us together
not once but twice.
However, the question remains unanswered.
3 May 2012
poem by David Harris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Dead Leaves
When these dead leaves were green, love,
November's skies were blue,
And summer came with lips aflame,
The gentle spring to woo;
And to us, wandering hand in hand,
Life was a fairy scene,
That golden morning in the woods
When these dead leaves were green!
How dream-like now that dewy morn,
Sweet with the wattle's flowers,
When love, love, love was all our theme,
And youth and hope were ours!
Two happier hearts in all the land
There were not then, I ween,
Than those young lovers' -- yours and mine --
When these dead leaves were green.
How gaily did you pluck these leaves
From the acacia's bough,
To mark the lyric we had read --
I can repeat it now!
While came the words, like music sweet,
Your smiling lips between --
"So fold my love within your heart,"
When these dead leaves were green!
How many springs have passed since then?
Ah, wherefore should we count,
The years that sped, like waters fled
From Time's unstaying fount?
We've had our share of happiness,
Our share of care have seen;
But love alone has never flown
Since these dead leaves were green.
Your heart is kind and loving still,
Your face to me as fair,
As when, that morn, the sunshine played
Amid your golden hair.
So, dearest, sweethearts still we'll be,
As we have ever been,
And keep our love as fresh and true
As when these leaves were green.
poem by Edward Booth Loughran
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Recompense: (For Lord Kilhacken)
That which I saved I lost
And that I lost I found,
And you are mine, oh tender little ghost,
Whose grave is holy ground.
That which I kept is flown,
So fast the children grow,
The only child I keep to be my own
I lost long years ago.
The little ones that stayed
Slip from me while I cry:
Oh, not so fast, so fast, you golden-head.
Swift as the wind they fly.
Not two days are the same.
To-morrow will not see
To-day's young children, crested like a flame,
Gathered about my knee.
One day a day will dawn
Will see me dispossessed --
An empty nest whence singing-birds have flown.
Who shall refill the nest?
The years run out like sand
To strip me of my pride;
Then in my hand will steal a clinging hand.
I keep the child who died.
God gives and does not lend
This one lamb of the fold;
And he will need his mother to the end
And never will grow old.
poem by Katharine Tynan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Forever
THOSE we love truly never die,
Though year by year the sad memorial wreath,
A ring and flowers, types of life and death,
Are laid upon their graves.
For death the pure life saves,
And life all pure is love; and love can reach
From heaven to earth, and nobler lessons teach
Than those by mortals read.
Well blest is he who has a dear one dead:
A friend he has whose face will never change—
A dear communion that will not grow strange;
The anchor of a love is death.
The blessed sweetness of a loving breath
Will reach our cheek all fresh through weary years.
For her who died long since, ah! waste not tears,
She's thine unto the end.
Thank God for one dead friend,
With face still radiant with the light of truth,
Whose love comes laden with the scent of youth,
Through twenty years of death.
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
For Sharon (my little sister and second mother)
You were always my little sister, whether you knew it or not,
Even though you thought differently, when you were just a tot-
Even way back then, you wanted to take care of me,
You put on the Big Sister act, it didn't bother me, you see-
But when I reflect on those early times, I find I am mistaken-
For those years you stood by me, for granted you were taken.
You married young in life, your roads were rough, like mine-
But now your days are treasured, like aged and ripe old wine.
You've found the one that loves you, that one with the special glow-
That very special mate...hold him tight and don't let go!
And here I'm writing verse to you, to give you thanks and blessing-
For the times that you took care of me, for the grooming and the dressing!
Thanks for the times you freely gave, thanks for all of the care-
That was sisterly love, that only a sister could share!
You were my little sister- I was the other brother -
And now, the secret's out - You were my second mother!
poem by David Lessard
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
To The Rock That Will Be A Cornerstone Of The House
Old garden of grayish and ochre lichen,
How long a rime since the brown people who have vanished from
here
Built fires beside you and nestled by you
Out of the ranging sea-wind? A hundred years, two hundred,
You have been dissevered from humanity
And only known the stubble squirrels and the headland rabbits,
Or the long-fetlocked plowhorses
Breaking the hilltop in December, sea-gulls following,
Screaming in the black furrow; no one
Touched you with love, the gray hawk and the red hawk touched
you
Where now my hand lies. So I have brought you
Wine and white milk and honey for the hundred years of famine
And the hundred cold ages of sea-wind.
I did not dream the taste of wine could bind with granite,
Nor honey and milk please you; but sweetly
They mingle down the storm-worn cracks among the mosses,
Interpenetrating the silent
Wing-prints of ancient weathers long at peace, and the older
Scars of primal fire, and the stone
Endurance that is waiting millions of years to carry
A corner of the house, this also destined.
Lend me the stone strength of the past and I will lend you
The wings of the future, for I have them.
How dear you will be to me when I too grow old, old comrade.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Unhappy One
“HE is false to the heart!' she said, stern-lipped; 'he is all untruth;
He promises fair as a tree in blossom, and then
The fruit is rotten ere ripe. Tears, prayers and youth,
All withered and wasted! and still—I love this falsest of men!'
Comfort? There is no comfort when the soul sees pain like a sun:
It is better to stare at the blinding truth: if it blind, one woe is done.
We cling to a coward hope, when hope has the seed of the pain:
If we tear out the roots of the grief, it will never torment again.
Ay, even if part of our life is lost, and the deep-laid nerves
That carry all joy to the heart are wounded or killed by the knife;
When a gangrene sinks to the bone, it is only half-death that serves;
And a life with a cureless pain is only half a life.
But why unhealed must the spirit endure? There are drugs for the body's dole;
Have we wholly lived for the lower life? Is there never a balm for the soul?
O Night, cry out for the healer of woe, for the priest-physician cry,
With the pouring oil for the bleeding grief, for the life that may not die!
'He is false to the heart!' she moaned; 'and I love him and cannot hate!'
Then bitterly, fiercely —'What have I done, my God, for such a fate?'
'Poor heart!' said the Teacher; 'for thee and thy sorrow the daily parables speak.
Thy grief, that is dark, illumes for me a sign that was dim and weak.
In the heart of my garden I planted a tree —I had chosen the noblest shoot:
It was sheltered and tended, and hope reached out for the future's precious fruit.
The years of its youth flew past, and I looked on a spreading tree
All gloried with maiden blossoms, that smiled their promise to me.
I lingered to gaze on their color and shape—I knew I had chosen well;
And I smiled at the death that was promise of life as the beautiful petals fell.
But the joy was chilled, though the lip laughed on, by the withered proof to the eye:
The blossoms had shielded no tender bud, but cradled a barren lie.
Before me it lay, the mystery—the asking, the promise, the stone;
The tree that should give good fruit was bare—the cause unseen, unknown!
'But I said: ' Next year it shall bourgeon, my part shall be faithfully done;
My love shall be doubled—I trust my tree for its beautiful strength alone.'
But tenderness failed, and loving care, and the chalice of faith was dried
When the next spring blossoms had spoken their promise smiled at the sun and lied;
The heart of the petals was withered to dust. Then, for duty, I trusted again;
For who should stand if God were to frown on the twice-told failures of men?
Unloving I tended, with care increased, but never a song or smile;
For duty is love that is dead but is kept from the grave for a while.
The third year came, with the sweet young leaves, and I could not fear or doubt;
But the petals smiled at the sun and lied,—and the curse in my blood leaped out!
'This corpse,' I cried, 'that has cumbered the earth, let it hence to the waste be torn!'
That moment of wrath beheld its death—while to me was a life-truth born:
The straight young trunk at my feet lay prone; and I bent to scan the core,
And there read the pitiful secret the noble sapling bore.
Through the heart of the pith, in its softest youth, it had bored its secret way,
A gnawing worm, a hideous grief,—and the life it had tortured lay
Accursed and lost for the cruel devil that nestled its breast within.
Ah, me, poor heart! had I known in time, I had cut out the clinging sin,
And saved the life that was all as good and as noble as it seemed!'
He ceased, and she rose, the unresigned, as one who had slept and dreamed;
Her face was radiant with insight: 'It is true! it is true!' she said;
'And my love shall not die, like your beautiful tree, till the hidden pain is dead!'
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Image of a Friend
As I look through the window of friendship,
I see in the gentle wind,
The whispered breeze of an angel,
It is in the image of 'friend'.
This friend has a heart of compassion,
Caring that comes without end,
The giving of love to others,
Characterizes my dear friend.
This friend has hands that carry,
The load of your burdens with ease,
Hands that will hold others' problems,
Grasping with love, not to cease.
This friend has eyes, understanding,
That see to the heart of a soul,
Eyes that are never condemning,
But rather see new ways to grow.
This friend has ears that listen,
And hear the call of a friend,
Ears that will cherish the moment,
And take the time to lend.
The image of friend described here,
Is the picture I see in my mind,
When I look through the window of life,
Your image is what I find!
poem by Jean Penner
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The One You Thought Was A Friend
The one you thought was a friend not your friend it would seem
For your friend never would erode your self esteem
Or opposite others see fit to put you down
If you call this one your friend you don't have friends in town
A friend such as this in your life you don't need
Since in life it is hard enough for to succeed
Without your so called friend with words belittling you
To the honour of friendship this person is not true
Negative people for to put down others use words as their fuel
And some people with their words can be very cruel
Your friends don't reflect on you in a negative way
And your friend not a friend that does seem sad to say
And the betrayal of one you considered a friend can seem hard to forgive
But we learn from life for as long as we live
poem by Francis Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Love Binds
When you are intoxicated and down with wine
How would you expect others to be fine?
You never mix with others and always malign
Choose conflicting path and never realize or align
What may bring you closer and make you kind?
Love holds you together and makes you bind
New horizons in sky with eagerness to find
One should take care and not always mind
Love has no parameters with any definition
It provides peace with no matter for ignition
Love has its own way and finds speedy solution
It has inherent power to make new evolution
Love spread fragrance with universal message
Hatred at bay and peace finds passage
Can we not add kind words in our usage?
Why not write beautiful words in our page?
Love binds all and grow beautiful tree
We feel its impulse without cost and free
It may bear fruit in future and offer shade
Life is as difficult as hard journey on blade
I could not believe whether it was dream
Simple player in game or out of team
Day or night with powerful light
I may find you with joy and delight
You were clad in white and bore mild smile
I could not stare but wondered for while
You widened wings with long magic spell
Simply I surrendered surely hoping for well
Does the love excel and perform miracle?
Transform barren heart ……………
It may grow care with loving nature
Youngsters may look and act as mature
What did you do with my loosing hope?
I didn’t expect easy walk on rope
You fulfilled my wish and nurtured soul
It was great swim without smelling foul
poem by Hasmukh Amathalal
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Golden Wedding Of Sterling And Sarah Lanier, September 27, 1868.
By the Eldest Grandson.
A rainbow span of fifty years,
Painted upon a cloud of tears,
In blue for hopes and red for fears,
Finds end in a golden hour to-day.
Ah, YOU to our childhood the legend told,
'At the end of the rainbow lies the gold,'
And now in our thrilling hearts we hold
The gold that never will pass away.
Gold crushed from the quartz of a crystal life,
Gold hammered with blows of human strife,
Gold burnt in the love of man and wife,
Till it is pure as the very flame:
Gold that the miser will not have,
Gold that is good beyond the grave,
Gold that the patient and the brave
Amass, neglecting praise and blame.
O golden hour that caps the time
Since, heart to heart like rhyme to rhyme,
You stood and listened to the chime
Of inner bells by spirits rung,
That tinkled many a secret sweet
Concerning how two souls should meet,
And whispered of Time's flying feet
With a most piquant silver tongue.
O golden day, -- a golden crown
For the kingly heads that bowed not down
To win a smile or 'scape a frown,
Except the smile and frown of Heaven!
Dear heads, still dark with raven hair;
Dear hearts, still white in spite of care;
Dear eyes, still black and bright and fair
As any eyes to mortals given!
Old parents of a restless race,
You miss full many a bonny face
That would have smiled a filial grace
Around your Golden Wedding wine.
But God is good and God is great.
His will be done, if soon or late.
Your dead stand happy in yon Gate
And call you blessed while they shine.
So, drop the tear and dry the eyes.
Your rainbow glitters in the skies.
Here's golden wine: young, old, arise:
With cups as full as our souls, we say:
'Two Hearts, that wrought with smiles through tears
This rainbow span of fifty years,
Behold how true, true love appears
True gold for your Golden Wedding day!'
poem by Sidney Lanier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Departing In A Well Of Tears
tears do not reflect the years
a great love broken by death
is a flood that tears landscape
inflicting mortal wounds years
cannot erase to restore lost love
tears do not reflect the years
an abusive love is better lost
heart chokes on dessert dust
soul can not swallow coarse
sand grating on afflicted soul
tears do not reflect the years
yet a well of tears shed rapid
leaves body dehydrated husk
lifeless an empty broken well
yet well of tears drowns lives
poem by Terence George Craddock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Glittering Prize
Shine on, shine the light on me,
In all of my life so that much more I see
In the light of his love
In the light of reflection
Oh what a world
Or sometimes oh so it seems
Eyes in the skies
In that silver gift friendship
A glittering prize
Is it the prize of lost loves
They can remember quiet sides of midnight
They can remember the attraction of fame
Like a glittering prize
I saw up on a clear day
First taking hearts
Then our last breath away
Always came a time - time was on our side
We were spending time - we were staring out
Catch me in a dream - captured all in heart
We were spending time - we were staring out
Could there ever be - ever more than one
Its called an act of love
Can you you never stop?
Shine on, shine the light on me,
In all of my life
So much more I see
Like a glittering prize
I saw you up on a clear day
First taking heart then our last breath away
Only on a clear day coming into our lives
See it in the eye - satellite skies
We were spending time - we were staring out
Take in, take in more - the endless breath away
We were spending time - we were staring out
Could there ever be - ever more than one
Its called an act of love
Can you you never stop?
Always on a clear day
Crashing into our lives
Is it the price of love
Like a glittering prize
Always on a clear day
Crashing into our lives
With your love
Only on a clear day
Words & music : simple minds (c) emi publishing ltd reproduced without permission
song performed by by Simple Minds
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Phyllis
PHYLLIS, ah, Phyllis, my life is a gray day,
Few are my years, but my griefs are not few,
Ever to youth should each day be a May-day,
Warm wind and rose-breath and diamonded dew—
Phyllis, ah, Phyllis, my life is a gray day.
Oh for the sunlight that shines on a May-day!
Only the cloud hangeth over my life.
Love that should bring me youth's happiest heyday
Brings me but seasons of sorrow and strife:
Phyllis, ah, Phyllis, my life is a gray day.
Sunshine or shadow, or gold day or gray day,
Life must be lived as our destinies rule;
Leisure or labor or work day or play day—
Feasts for the famous and fun for the fool;
Phyllis, ah, Phyllis, my life is a gray day.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
From Love to Friendship
If you would have me love once more,
The blissful age of love restore;
From wine's free joys, and lovers' cares,
Relentless time, who no man spares,
Urges me quickly to retire,
And no more to such bliss aspire.
From such austerity exact,
Let's, if we can, some good extract;
Whose way of thinking with this age
Suits not, can ne'er be deemed a sage.
Let sprightly youth its follies gay,
Its follies amiable display;
Life to two moments is confined,
Let one to wisdom be consigned.
You sweet delusions of my mind,
Still to my ruling passion kind,
Which always brought a sure relief
To life's accurst companion, grief.
Will you forever from me fly,
And must I joyless, friendless die?
No mortal e'er resigns his breath
I see, without a double death;
Who loves, and is beloved no more,
His hapless fate may well deplore;
Life's loss may easily be borne,
Of love bereft man is forlorn.
'Twas thus those pleasures I lamented,
Which I so oft in youth repented;
My soul replete with soft desire,
Vainly regretted youthful fire.
But friendship then, celestial maid,
From heaven descended to my aid;
Less lively than the amorous flame,
Although her tenderness the same.
The charms of friendship I admired,
My soul was with new beauty fired;
I then made one in friendship's train,
But destitute of love, complain.
A Prayer
My invocations are sincere and true,
They form my ablutions and prayers due.
One glance of guide such joy and warmth can
grant,
On marge of stream can bloom the tulip plant.
One has no comrade on Love's journey long
Save fervent zeal, and passion great and
strong.
O God, at gates of rich I do not bow,
You are my dwelling place and nesting
bough.
Your Love in my breast burns like Doomsday
morn,
The cry, He is God, on my lips is born.
Your Love, makes me God, fret with pain and
pine,
You are the only quest and aim of mine.
Without You town appears devoid of life,
When present, same town appears astir with
strife.
For wine of gnosis I request and ask,
To get some dregs I break the cup and glass.
The mystics' gourds and commons' pitchers
wait
For liquor of your Grace and Bounty great.
Against Your godhead I have a genuine
plaint,
For You the Spaceless, while for me restraint.
Both verse and wisdom indicate the way
Which longing face to face can not convey.
[Translated by Syed Akbar Ali Shah]
*
The mystic's soul is like the morning breeze:
It freshens and renews life's inner meaning;
An illumined soul can be a shepherd's, who
Could hear the Voice of God at God's
command.
[Translated by Naim Siddiqui]
Not: This poem has been written in the Mosque of Cordoba.
poem by Allama Muhammad Iqbal
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Quieta Ne Movete II
IF one should wake one's frozen faith
In sunlight of her radiant eyes,
Bid it forget its dream of death,
In this new dream of Paradise,
Bid it forget the long, slow pain,
The agony when, all in vain,
It fought for life, and how one swore,
Once cold, it should not waken more;
If hope one buried long ago
Should thrill beneath those smiles of hers,
Should in one's sere life stir and grow,
As in brown woods the young spring stirs;
If, breaking icy bonds of grief,
One's soul should start to bud and leaf,
It might forget in that springtide
How last year's leaves fell off and died.
If from warm faith and hope set high
A lovely living child was born,
With lips more pure than starlit sky,
And eyes as clear as summer morn,
Child-love might grow till one forgot
Old love, that was and now is not--
Forgot that far-off time of tears,
And all these desolated years.
And yet of faith, hope, love, one knows
So well what end the years will make,
If one should dig beneath Time's snows
And wake them now for her sweet sake.
New life may mean new joy; but then,
What lives again may die again,
And to that second death there may
Be no new resurrection-day.
poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Poem For Wei Ba
Often a man's life is such
that he seldom sees his friends,
like the constellations Shen and Shang
which never share the same sky.
If not this evening, then what evening
should we share this lamp light?
How long can our youth and vigor last?
The hair at our temples is already gray.
We inquire about old acquaintances
to find that half are ghosts--
shocked cries betray
the torment of our hearts.
How could I have known
that it would be twenty years
before I again entered
your honored home.
When we parted last
you were yet unmarried;
now your sons and daughters
line up in a smiling row
to greet their father's friend.
They ask whence I have come
but before I can answer all questions
you chase them off
to bring wine and cups.
In the night rain, chives are cut
for the freshly steamed rice
mixed with yellow millet.
Saying how difficult it has been
for us to meet at last,
you pour ten cups in a row!
But even after ten cups
I'm not drunk, being so moved
by your lasting friendship.
Tomorrow we will be separated
by the peaks of mountains,
each of our worldly affairs
lost to the other's sight.
In The Cup
There is grief in the cup!
I saw a proud mother set wine on the board;
The eyes of her son sparkled bright as she poured
The ruddy stream into the glass in his hand.
The cup was of silver; the lady was grand
In her satins and laces; her proud heart was glad
In the love of her fair, noble son; but, oh! sad,
Oh! so sad ere a year had passed by,
And the soft light had gone from her beautiful eye.
For the boy that she loved, with a love strong as death,
In the chill hours of morn with a drunkard's foul breath
And a drunkard's fierce oath, reeled and staggered his way
To his home, a dark blot on the face of the day.
There is shame in the cup!
The tempter said, 'Drink,' and a fair maiden quaffed
Till her cheeks glowed the hue of the dangerous draught.
The voice of the tempter spoke low in her ear
Words that once would have started the quick, angry tear,
But wine blunts the conscience, and wine dulls the brain,
She listened and smiled, and he whispered again.
He lifted the goblet: 'Once more,' he said, 'drink,'
And the soul of the maiden was lost in the brink.
There is death in the cup!
A man in God's image, strong, noble, and grand,
With talents that crowned him a prince of the land,
Sipped the ruddy red wine!-sipped it lightly at first,
Until from its chains broke the demon of thirst.
And thirst became master, and man became slave,
And he ended his life in the drunkard's poor grave.
Wealth, fame, talents, beauty, and life swallowed up,
Grief, shame, death, destruction, are all in the cup.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
To My Dearest Doctor Colleague and Friend
How years have flown away like days and hours!
And yet evergreen stays memories of past;
It just appears as if life was a dream;
But 'tis not so, our earthly life's real!
No words can ever describe our days of youth:
The days, we worked together tackling things,
That cropped amidst our academic work;
That friendship stays strong as when it began!
For more than three decades, our friendship stood,
And continues despite staying apart;
But life cannot keep thick friends for long near;
Love stays afresh in hearts of friends always.
Let's thank the Lord for gift of friendship true!
Let's hope to meet again in future too;
Let's tell the world our friendship is alive;
Let's show others that true friendship can't die!
poem by John Celes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!