Love poems

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Carlyle

© Paul Hamilton Hayne

O GRANITE nature; like a mountain height
Which pierces heaven! yet with foundations deep,
Rooted where earth's majestic forces sleep,
In quiet breathing on the breast of night:--

The Canterbury Tales; THE FRANKELEYNS TALE

Splendidis longum valedico Nugis

© Sir Philip Sidney

Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust,
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things!
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust:
Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings.

And I have trembled with those ancient stars,
My heart has known the flame-winged seraphs' song;
For no indifferent, dreamy eyelid bars
Me from the blue, nor veils with lashes long
Your love, that to my tender gazing grows
Bold to confess it: I am glad he knows!

Unrecorded

© Lucy Maud Montgomery

Ere over him too darkly lay
The prophet shadow of Calvary,
I think he talked in very truth
With the innocent gayety of youth,
Laughing upon some festal day,
Gently, with sinless boyhood's glee.

Sonnet IV: Virtue, Alas

© Sir Philip Sidney

Virtue, alas, now let me take some rest.
Thou set'st a bate between my soul and wit.
If vain love have my simple soul oppress'd,
Leave what thou likest not, deal not thou with it.

Sonnet XIV: Alas, Have I Not

© Sir Philip Sidney

Alas, have I not pain enough, my friend,
Upon whose breast a fiercer gripe doth tire,
Than did on him who first stole down the fire,
While Love on me doth all his quiver spend,

Sonnet XIII: Phoebus Was Judge

© Sir Philip Sidney

Phoebus was judge between Jove, Mars, and Love,
Of those three gods, whose arms the fairest were:
Jove's golden shield did eagle sables bear,
Whose talons held young Ganymede above:

The Third Satire Of Dr. John Donne

© Thomas Parnell

Compassion checks my spleen, yet Scorn denies
The tears a passage thro' my swelling eyes;
To laugh or weep at sins, might idly show,
Unheedful passion, or unfruitful woe.
Satyr! arise, and try thy sharper ways,
If ever Satyr cur'd an old disease.

Sonnet XIX: On Cupid's Bow

© Sir Philip Sidney

On Cupid's bow how are my heartstrings bent,
That see my wrack, and yet embrace the same?
When most I glory, then I feel most shame:
I willing run, yet while I run, repent.

O Pulchritudo

© Sir Henry Newbolt

O Saint whose thousand shrines our feet have trod
And our eyes loved thy lamp's eternal beam,
Dim earthly radiance of the Unknown God,
Hope of the darkness, light of them that dream,
Far off, far off and faint, O glimmer on
Till we thy pilgrims from the road are gone.

Sonnet XVI: In Nature Apt

© Sir Philip Sidney

In nature apt to like when I did see
Beauties, which were of many carats fine,
My boiling sprites did thither soon incline,
And, Love, I thought that I was full of thee:

Many Are Called

© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

Queen of my life! I do not love you less
Because you choose not me to cast your woes on.
It is enough for me you once said ``Yes.''
Many are called by Love, but few are chosen.

Sonnet VIII: Love, Born In Greece

© Sir Philip Sidney

Love, born in Greece, of late fled from his native place,
Forc'd by a tedious proof, that Turkish harden'd heart
Is no fit mark to pierce with his fine pointed dart,
And pleas'd with our soft peace, stayed here his flying race.

Sonnet XXV: The Wisest Scholar

The wisest scholar of the wight most wise
By Phoebus' doom, with sugar'd sentence says,
That Virtue, if it once met with our eyes,
Strange flames of love it in our souls would raise;

Ultima Thule: My Cathedral

Like two cathedral towers these stately pines

Uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones;

Sonnet XVII: His Mother Dear Cupid

His mother dear Cupid offended late,
Because that Mars grown slacker in her love,
With pricking shot he did not throughly more
To keep the pace of their first loving state.

Astrophel and Stella VII

When Nature made her chief work, Stella's eyes,In colour black why wrapt she beams so bright?Would she in beamy black, like painter wise,Frame daintiest lustre, mix'd of shades and light?Or did she else that sober hue devise,In object best to knit and strength our sight;Lest, if no veil these brave gleams did disguise,They, sunlike, should more dazzle than delight?Or would she her miraculous power show,That, whereas black seems beauty's contrary,She even in black doth make all beauties flow?Both so, and thus,--she, minding Love should bePlac'd ever there, gave him this mourning weedTo honour all their deaths who for her bleed