Love poems
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White Magic
© Muriel Stuart
Is it not a wonderful thing to be able to force an astonished plant to bear rare flowers which are foreign to it. . . and to obtain a marvelous result from sap which, left to itself, would have produced corollas without beauty? -VIRGIL.
I stood forlorn and pale,
To Laura
© Amelia Opie
Cease, Laura, cease, suspect no more
This careless heart has learnt to love,
Because on yonder lonely shore
I still at pensive evening rove;
The Battle of Life
© Charles Harpur
Rail not at Fate: if rightly you scan her,
Theres none loves more strongly the heart that endures:
On, in the heros calm resolute manner,
Still bear aloft your hopes long-trusted banner,
And the day, if you do but live through it, is yours.
The Fan : A Poem. Book II.
© John Gay
But see, fair Venus comes in all her state;
The wanton Loves and Graces round her wait;
With her loose robe officious Zephyrs play,
And strow with odoriferous flowers the way.
In her right hand she waves the fluttering fan,
And thus in melting sounds her speech began.
Homage To Sextus Propertius - V
© Ezra Pound
2
Yet you ask on what account I write so many love-lyrics
And whence this soft book comes into my mouth.
Neither Calliope nor Apollo sung these things into my ear,
My genius is no more than a girl.
Losses
© Heinrich Heine
Youth is leaving me; but daily
By new courage it's replaced ;
And my bold arm circles gaily
Many a young and slender waist.
Grant At Rest-- August 8, 1885
© James Whitcomb Riley
Sir Launcelot rode overthwart and endlong in a wide forest, and held no
path but as wild adventure led him... And he returned and came again to his
horse, and took off his saddle and his bridle, and let him pasture; and
unlaced his helm, and ungirdled his sword, and laid him down to sleep upon
his shield before the cross. --Age of Chivalary
The Home of Peace
© Charles Harpur
In a bark of gentle motion
Sailing on the summer ocean?
There worst war the tempest wages,
And the hungry whirlpool rages.
Critics Nightwatch
© Gwen Harwood
Once more he tried, before he slept,
to rule his ranks of words. They broke
from his planned choir, lolled, slouched and kept
their tone, their pitch, their meaning crude;
huddled in cliches; when pursued
turned with mock elegance to croak
Enceladus
© Alfred Noyes
And hungered, yet no comrade of the wolf,
And cold, but with no power upon the sun,
A master of this world that mastered him!
Captain Von Esson of the Sebastopol
© Henry Lawson
Till each was sunk that the Russians leftwhile the buildings reeled with the shock,
Save the last of the Russian ships of warthe Sebastopolin dock.
And this is the reasontold in a linewhy there is a tale to tell:
The Sebastopol had a man for boss, and a crew that knew it well.
Between The Gates
© John Greenleaf Whittier
Between the gates of birth and death
An old and saintly pilgrim passed,
With look of one who witnesseth
The long-sought goal at last.
St. Johns Day
© John Keble
"Lord, and what shall this man do?"
Ask'st thou, Christian, for thy friend?
If his love for Christ be true,
Christ hath told thee of his end:
This is he whom God approves,
This is he whom Jesus loves.
A Lamentacioun Of The Grene Tree, Complaynyng Of The Losyng Of Hire Appill.
© Thomas Hoccleve
Ofader god, how fers & how cruel, In whom the list or wilt, canst þou the make!Whom wilt thu spare? ne wot I neuere a deel,Sithe thu thi sone hast to the deth be-take,That the offended neuere, ne dide wrake, Or mystook him to the, or disobeyde,Ne to non othere dide he harm, or seide.
I had ioye éntiere, & also gladnesse, Whan þou be-took him me to clothe & wrappeIn mannës flesch. I wend, in sothfastnesse,Have had for euere Ioyë be the lappe;But now hath sorwe caught me with his trappe; Mi ioye hath made a permutaciounWith wepyng & eek lamentacioun.
Love Like Salt by Lisel Mueller: American Life in Poetry #16 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-200
© Ted Kooser
There are thousands upon thousands of poems about love, many of them using predictable words, predictable rhymes. Ho-hum. But here the Illinois poet Lisel Mueller talks about love in a totally fresh and new way, in terms of table salt.
Love Like Salt
It lies in our hands in crystals
too intricate to decipher
My Spectre Around Me Night and Day
© William Blake
i
My spectre around me night and day
Like a wild beast guards my way;
My Emanation far within
Weeps incessantly for my sin.
Buttercups and Daisies
© Eliza Cook
I never see a young hand hold
The starry bunch of white and gold,
