Love poems
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The Mistress
© John Wilmot
An age in her embraces passed
Would seem a winter's day;
When life and light, with envious haste,
Are torn and snatched away.
To This Moment a Rebel
© John Wilmot
To this moment a rebel I throw down my arms,
Great Love, at first sight of Olinda's bright charms.
Make proud and secure by such forces as these,
You may now play the tyrant as soon as you please.
A Woman's Honour
© John Wilmot
Love bade me hope, and I obeyed;
Phyllis continued still unkind:
Then you may e'en despair, he said,
In vain I strive to change her mind.
A Satyre Against Mankind
© John Wilmot
Thus sir, you see what human nature craves,
Most men are cowards, all men should be knaves;
The difference lies, as far as I can see.
Not in the thing itself, but the degree;
And all the subject matter of debate
Is only, who's a knave of the first rate
Love and Life
© John Wilmot
All my past life is mine no more,
The flying hours are gone,
Like transitory dreams giv'n o'er,
Whose images are kept in store
By memory alone.
My Dear Mistress Has a Heart
© John Wilmot
My dear mistress has a heart
Soft as those kind looks she gave me,
When with love's resistless art,
And her eyes, she did enslave me;
A Ramble in St. James's Park
© John Wilmot
The second was a Grays Inn wit,
A great inhabiter of the pit,
Where critic-like he sits and squints,
Steals pocket handkerchiefs, and hints
From 's neighbor, and the comedy,
To court, and pay, his landlady.
I Cannot Change, As Others Do
© John Wilmot
I cannot change, as others do,
Though you unjustly scorn;
Since that poor swain that sighs for you,
For you alone was born.
Signior Dildo
© John Wilmot
You ladies of merry England
Who have been to kiss the Duchess's hand,
Pray, did you not lately observe in the show
A noble Italian called Signior Dildo?
By All Love's Soft, Yet Mighty Powers
© John Wilmot
By all love's soft, yet mighty powers,
It is a thing unfit,
That men should fuck in time of flowers,
Or when the smock's beshit.
Taxi Suite (excerpt: 1. After Anacreon)
© Lew Welch
When I drive cab
I am the hunter. My prey leaps out from where it
hid, beguiling me with gestures
Oh, Gray And Tender Is The Rain
© Lizette Woodworth Reese
Oh, gray and tender is the rain,
That drips, drips on the pane!
A hundred things come in the door,
The scent of herbs, the thought of yore.
Love came back at Fall o' Dew
© Lizette Woodworth Reese
Love came back at fall o' dew,
Playing his old part;
But I had a word or two
That would break his heart.
That Day you came
© Lizette Woodworth Reese
Such special sweetness was about
That day God sent you here,
I knew the lavender was out,
And it was mid of year.
A Rhyme of Death's Inn
© Lizette Woodworth Reese
A rhyme of good Death's inn!
My love came to that door;
And she had need of many things,
The way had been so sore.
Towards The Imminent Days (Section 4)
© Les Murray
But our talk is cattle and cricket. My quiet uncle
has spent the whole forenoon sailing a stump-ridden field
of blady-grass and Pleistocene clay never ploughed
since the world's beginning. The Georgic furrow lengthens
Shower
© Les Murray
From the metal poppy
this good blast of trance
arriving as shock, private cloudburst blazing down,
worst in a boarding-house greased tub, or a barrack with competitions,
Travels With John Hunter
© Les Murray
We who travel between worlds
lose our muscle and bone.
I was wheeling a barrow of earth
when agony bayoneted me.
Ka 'Ba
© Imamu Amiri Baraka
A closed window looks down
on a dirty courtyard, and black people
call across or scream or walk across
defying physics in the stream of their will
Epistle to Neruda
© Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Superb,
Like a seasoned lion,
Neruda buys bread in the shop.
He asks for it to be wrapped in paper
