Love poems
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Peonies
© Mary Oliver
This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers
After Arguing Against The Contention That Art Must Come From Discontent
© Mary Oliver
Whispering to each handhold, "I'll be back,"
I go up the cliff in the dark. One place
I loosen a rock and listen a long time
till it hits, faint in the gulf, but the rush
Flare
© Mary Oliver
It is not the sunrise,
which is a red rinse,
which is flaring all over the eastern sky;
Wild Geese
© Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
The Chance To Love Everything
© Mary Oliver
All summer I made friends
with the creatures nearby ---
they flowed through the fields
and under the tent walls,
Cold Poem
© Mary Oliver
I think of summer with its luminous fruit,
blossoms rounding to berries, leaves,
handfuls of grain.
The Flask
© Charles Baudelaire
THERE are some powerful odours that can pass
Out of the stoppard flagon; even glass
To them is porous. Oft when some old box
Brought from the East is opened and the locks
To A Brown Beggar-maid
© Charles Baudelaire
WHITE maiden with the russet hair,
Whose garments, through their holes, declare
That poverty is part of you,
And beauty too.
The Irreparable
© Charles Baudelaire
AN we suppress the old Remorse
Who bends our heart beneath his stroke,
Who feeds, as worms feed on the corse,
Or as the acorn on the oak?
To A Madonna
© Charles Baudelaire
MADONNA, mistress, I would build for thee
An altar deep in the sad soul of me;
And in the darkest corner of my heart,
From mortal hopes and mocking eyes apart,
Balcony
© Charles Baudelaire
MOTHER of memories, mistress of mistresses,
O thou, my pleasure, thou, all my desire,
Thou shalt recall the beauty of caresses,
The charm of evenings by the gentle fire,
Reversibility
© Charles Baudelaire
ANGEL of gaiety, have you tasted grief?
Shame and remorse and sobs and weary spite,
And the vague terrors of the fearful night
That crush the heart up like a crumpled leaf?
The Dance Of Death
© Charles Baudelaire
CARRYING bouquet, and handkerchief, and gloves,
Proud of her height as when she lived, she moves
With all the careless and high-stepping grace,
And the extravagant courtesan's thin face.
The Temptation
© Charles Baudelaire
THE Demon, in my chamber high,
This morning came to visit me,
And, thinking he would find some fault,
He whispered: "I would know of thee
The Venal Muse
© Charles Baudelaire
You should, to earn your bread today
Like a choir boy with a censer to wave,
Sings hymns with feeling but without belief.
The Bad Monk
© Charles Baudelaire
On the great walls of ancient cloisters were nailed
Murals displaying Truth the saint,
Whose effect, reheating the pious entrails
Brought to an austere chill a warming paint.
Sonnet Of Autumn
© Charles Baudelaire
THEY say to me, thy clear and crystal eyes:
"Why dost thou love me so, strange lover mine?"
Be sweet, be still! My heart and soul despise
All save that antique brute-like faith of thine;
Beauty
© Charles Baudelaire
I AM as lovely as a dream in stone,
And this my heart where each finds death in turn,
Inspires the poet with a love as lone
As clay eternal and as taciturn.
