Who is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admirèd be.

Eclogue the Second: HASSAN; or, the Camel-driver.

Ah! little thought I of the blasting wind,
The thirst or pinching hunger that I find!
Bethink thee, Hassan, where shall thirst assuage,
When fails this cruise, his unrelenting rage?
Soon shall this scrip its precious load resign;
Then what but tears and hunger shall be thine?

April Love?

© Carol Ann Duffy

We have walked in Love's land a little way,

We have learnt his lesson a little while,

Private Beach

© Jane Kenyon

It is always the dispossessed—
someone driving a huge rusted Dodge
that’s burning oil, and must cost
twenty-five dollars to fill.

When She Wouldn’t

© Wesley McNair

When her recorded voice on the phone
said who she was again and again to the piles
of newspapers and magazines and the clothes

The Stream's Secret

© Dante Gabriel Rossetti

What thing unto mine ear
Wouldst thou convey,what secret thing,
O wandering water ever whispering?
Surely thy speech shall be of her.
Thou water, O thou whispering wanderer,
What message dost thou bring?

Jesus, My Sweet Lover

© Pierre Reverdy

Jesu Christ, my lemmon swete,

That diyedest on the Rode Tree,

"I loved you first: but afterwards your love"

© Christina Georgina Rossetti

Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda. Dante

Ogni altra cosa, ogni pensier va fore,

Philosopher Orders Crispy Pork

I love him so, this creature I do pray
was treated kindly. I will pay
as much as pig-lovers see fit

Niagara

Driving westward near Niagara, that transfiguring of the waters,
I was torn—as moon from orbit by a warping of gravitation—
From coercion of the freeway to the cataract’s prodigality,
Had to stand there, breathe its rapture, inebriety of the precipice . . .

Monody

To have known him, to have loved him

After loneness long;

Satire III

© John Donne

Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids

Those tears to issue which swell my eyelids;

Paradise Lost: Book X

So having said, he thus to Eve in few:
"Say, Woman, what is this which thou hast done?"
To whom sad Eve, with shame nigh overwhelm'd,
Confessing soon, yet not before her Judge
Bold or loquacious, thus abash'd replied,
"The Serpent me beguil'd, and I did eat."