- Albert Camus

Some cry:: ‘Love me!!’ Others:: ‘Don’t love me!!’ But a certain genus, the worst and most unhappy, cries:: ‘Don’t love me and be faithful to me!!’

- Robert Browning

God made all the creatures, and gave them our love and our fear, To give sign we and they are his children, one family here.

- Anonymous

Love is for fools wise enough to take a chance.

- Emily Brontë

Love is like the wild rose-briar; Friendship like the holly-tree. The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, But which will bloom most constantly?

- Comte de Bussy-Rabutin

L'amour vient de l'aveuglement, l'amitie de la connaissance. (Love comes from blindness, friendship from knowledge.)

- George David Birkhoff

The transcendent importance of love and goodwill in all human relations is shown by their mighty beneficent effect upon the individual and society.

- George Albert Smith

With love in my heart for every one of you, may I say I am grateful. I haven't any way of expressing my thanksgiving to the people of this Church and many people out of the Church, for their kindnesses to me, one of the humblest of our Father's sons. I wish I could return in full measure all the good which has been done for me.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.

- Jack H. Goaslind, Jr.

Much of our love is confined to mere lip service and dreams of good deeds accomplished, but true love must be expressed in unselfish acts of kindness that bring others closer to our Heavenly Father.

- Agnes Repplier

We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.

- Robert Browning

All’s love, yet all’s law.

-

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

- Anonymous

A love that defies all logic is sometimes the most logical thing in the world.

- Anacreon

I both love and do not love; and am mad and not mad.

- Nora Roberts

Love and magic have a great deal in common. They enrich the soul, delight the heart. And they both take practice.

- Joan Collins

Love may be a dream but marriage is a nightmare.

- Zsa Zsa Gabor

A man in love is incomplete until he is married. Then he’s finished.

- H. L. Mencken

There are two times in every man's life when he is thoroughly happy; just after he has met his first love and just after he has parted from his last one.

- William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments. Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove::O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,That looks on tempests and is never shaken.It is the star to every wandering bark,Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeksWithin his bending sickle’s compass come;Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,But bears it out even to the edge of doom,If this be error, and upon me prov’d,I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

- William Shakespeare.

Love moderately; long love doth so; too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

- Henry David Thoreau

It is strange to talk of miracles, revelations, inspiration, and the like, as things past, while love remains.

- Tony Snow

Love can achieve unexpected majesty in the rocky soil of misfortune.

- Erich Fromm

Immature love says, "I love you because I need you." Mature love says, "I need you because I love you."

- Anonymous

If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear pain or loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater.

- Daisaku Ikeda

With love and patience, nothing is impossible.

- Anonymous

If you want something very, very badly,Let it go free.If it comes back to you, It’s yours forever.If it doesn’t, it was never yours to begin with. 

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.

- Henry Fielding

Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.

- Cullen Hightower

Love is what is left in a relationship after all the selfishness has been removed.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.

- Empedocles

At one time through love all things come together into one, at another time through strife’s hatred, they are borne each of them apart.

- William Shakespeare

See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!O that I were a glove upon that hand,That I might touch that cheek!

-

How does one measure time? No, not in day, months, or years. It is measured by the most precious of all things:: Love. Without which all beings and things whether brave and/or beautiful would perish.

-

Love makes the time pass. Time makes love pass. 

- Anonymous

Love may conquer all, but it needs time as its field general.

- Dr. Joyce Brothers

The best proof of love is trust.

- William Shakespeare

Love all. Trust a few. Do wrong to none.

- William Shakespeare

When my love swears that she is made of truth I do believe her, though I know she lies, That she might think me some untutor'd youth, Unlearned in the world's false subtleties. Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, Although she knows my days are past the best, Simply I credit her false speaking tongue:: On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd. But wherefore says she not she is unjust? And wherefore say not I that I am old? O, love's best habit is in seeming trust, And age in love loves not to have years told:: Therefore I lie with her and she with me, And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.

- Florence Allshorn

I used to think that being nice to people and feeling nice was loving people. Now I know it isn't. Love is the most immense unselfishness and it is so big I've never touched it.

- Francis Bacon

It is impossible to love and be wise.

- William Shakespeare

. . . but you are wise, Or else you love not, for to be wise and love Exceeds man's might . . .

- Elizabeth Bowen

When you love someone, all your saved-up wishes start coming out.

- Samuel Butler, the older

All love at first, like generous wine,Ferments and frets until ‘tis fine;But when ‘tis settled on the lee,And from th’ impurer matter free,Becomes the richer still the older,And proves the pleasanter the colder.

- Samuel Butler, the older

For money has a power aboveThe stars and fate, to manage love.

- John Milton

Freely we serve,Because we freely love, as in our willTo love or not; in this we stand or fall.

- Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore

Kind souls, you wonder why, love you, When you, you wonder why, love noneWe love, Fool, for the good we do, Not that which unto us is done!

- Thomas S. Monson

When I opened the door, there I would see a man, sometimes two, ill-clothed, ill-fed, ill-schooled. Generally, such a visitor held in his hand the familiar cap. His hair would be tousled, his face unshaven. The question was always the same:: "Could you spare some food?" My dear mother invariably responded with a pleasant, "Come in and sit down at the table." She would then prepare a ham sandwich, cut a piece of cake, and pour a glass of milk. Mother would ask the visitor about his home, his family, his life. She provided hope and words of encouragement. Before leaving, the visitor would pause to express a gracious thank-you. I would note that a smile of content had replaced a look of despair. Eyes that were dull now shone with new purpose. Love, that noblest attribute of the human soul, can work wonders. 

- David B. Haight

Knowing that we should love is not enough. But when knowledge is applied through service, love can secure for us the blessings of heaven.

- Anonymous

Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices the world has ever seen.

- Robert Lee Frost

Love at the lips was touch As sweet as I could bear; And once that seemed too much; I lived on air.

- Robert Scheid

The only person to whom your love belongs is the one to whom your love belongs.

- Robert Burton

No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as love can do with a single thread.

- Saint Augustine

If bodies please thee, praise God on occasion of them, and turn back thy love upon their Maker; lest in these things which please thee, thou displease. If souls please thee, be they loved in God:: for they too are mutable, but in Him they are firmly established.

- John Donne

Who ever loves, if he do not proposeThe right true end of love, he's one that goesTo sea for nothing but to make him sick.

- Anonymous

Love can cure heartbreaks, misfortune, or tragedy. It is the eternal companion.

- James P. De Wolfe, D.D.

Some morning it is likely that the headlines of the world will scream forth the news that New York has been bombed. As tragic as this will be, it will nevertheless accomplish the deep unity that Christians should have. It is a sad commentary that our brotherhood, which exists by Christian love, is only truly cemented by Christian suffering.

- Walt Whitman

Love the earth and sun and animals, Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, Stand up for the stupid and crazy, Devote your income and labor to others . . . And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

- Benjamin Franklin

Love your enemies, for they will tell you your faults.

- R. A. Dickson

Love your enemies just in case your friends turn out to be a bunch of bastards.

- Ed Howe

You needn’t love your enemy, but if you refrain from telling lies about him, you are doing well enough.

- Oliver Goldsmith

I love everything that's old:: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.

- Alice Cary

He who loves best his fellow-manIs loving God the holiest way he can.

- William Cowper

Lord, it is my chief complaint, That my love is weak and faint;Yet I love thee and adore,Oh for grace to love thee more!

- George Gordon, Lord Byron

I have imbibed such a love for money that I keep some sequins in a drawer to count, and cry over them once a week.

- Meher Baba

To love God in the most practical way is to love our fellow beings. If we feel for others in the same way as we feel for our own dear ones, we love God.

- Richard Rolle

The commandment of God is, that we love Our Lord in all our heart, in all our soul, in all our thought. In all our heart; that is, in all our understanding without erring. In all our soul; that is, in all our will without gainsaying. In all our their ought; that is, that we think on Him without forgetting. In this manner is very love and true, that is work of man's will. For love is a willful stirring of our thoughts unto God, so that it receive nothing that is against the love of Jesus Christ, and therewith that it be lasting in sweetness of devotion; and that is the perfection of this life.

- Robert Green Ingersoll

Learn to love good books. There are treasures in books that all the money in the world cannot buy, but the poorest laborer can have for nothing.

- Barbara Cartland

France is the only place where you can make love in the afternoon without people hammering on your door.  

- David B. Haight

Love is a gift of God, and as we obey His laws and genuinely learn to serve others, we develop God’s love in our lives. Love of God is the means of unlocking divine powers which help us to live worthily and to overcome the world.

- William Shakespeare?

Love is a madness most discreet

- Joseph Addison

Love is a second life; it grows into the soul, warms every vein, and beats in every pulse. Joseph Addison

- David B. Haight

Someone has written, “Love is a verb.” It requires doing — not just saying and thinking. The test is in what one does, how one acts, for love is conveyed in word and deed.

- Robert Lee Frost

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. 

- Sir Philip Sidney

Ring out your bells! Let mourning show be spread!For Love is dead.

- Vincent van Gogh

Love is something eternal—the aspects may change, but not the essence. There is the same diflference in a person before and after he is in love as there is in an unlighted lamp and one that is buming. The lamp was there and it is a good lamp, but now it is shedding light, too, and that is its real function.

- Lew Wallace

Riches take wings, comforts vanish, hope withers away, but love stays with us. Love is God.

- Jeremy Taylor

Love is the greatest thing that God can give us; for Himself is love:: and it is the greatest thing we can give to God; for it will also give ourselves, and carry with it all that is ours. The apostle calls it the band of perfection; it is the old, and it is the new, and it is the great commandment, and it is all the commandments; for it is the fulfilling of the Law.

- Anonymous

Love is like a violin. The music may stop now and then, but the strings remain forever.

- Dorothy Parker

Love is like quicksilver in the hand, Leave the fingers open and it stays, Clutch it, and it darts away. Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer and satirist

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Love is not all:: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink. 

- Wystan Hugh Auden

He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever:: I was wrong.

- Albert Camus

I love life — that’s my real weakness. I love it so much that I am incapable of imagining what is not life.

- Robert Herrick

You say, to me-wards your affection’s strong;Pray love me little, so you love me long.

- Charles Dickens

I love little children—and it is not a slight thing when they, who are fresh from God, love us.

- Franklin P. Jones

Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.

- Walter Lippmann

Love endures only when the lovers love many things together and not merely each other.

- Anonymous

A self-centered man admitted:: "Sure, I know that the Bible says to love our neighbors as ourselves. But frankly, I don't believe that my neighbors can stand all that affection." 

- Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.

- Anonymous

Ah, some love Paris,And some Purdue.But love is an archer with a low I.Q.A bold, bad bowman, and innocent of pity.So I’m in love withNew York City.

- John Donne

Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. 

- Anonymous

Love is not blind, it sees more not less; But because it sees more it chooses to see less.

- William Goldman

But love is many things, none of them logical.

- Anonymous

If you fear nothing, you love nothing. If you love nothing, what joy can there be in life?

- Josh Billings

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.

- Felix Adler

Love of country is like love of woman — he loves her best who seeks to bestow on her the highest good.

- George Bernard Shaw

There is no sincerer love than the love of food.

- Jean Baptiste Moliére

The more we love our friends, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself.

- Ben Jonson

Who falls for love of God, shall rise a star.

- Rex C. Reeve, Sr.

If men and nations did reach up to God with all their hearts, war would cease. If love of God were in the heart of man, a man would have no desire to destroy his brother.There would be no dishonesty if the love of God were in the heart. If God came first in his life, a man would love his neighbor as himself, and instead of taking from him, he would feel to give.

- Sterling W. Sill

That man loves God who puts his own life in harmony with him, and who serves his fellow men as though his life depends upon it, as indeed it does.

- Joseph Smith, Jr.

A man filled with the love of God, is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race.

- Delbert L. Stapley

Keeping the commandments of God is not a difficult burden when we do it out of love of him who has so graciously blessed us.

- George F. Richards

If such love obtained in the world today as the Lord intended that it should, love of God and love of fellow men, there would be no wars, contentions, and strife among the children of men. And that there is such, is due to an indifference by men to heed the admonitions and teachings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

- Reginald John Campbell

It is no strain of metaphor to say that the love of God and the wrath of God are the same thing, described from opposite points of view. How we shall experience it depends upon the way we shall come up against it:: God does not change; it is man's moral state that changes. The wrath of God is a figure of speech to denote God's unchanging opposition to sin; it is His righteous love operating to destroy evil. It is not evil that will have the last word, but good; not sorrow, but joy; not hate, but love.

- Francis Bacon

Why should a man be in love with his fetters, though of gold?

- Charles Dickens

In love of home, the love of country has its rise.

- Jan van Ruysbroeck

The love of Jesus is at once avid and generous. All that He has, all that He is, He gives; all that we are, all that we have, He takes.

- Confucius

He who remembers from day to day what he has yet to learn, and from month to month what he has learned already, may be said to have a love of learning.

- Dr. Samuel Johnson

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.

- Hester Lynch Piozzi

The tree of deepest root is found Least willing still to quit the ground:: 'T was therefore said by ancient sages, That love of life increased with years So much, that in our latter stages, When pain grows sharp and sickness rages, The greatest love of life appears. 

- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

My life is an indivisible whole, and all my activities run into one another:: and they have their rise in my insatiable love of mankind.

- Anacreon

Cursed be he above all others Who's enslaved by love of money. Money takes the place of brothers, Money takes the place of parents, Money brings us war and slaughter. 

- John Maynard, Baron Keynes of Tilton

The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognized for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease.

- Ayn Rand

Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know its nature. To love money is to known and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money — and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

- William Cullen Bryant

To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language.

- Edward Young

The love of praise, howe'er conceal'd by art, Reigns more or less, and glows in ev'ry heart.

- Gibbon

The love of study, a passion which derives fresh vigor from enjoyment, supplies each day and hour with a perpetual source of independent and rational pleasure.

- Jerome Klapka Jerome

"Nothing, so it seems to me," said the stranger, "is more beautiful than the love that has weathered the storms of life. . . . The love of the young for the young, that is the beginning of life. But the love of the old for the old, that is the beginning of — of things longer." 

- Ayn Rand

I sat there beside him till morning — and as I watched his face in the starlight, then the first ray of the sun on his untroubled forehead and closed eyelids, what I experienced was not a prayer, I do not pray, but that state of spirit at which a prayer is a misguided attempt:: a full, confident, affirming self-dedication to my love of the right, to the certainty that the right would win and that this boy would have the kind of future he deserved. . . . I did not expect it to be as great as this — or as hard.

- Susa Young Gates

We must love one another. Only [by doing] so can our long years of toil and struggle reach full reward and we be crowned with life everlasting.

- Mother Teresa

Jesus said love one another. He didn't say love the whole world. 

- John Tillotson

Are we not all members of the same Body and partakers of the same Spirit and heirs of the same blessed hope of eternal life? . . . Why do we not, as becomes brethren, dwell together in unity, but are so apt to quarrel and break out into heats, to crumble into sects and parties, to divide and separate from one another upon every trifling occasion? Give me leave . . . in the name of our dear Lord . . . to recommend to you this new commandment of his, that ye love one another. Which is almost a new commandment still, and hardly the worse for wearing, so seldom is it put on, and so little hath it been practiced among Christians. 

- Bill Balance

When a man is in love or in debt, someone else has the advantage.

- Robert Browning

Might she have loved me? just as wellShe might have hated, who can tell!

- Woody Allen

I was nauseous and tingly all over. . . . I was either in love or I had smallpox.

- Mary Martin

When you love others you aren't nervous.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

For one human being to love another:: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.

- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

We can't form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies—or else? The chain reaction of evil—hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars—must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the abyss of annihilation.

- George Albert Smith

We are commanded to love the Lord with all our heart, with all our might, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Our love should pass beyond the borderlines of the Church with which we are identified.

- George Matthew Adams

The difficult tasks to be performed are not the ones that mean physical and mental labor, but the ones that you dislike, are the ones that you do not love. There are unpleasant angles to nearly every important job to be done in this world, but there must be an over all love for doing each, else precious time and effort are uselessly wasted. I shall never forget noting a sign above a construction job that read:: "Builder of Difficult Foundations." That man must have loved that calling, else he would not have made a point of advertising the fact!

- William Penn

We are apt to love praise, but not to deserve it. But if we would deserve it, we must love virtue more than than.

- Sydney King Russel

MIDSUMMER You Loved me for a little, Who could not love me long:: You gave me wings of gladness and lent my spirit song. You loved me for an hour But only with your eyes your lips I could not capture By storm or by surprise Out of a world of laughter Suddenly I am sad... Day and night it haunts me The kiss I never had

- Kahlil Gibran

Love Poem Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not, nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.

- Anonymous

I love you Not for what you are, But for what I am When I am with you. I love you, Not only for what you have made of yourself, But for what you are making of me.

- Anonymous

Winter's cold or summer's heat, Autumn's tempests, on it beat, It can never know defeat, Never can rebel. Such the love that I would gain Such the love, i tell thee plain, Thou must give, or woo in vain; So to thee farewell! Love me little, love me long, Is the burdon of my song

- Robert Frost

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence:: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

- ROBERT FROST

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence:: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

- SHEL SILVERSTEIN

WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind. Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And watch where the chalk-white arrows go To the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends.

- EDGAR ALLAN POE

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow-- You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand-- How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep--while I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?

- ROBERT FROST

love poem of the day: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

- ROBERT BURNS

Love poem of the day: A RED, RED ROSE O my Love's like a red, red rose That's newly sprung in June; O my Love's like the melodie That's sweetly played in tune. As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in love am I; And I will love thee still, my dear, Till a' the seas gang dry: Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi' the sun; I will love thee still, my dear, While the sands o' life shall run. And fare thee weel, my only Love, And fare thee weel awhile! And I will come again, my Love, Tho' it ware ten thousand mile.

- WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Love poem of the day: A LOVER'S COMPLAINT From off a hill whose concave womb reworded A plaintful story from a sistering vale, My spirits to attend this double voice accorded, And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale; Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale, Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain, Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain. Upon her head a platted hive of straw, Which fortified her visage from the sun, Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw The carcass of beauty spent and done: Time had not scythed all that youth begun, Nor youth all quit; but, spite of heaven's fell rage, Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sear'd age. Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne, Which on it had conceited characters, Laundering the silken figures in the brine That season'd woe had pelleted in tears, And often reading what contents it bears; As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe, In clamours of all size, both high and low. Sometimes her levell'd eyes their carriage ride, As they did battery to the spheres intend; Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied To the orbed earth; sometimes they do extend Their view right on; anon their gazes lend To every place at once, and, nowhere fix'd, The mind and sight distractedly commix'd. Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat, Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of pride For some, untuck'd, descended her sheaved hat, Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside; Some in her threaden fillet still did bide, And true to bondage would not break from thence, Though slackly braided in loose negligence. A thousand favours from a maund she drew Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet, Which one by one she in a river threw, Upon whose weeping margent she was set; Like usury, applying wet to wet, Or monarch's hands that let not bounty fall Where want cries some, but where excess begs all. Of folded schedules had she many a one, Which she perused, sigh'd, tore, and gave the flood; Crack'd many a ring of posied gold and bone Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud; Found yet moe letters sadly penn'd in blood, With sleided silk feat and affectedly Enswathed, and seal'd to curious secrecy. These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes, And often kiss'd, and often 'gan to tear: Cried 'O false blood, thou register of lies, What unapproved witness dost thou bear! Ink would have seem'd more black and damned here!' This said, in top of rage the lines she rents, Big discontent so breaking their contents. A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh-- Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew Of court, of city, and had let go by The swiftest hours, observed as they flew-- Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew, And, privileged by age, desires to know In brief the grounds and motives of her woe. So slides he down upon his grained bat, And comely-distant sits he by her side; When he again desires her, being sat, Her grievance with his hearing to divide: If that from him there may be aught applied Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage, 'Tis promised in the charity of age. 'Father,' she says, 'though in me you behold The injury of many a blasting hour, Let it not tell your judgment I am old; Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power: I might as yet have been a spreading flower, Fresh to myself, If I had self-applied Love to myself and to no love beside. 'But, woe is me! too early I attended A youthful suit--it was to gain my grace-- Of one by nature's outwards so commended, That maidens' eyes stuck over all his face: Love lack'd a dwelling, and made him her place; And when in his fair parts she did abide, She was new lodged and newly deified. 'His browny locks did hang in crooked curls; And every light occasion of the wind Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls. What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find: Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind, For on his visage was in little drawn What largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn. 'Small show of man was yet upon his chin; His phoenix down began but to appear Like unshorn velvet on that termless skin Whose bare out-bragg'd the web it seem'd to wear: Yet show'd his visage by that cost more dear; And nice affections wavering stood in doubt If best were as it was, or best without. 'His qualities were beauteous as his form, For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free; Yet, if men moved him, was he such a storm As oft 'twixt May and April is to see, When winds breathe sweet, untidy though they be. His rudeness so with his authorized youth Did livery falseness in a pride of truth. 'Well could he ride, and often men would say 'That horse his mettle from his rider takes: Proud of subjection, noble by the sway, What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!' And controversy hence a question takes, Whether the horse by him became his deed, Or he his manage by the well-doing steed. 'But quickly on this side the verdict went: His real habitude gave life and grace To appertainings and to ornament, Accomplish'd in himself, not in his case: All aids, themselves made fairer by their place, Came for additions; yet their purposed trim Pieced not his grace, but were all graced by him. 'So on the tip of his subduing tongue All kinds of arguments and question deep, All replication prompt, and reason strong, For his advantage still did wake and sleep: To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep, He had the dialect and different skill, Catching all passions in his craft of will: 'That he did in the general bosom reign Of young, of old; and sexes both enchanted, To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain In personal duty, following where he haunted: Consents bewitch'd, ere he desire, have granted; And dialogued for him what he would say, Ask'd their own wills, and made their wills obey. 'Many there were that did his picture get, To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind; Like fools that in th' imagination set The goodly objects which abroad they find Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assign'd; And labouring in moe pleasures to bestow them Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them: 'So many have, that never touch'd his hand, Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart. My woeful self, that did in freedom stand, And was my own fee-simple, not in part, What with his art in youth, and youth in art, Threw my affections in his charmed power, Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower. 'Yet did I not, as some my equals did, Demand of him, nor being desired yielded; Finding myself in honour so forbid, With safest distance I mine honour shielded: Experience for me many bulwarks builded Of proofs new-bleeding, which remain'd the foil Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil. 'But, ah, who ever shunn'd by precedent The destined ill she must herself assay? Or forced examples, 'gainst her own content, To put the by-past perils in her way? Counsel may stop awhile what will not stay; For when we rage, advice is often seen By blunting us to make our wits more keen. 'Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood, That we must curb it upon others' proof; To be forbod the sweets that seem so good, For fear of harms that preach in our behoof. O appetite, from judgment stand aloof! The one a palate hath that needs will taste, Though Reason weep, and cry, 'It is thy last.' 'For further I could say 'This man's untrue,' And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling; Heard where his plants in others' orchards grew, Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling; Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling; Thought characters and words merely but art, And bastards of his foul adulterate heart. 'And long upon these terms I held my city, Till thus he gan besiege me: 'Gentle maid, Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity, And be not of my holy vows afraid: That's to ye sworn to none was ever said; For feasts of love I have been call'd unto, Till now did ne'er invite, nor never woo. ''All my offences that abroad you see Are errors of the blood, none of the mind; Love made them not: with acture they may be, Where neither party is nor true nor kind: They sought their shame that so their shame did find; And so much less of shame in me remains, By how much of me their reproach contains. ''Among the many that mine eyes have seen, Not one whose flame my heart so much as warm'd, Or my affection put to the smallest teen, Or any of my leisures ever charm'd: Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harm'd; Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free, And reign'd, commanding in his monarchy. ''Look here, what tributes wounded fancies sent me, Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood; Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me Of grief and blushes, aptly understood In bloodless white and the encrimson'd mood; Effects of terror and dear modesty, Encamp'd in hearts, but fighting outwardly. ''And, lo, behold these talents of their hair, With twisted metal amorously impleach'd, I have received from many a several fair, Their kind acceptance weepingly beseech'd, With the annexions of fair gems enrich'd, And deep-brain'd sonnets that did amplify Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality. ''The diamond,--why, 'twas beautiful and hard, Whereto his invised properties did tend; The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend; The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend With objects manifold: each several stone, With wit well blazon'd, smiled or made some moan. ''Lo, all these trophies of affections hot, Of pensived and subdued desires the tender, Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not, But yield them up where I myself must render, That is, to you, my origin and ender; For these, of force, must your oblations be, Since I their altar, you enpatron me. ''O, then, advance of yours that phraseless hand, Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise; Take all these similes to your own command, Hallow'd with sighs that burning lungs did raise; What me your minister, for you obeys, Works under you; and to your audit comes Their distract parcels in combined sums. ''Lo, this device was sent me from a nun, Or sister sanctified, of holiest note; Which late her noble suit in court did shun, Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote; For she was sought by spirits of richest coat, But kept cold distance, and did thence remove, To spend her living in eternal love. ''But, O my sweet, what labour is't to leave The thing we have not, mastering what not strives, Playing the place which did no form receive, Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves? She that her fame so to herself contrives, The scars of battle 'scapeth by the flight, And makes her absence valiant, not her might. ''O, pardon me, in that my boast is true: The accident which brought me to her eye Upon the moment did her force subdue, And now she would the caged cloister fly: Religious love put out Religion's eye: Not to be tempted, would she be immured, And now, to tempt, all liberty procured. ''How mighty then you are, O, hear me tell! The broken bosoms that to me belong Have emptied all their fountains in my well, And mine I pour your ocean all among: I strong o'er them, and you o'er me being strong, Must for your victory us all congest, As compound love to physic your cold breast. ''My parts had power to charm a sacred nun, Who, disciplined, ay, dieted in grace, Believed her eyes when they to assail begun, All vows and consecrations giving place: O most potential love! vow, bond, nor space, In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine, For thou art all, and all things else are thine. ''When thou impressest, what are precepts worth Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame, How coldly those impediments stand forth Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame! Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst sense, 'gainst shame, And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears, The aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears. ''Now all these hearts that do on mine depend, Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine; And supplicant their sighs to you extend, To leave the battery that you make 'gainst mine, Lending soft audience to my sweet design, And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath That shall prefer and undertake my troth.' 'This said, his watery eyes he did dismount, Whose sights till then were levell'd on my face; Each cheek a river running from a fount With brinish current downward flow'd apace: O, how the channel to the stream gave grace! Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses That flame through water which their hue encloses. 'O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies In the small orb of one particular tear! But with the inundation of the eyes What rocky heart to water will not wear? What breast so cold that is not warmed here? O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath, Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath. 'For, lo, his passion, but an art of craft, Even there resolved my reason into tears; There my white stole of chastity I daff'd, Shook off my sober guards and civil fears; Appear to him, as he to me appears, All melting; though our drops this difference bore, His poison'd me, and mine did him restore. 'In him a plenitude of subtle matter, Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives, Of burning blushes, or of weeping water, Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves, In either's aptness, as it best deceives, To blush at speeches rank to weep at woes, Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows. 'That not a heart which in his level came Could 'scape the hail of his all-hurting aim, Showing fair nature is both kind and tame; And, veil'd in them, did win whom he would maim: Against the thing he sought he would exclaim; When he most burn'd in heart-wish'd luxury, He preach'd pure maid, and praised cold chastity. 'Thus merely with the garment of a Grace The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd; That th' unexperient gave the tempter place, Which like a cherubin above them hover'd. Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd? Ay me! I fell; and yet do question make What I should do again for such a sake. 'O, that infected moisture of his eye, O, that false fire which in his cheek so glow'd, O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly, O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestow'd, O, all that borrow'd motion seeming owed, Would yet again betray the fore-betray'd, And new pervert a reconciled maid!'

- GWENDOLYN BROOKS

TO BE IN LOVE To be in love Is to touch with a lighter hand. In yourself you stretch, you are well. You look at things Through his eyes. A cardinal is red. A sky is blue. Suddenly you know he knows too. He is not there but You know you are tasting together The winter, or a light spring weather. His hand to take your hand is overmuch. Too much to bear. You cannot look in his eyes Because your pulse must not say What must not be said. When he Shuts a door- Is not there_ Your arms are water. And you are free With a ghastly freedom. You are the beautiful half Of a golden hurt. You remember and covet his mouth To touch, to whisper on. Oh when to declare Is certain Death! Oh when to apprize Is to mesmerize, To see fall down, the Column of Gold, Into the commonest ash.

-

- THEODORE ROETHKE

I KNEW A WOMAN I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them; Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one: The shapes a bright container can contain! Of her choice virtues only gods should speak, Or English poets who grew up on Greek (I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek.) How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin, She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and stand; She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin: I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand; She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake, Coming behind her for her pretty sake (But what prodigious mowing did we make.) Love likes a gander, and adores a goose: Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize; She played it quick, she played it light and loose; My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees; Her several parts could keep a pure repose, Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose (She moved in circles, and those circles moved.) Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay: I'm martyr to a motion not my own; What's freedom for? To know eternity. I swear she cast a shadow white as stone. But who would count eternity in days? These old bones live to learn her wanton ways: (I measure time by how a body sways.)

- EDGAR ALLAN POE

A DREAM In visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departed; But a waking dream of life and light Hath left me broken-hearted. Ah! what is not a dream by day To him whose eyes are cast On things around him with a ray Turned back upon the past? That holy dream- that holy dream, While all the world were chiding, Hath cheered me as a lovely beam A lonely spirit guiding. What though that light, thro' storm and night, So trembled from afar; What could there be more purely bright In Truth's day-star?

- William Shakepeare

THOSE LIPS THAT LOVE'S OWN HAND DID MAKE Those lips that Love's own hand did make breathed forth the sound that said "I hate" to me that languished for her sake; but when she saw my woeful state, straight in her heart did mercy come, chiding that tongue that ever sweet was used in giving gentle doom, and taught it thus anew to greet: "I hate" she altered with an end, that followed it as gentle day doth follow night, who like a fiend from heaven to hell is flown away. "I hate" from hate away she threw, and saved my life, saying "not you."

- ROBERT BURNS

THE PARTING KISS Humid seal of soft affections, Tenderest pledge of future bliss, Dearest tie of young connections, Love's first snowdrop, virgin kiss! Speaking silence, dumb confession, Passion's birth, and infant's play, Dove-like fondness, chaste concession, Glowing dawn of future day! Sorrowing joy, Adieu's last action, Lingering lips must now disjoin , What words can ever speak affection So thrilling and sincere as thine!

- SIR WALTER SCOTT

THE MAID OF NEIDPATH O lovers' eyes are sharp to see, and lovers' ears in hearing; and love, in life's extremity, can lend an hour of cheering. Disease had been in Mary's bower, and slow decay from mourning, though now she sits on Neidpath's tower, to watch her love's returning. All sunk and dim her eyes so bright, her form decay'd by pining, till through her wasted hand, at night, you saw the taper shining; by fits, a sultry hectic hue across her cheek was flying; by fits, so ashy pale she grew, her maidens thought her dying. Yet keenest powers to see and hear seem'd in her frame residing; before the watch-dog pricked his ear she heard her lover's riding; ere scarce a distant form was ken'd, she knew, and waved to greet him; and o'er the battlement did bend, as on the wing to meet him. He came, he pass'd—an heedless gaze, as o'er some stranger glancing; her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase, lost in his courser's prancing. The castle arch, whose hollow tone returns each whisper spoken, could scarcely catch the feeble moan which told her heart was broken.

- WILLIAM MORRIS

Our Hands Have Met by William Morris Our hands have met, our lips have met Our souls - who knows when the wind blows How light souls drift mid longings set, If thou forget'st, can I forget The time that was not long ago? Thou wert not silent then, but told Sweet secrets dear - I drew so near Thy shamefaced cheeks grown overbold, That scarce thine eyes might I behold! Ah was it then so long ago! Trembled my lips and thou wouldst turn But hadst no heart to draw apart, Beneath my lips thy cheek did burn - Yet no rebuke that I might learn; Yea kind looks still, not long ago. Wilt thou be glad upon the day When unto me this love shall be An idle fancy passed away, And we shall meet and smile and say 'O wasted sighs of long ago!' Wilt thou rejoice that thou hast set Cold words, dull shows 'twixt hearts drawn close, That cold at heart I live on yet, Forgetting still that I forget The priceless days of long ago? William Morris Books : : Our Hands Have Met by William Morris Our hands have met, our lips have met Our souls - who knows when the wind blows How light souls drift mid longings set, If thou forget'st, can I forget The time that was not long ago? Thou wert not silent then, but told Sweet secrets dear - I drew so near Thy shamefaced cheeks grown overbold, That scarce thine eyes might I behold! Ah was it then so long ago! Trembled my lips and thou wouldst turn But hadst no heart to draw apart, Beneath my lips thy cheek did burn - Yet no rebuke that I might learn; Yea kind looks still, not long ago. Wilt thou be glad upon the day When unto me this love shall be An idle fancy passed away, And we shall meet and smile and say 'O wasted sighs of long ago!' Wilt thou rejoice that thou hast set Cold words, dull shows 'twixt hearts drawn close, That cold at heart I live on yet, Forgetting still that I forget The priceless days of long ago?

- OSCAR WILDE

SILENTIUM AMORIS (THE SILENCE OF LOVE) As oftentimes the too resplendent sun Hurries the pallid and reluctant moon Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won A single ballad from the nightingale, So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail, And all my sweetest singing out of tune. And as at dawn across the level mead On wings impetuous some wind will come, And with its too harsh kisses break the reed Which was its only instrument of song, So my too stormy passions work me wrong, And for excess of Love my Love is dumb. But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung; Else it were better we should part, and go, Thou to some lips of sweeter melody, And I to nurse the barren memory Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung.

- WILLIAM MORRIS