- 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

- 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.

- ALLEN GINSBERG

AN EASTERN BALLAD I speak of love that comes to mind:: The moon is faithful, although blind; She moves in thought she cannot speak. Perfect care has made her bleak. I never dreamed the sea so deep, The earth so dark; so long my sleep, I have become another child. I wake to see the world go wild.

- RAINER MARIA RILKE

Romance poem of the day: WOMAN IN LOVE That is my window. Just now I have so softly wakened. I thought that I would float. How far does my life reach, and where does the night begin I could think that everything was still me all around; transparent like a crystal's depths, darkened, mute. I could keep even the stars within me; so immense my heart seems to me; so willingly it let him go again. whom I began perhaps to love, perhaps to hold. Like something strange, undreamt-of, my fate now gazes at me. For what, then, am I stretched out beneath this endlessness, exuding fragrance like a meadow, swayed this way and that, calling out and frightened that someone will hear the call, and destined to disappear inside some other life.

- CHARLES BUKOWSKI

Romance poem of the day: RAW WITH LOVE Little dark girl with kind eyes when it comes time to use the knife I won't flinch and i won't blame you, as I drive along the shorealone as the palms wave, the ugly heavy palms, as the living does not arrive as the dead do notleave, i won'tblame you, insteaad i will remeber the kisses our lips raw with love and how you gave me everything you had and how I offered you what was left of me, and I will remeber your small room the feel of you the light in the window your recordds your books our morning coffee our noons our nights our bodies spilled together sleeping the tiny flowing currents immediate and forever your leg my leg your arm my arm your smile and the warmth of you who made me laugh again. little dark girl with kind eys you have no knife.the knife is mine and i won't use it yet.

- WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Romance poem of the day: LOVE IS TOO YOUNG TO KNOWQ WHAT CONSCIENCE IS Love is too young to know what conscience is; Yet who knows not conscience is born of love? Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss, Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove. For thou betraying me, I do betray My nobler part to my gross body's treason; My soul doth tell my body that he may Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason, But, rising at thy name, doth point out thee As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride, He is contented thy poor drudge to be, To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side. No want of conscience hold it that I call, Her love for whose dear love I rise and fall.

- ROBERT FROST

LOVE AND A QUESTION A stranger came to the door at eve, and he spoke the bridegroom fair. he bore a green-white stick in his hand, and, for all burden, care. he asked with the eyes more than the lips for a shelter for the night, and he turned and looked at the road afar without a window light. The bridegroom came forth into the porch with, 'Let us look at the sky, and question what of the night to be, stranger, you and I.' the woodbine leaves littered the yard, the woodbine berries were blue, autumn, yes, winter was in the wind; 'Stranger, I wish I knew.' Within, the bride in the dusk alone bent over the open fire, her face rose-red with the glowing coal and the thought of the heart's desire. The bridegroom looked at the weary road, yet saw but her within, and wished her heart in a case of gold and pinned with a silver pin. The bridegroom thought it little to give a dole of bread, a purse, a heartfelt prayer for the poor of God, or for the rich a curse; but whether or not a man was asked to mar the love of two by harboring woe in the bridal house, the bridegroom wished he knew.

- EDGAR ALLAN POE

THE RAVEN Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door, Only this, and nothing more." Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore. For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore - Nameless here for evermore. And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door, Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; This it is, and nothing more." Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you"- here I opened wide the door; Darkness there, and nothing more. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?" This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" Merely this, and nothing more. Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. "Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice: Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore - Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; 'Tis the wind and nothing more." Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore; Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door, Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door - Perched, and sat, and nothing more. Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore. "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore. Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning- little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door - Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as "Nevermore." But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing further then he uttered- not a feather then he fluttered, Till I scarcely more than muttered, "other friends have flown before; On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before." Then the bird said, "Nevermore." Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore - Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of 'Never - nevermore'." But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door; Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore - What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking "Nevermore." This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er, But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er, She shall press, ah, nevermore! Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he hath sent thee Respite - respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore: Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! - Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted, On this home by horror haunted- tell me truly, I implore: Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil - prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore. Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore. Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." "Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend," I shrieked, upstarting - "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted - nevermore!

- EMILY DICKINSON

A WOUNDED DEER LEAPS HIGHEST A Wounded Deer leaps highest, I've heard the Hunter tell, 'Tis but the Ecstasy of death- And then the Brake is still! The Smitten Rock that gushes! The trampled Steel that springs! A Cheek is always redder Just where the Hectic stings! Mirth is the Mail of Anguish In which it Cautious Arm, Lest anybody spy the blood And "you're hurt" exclaim!

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- GEORGE HERBERT

LOVE Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning If I lack'd anything. 'A guest,' I answer'd, 'worthy to be here:' Love said, 'You shall be he.' 'I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear, I cannot look on Thee.' Love took my hand and smiling did reply, 'Who made the eyes but I?' 'Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame Go where it doth deserve.' 'And know you not,' says Love, 'Who bore the blame?' 'My dear, then I will serve.' 'You must sit down,' says Love, 'and taste my meat.' So I did sit and eat.

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Love Among The Ruins by Robert Browning I. Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles On the solitary pastures where our sheep, Half-asleep Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop as they crop. Was the site once of a city great and gay,(So they say) Of our country's very capital, its prince, ages since Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far for Peace or war. II. Now, the country does not even boast a tree, as you see. To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills from the hills Intersect and give a name to, (else they run into one). Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires up like fires O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall, bounding all. Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed, twelve abreast. III. And such plenty and perfection, see, of grassNever was! Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreadsAnd embeds Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,Stock or stone-- Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woeLong ago; Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shameStruck them tame; And that glory and that shame alike, the goldBought and sold. IV. Now, the single little turret that remains on the plains, By the caper overrooted, by the gourd overscored, While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks through the chinks, Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time, sprang sublime. And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced as they raced, And the monarch and his minions and his dames viewed the games. V. And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve smiles to leave; To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece in such peace, And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey melt away, That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair awaits me there. In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul for the goal, When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb till I come. VI. But he looked upon the city, every side, far and wide, All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades', Colonnades, All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,and then, all the men! When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand, either hand. On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace of my face, Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech, each on each. VII. In one year they sent a million fighters forth South and North, And they built their gods a brazen pillar high as the sky, Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force- Gold, of course. Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns! Earth's returns for whole centuries of folly, noise and sin! Shut them in. With their triumphs and their glories and all the rest!Love is best.

- DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

LOVE'S NOCTURN Master of the murmuring courts Where the shapes of sleep convene! Lo! my spirit here exhorts All the powers of thy demesne For their aid to woo my queen. What reports Yield thy jealous courts unseen? Vaporous, unaccountable, Dreamland lies forlorn of light, Hollow like a breathing shell. Ah! that from all dreams I might Choose one dream and guide its flight! I know well What her sleep should tell to-night. There the dreams are multitudes: Some that will not wait for sleep, Deep within the August woods; Some that hum while rest may steep Weary labour laid a-heap; Interludes, Some, of grievous moods that weep. Poets' fancies all are there: There the elf-girls flood with wings Valleys full of plaintive air; There breathe perfumes; there in rings Whirl the foam-bewildered springs; Siren there Winds her dizzy hair and sings. Thence the one dream mutually Dreamed in bridal unison, Less than waking ecstasy; Half-formed visions that make moan In the house of birth alone; And what we At death's wicket see, unknown. But for mine own sleep, it lies In one gracious form's control, Fair with honourable eyes, Lamps of a translucent soul: O their glance is loftiest dole, Sweet and wise, Wherein Love descries his goal. Reft of her, my dreams are all Clammy trance that fears the sky: Changing footpaths shift and fall; From polluted coverts nigh, Miserable phantoms sigh; Quakes the pall, And the funeral goes by. Master, is it soothly said That, as echoes of man's speech Far in secret clefts are made, So do all men's bodies reach Shadows o'er thy sunken beach,-- Shape or shade In those halls pourtrayed of each? Ah! might I, by thy good grace Groping in the windy stair, Darkness and the breath of space Like loud waters everywhere, Meeting mine own image there Face to face, Send it from that place to her! Nay, not I; but oh! do thou, Master, from thy shadowkind Call my body's phantom now: Bid it bear its face declin'd Till its flight her slumbers find, And her brow Feel its presence bow like wind. Where in groves the gracile Spring Trembles, with mute orison Confidently strengthening, Water's voice and wind's as one Shed an echo in the sun. Soft as Spring, Master, bid it sing and moan. Song shall tell how glad and strong Is the night she soothes alway; Moan shall grieve with that parched tongue Of the brazen hours of day: Sounds as of the springtide they, Moan and song, While the chill months long for May. Not the prayers which with all leave The world's fluent woes prefer,-- Not the praise the world doth give, Dulcet fulsome whisperer;-- Let it yield my love to her, And achieve Strength that shall not grieve or err. Wheresoe'er my dreams befall, Both at night-watch, (let it say,) And where round the sundial The reluctant hours of day, Heartless, hopeless of their way, Rest and call;-- There her glance doth fall and stay. Suddenly her face is there: So do mounting vapours wreathe Subtle-scented transports where The black firwood sets its teeth. Part the boughs and look beneath,-- Lilies share Secret waters there, and breathe. Master, bid my shadow bend Whispering thus till birth of light, Lest new shapes that sleep may send Scatter all its work to flight;-- Master, master of the night, Bid it spend Speech, song, prayer, and end aright. Yet, ah me! if at her head There another phantom lean Murmuring o'er the fragrant bed,-- Ah! and if my spirit's queen Smile those alien prayers between,-- Ah! poor shade! Shall it strive, or fade unseen? How should love's own messenger Strive with love and be love's foe? Master, nay! If thus, in her, Sleep a wedded heart should show,-- Silent let mine image go, Its old share Of thy spell-bound air to know. Like a vapour wan and mute, Like a flame, so let it pass; One low sigh across her lute, One dull breath against her glass; And to my sad soul, alas! One salute Cold as when Death's foot shall pass. Then, too, let all hopes of mine, All vain hopes by night and day, Slowly at thy summoning sign Rise up pallid and obey. Dreams, if this is thus, were they:-- Be they thine, And to dreamworld pine away. Yet from old time, life, not death, Master, in thy rule is rife: Lo! through thee, with mingling breath, Adam woke beside his wife. O Love bring me so, for strife, Force and faith, Bring me so not death but life! Yea, to Love himself is pour'd This frail song of hope and fear. Thou art Love, of one accord With kind Sleep to bring her near, Still-eyed, deep-eyed, ah how dear. Master, Lord, In her name implor'd, O hear!

- ROBERT BURNS

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 play'd 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 a while! And I will come again, my Love, Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

- ROBERT BURNS