Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which 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 cheeks
Within 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 proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
*******************************
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
William Shakespeare
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Love Song
My own dear love, he is strong and bold
And he cares not what comes after.
His words ring sweet as a chime of gold,
And his eyes are lit with laughter.
He is jubilant as a flag unfurled --
Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him.
My own dear love, he is all my world, --
And I wish I'd never met him.
My love, he's mad, and my love, he's fleet,
And a wild young wood-thing bore him!
The ways are fair to his roaming feet,
And the skies are sunlit for him.
As sharply sweet to my heart he seems
As the fragrance of acacia.
My own dear love, he is all my dreams, --
And I wish he were in Asia.
My love runs by like a day in June,
And he makes no friends of sorrows.
He'll tread his galloping rigadoon
In the pathway of the morrows.
He'll live his days where the sunbeams start,
Nor could storm or wind uproot him.
My own dear love, he is all my heart, --
And I wish somebody'd shoot him.
Dorothy Parker
****************************************
"Woman's Constancy-- John Donne
Click Here
NOW thou hast loved me one whole day,
To-morrow when thou leavest, what wilt thou say ?
Wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow ?
Or say that now
We are not just those persons which we were ?
Or that oaths made in reverential fear
Of Love, and his wrath, any may forswear ?
Or, as true deaths true marriages untie,
So lovers' contracts, images of those,
Bind but till sleep, death's image, them unloose ?
Or, your own end to justify,
For having purposed change and falsehood, you
Can have no way but falsehood to be true ?
Vain lunatic, against these 'scapes I could
Dispute, and conquer, if I would ;
Which I abstain to do,
For by to-morrow I may think so too.
*************************************
I like this one:
To Flush, My Dog
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1844)
Loving friend, the gift of one,
Who, her own true faith, hath run,
Through thy lower nature;
Be my benediction said
With my hand upon thy head,
Gentle fellow-creature!
Like a lady=92s ringlets brown,
Flow thy silken ears adown
Either side demurely,
Of thy silver-suited breast
****ning out from all the rest
Of thy body purely.
Darkly brown thy body is,
Till the sun****ne, striking this,
Alchemize its dulness, =97
When the sleek curls manifold
Flash all over into gold,
With a burnished fulness.
Underneath my stroking hand,
Startled eyes of hazel bland
Kindling, growing larger, =97
Up thou leapest with a spring,
Full of prank and curvetting,
Leaping like a charger.
Leap! thy broad tail waves a light;
Leap! thy slender feet are bright,
Canopied in fringes.
Leap =97 those tasselled ears of thine
Flicker strangely, fair and fine,
Down their golden inches
Yet, my pretty s****tive friend,
Little is =92t to such an end
That I praise thy rareness!
Other dogs may be thy peers
Haply in these drooping ears,
And this glossy fairness.
But of thee it shall be said,
This dog watched beside a bed
Day and night unweary, =97
Watched within a curtained room,
Where no sunbeam brake the gloom
Round the sick and dreary.
Roses, gathered for a vase,
In that chamber died apace,
Beam and breeze resigning =97
This dog only, waited on,
Knowing that when light is gone,
Love remains for ****ning.
Other dogs in thymy dew
Tracked the hares and followed through
Sunny moor or meadow =97
This dog only, crept and crept
Next a languid cheek that slept,
Sharing in the shadow.
Other dogs of loyal cheer
Bounded at the whistle clear,
Up the woodside hieing =97
This dog only, watched in reach
Of a faintly uttered speech,
Or a louder sighing.
And if one or two quick tears
Dropped upon his glossy ears,
Or a sigh came double, =97
Up he sprang in eager haste,
Fawning, fondling, breathing fast,
In a tender trouble.
And this dog was satisfied,
If a pale thin hand would glide,
Down his dewlaps sloping, =97
Which he pushed his nose within,
After, =97 platforming his chin
On the palm left open.
This dog, if a friendly voice
Call him now to blyther choice
Than such chamber-keeping,
=93Come out!=94 praying from the door, =97
Presseth backward as before,
Up against me leaping.
Therefore to this dog will I,
Tenderly not scornfully,
Render praise and favour!
With my hand upon his head,
Is my benediction said
Therefore, and for ever.
And because he loves me so,
Better than his kind will do
Often, man or woman,
Give I back more love again
Than dogs often take of men, =97
Leaning from my Human.
Blessings on thee, dog of mine,
Pretty collars make thee fine,
Sugared milk make fat thee!
Pleasures wag on in thy tail =97
Hands of gentle motion fail
Nevermore, to pat thee!
Downy pillow take thy head,
Silken coverlid bestead,
Sun****ne help thy sleeping!
No fly=92s buzzing wake thee up =97
No man break thy purple cup,
Set for drinking deep in.
Whiskered cats arointed flee =97
Sturdy stoppers keep from thee
Cologne distillations;
Nuts lie in thy path for stones,
And thy feast-day macaroons
Turn to daily rations!
Mock I thee, in wi****ng weal ? =97
Tears are in my eyes to feel
Thou art made so straightly,
Blessing needs must straighten too, =97
Little canst thou joy or do,
Thou who lovest greatly.
Yet be blessed to the height
Of all good and all delight
Pervious to thy nature, =97
Only loved beyond that line,
With a love that answers thine,
Loving fellow-creature!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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//'@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Got any others?
Erin
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