LOVE is a sickness full of woes,
               All remedies refusing;
          A plant that with most cutting grows,
               Most barren with best using.
                           Why so?
          More we enjoy it, more it dies;
          If not enjoyed, sighing cries
                           Heigh Ho!

          Love is a torment of the mind,
               A tempest everlasting;
          And Jove hath made it of a kind
               Not well, nor full, nor fasting.
                           Why so?
          More we enjoy it, more it dies;
          If not enjoyed, sighing cries
                           Heigh Ho!

                                                            -Samuel Daniel

 

          THE night has a thousand eyes,
               And the day but one;
          Yet the light of a bright world dies
               When day is done.

          The mind has a thousand eyes,
               And the heart but one;
          Yet the light of a whole life dies
               When love is done.

                                                         - Francis William Bourdillon

 

          LOOK how the pale queen of the silent night
          Doth cause the ocean to attend upon her,
          And he, as long as she is in his sight,
          With her full tide is ready her to honor.
          But when the silver waggon of the moon
          Is mounted up so high he cannot follow,
          The sea calls home his crystal waves to moan,
          And with low ebb doth manifest his sorrow.
          So you that are the sovereign of my heart
          Have all my joys attending on your will;
          My joys low-ebbing when you do depart,
          When you return their tide my heart doth fill. 
           So as you come and as you do depart, 
           Joys ebb and flow within my tender heart.

                                                                             -Charles Best

 

          THE gray sea and the long black land;
          And the yellow half-moon large and low;
          And the startled little waves that leap
          In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
          As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
          And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

          Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
          Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
          A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
          And blue spurt of a lighted match,
          And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
          Than the two hearts beating each to each!

                                                                              -Robert Browning

 

          SHE walks in beauty like the night
          Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
          And all that's best of dark and bright
          Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
          Thus mellowed to the tender light
          Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

          One ray the more, one shade the less
          Had half impaired the nameless grace
          Which waves in every raven tress
          Or softly lightens o'er her face,
          Where thoughts serenely sweet express
          How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

          And on that cheek and o'er that brow
          So soft, so calm yet eloquent,
          The smiles that win, the tints that glow
          But tell of days in goodness spent
          A mind at peace with all below,
          A heart whose love is innocent.

                                                                - Lord Byron

 

          I SLEEP with thee, and wake with thee,
          And yet thou art not there;
          I fill my arms with thoughts of thee,
          And press the common air.
          Thy eyes are gazing upon mine
          When thou art out of sight;
          My lips are always touching thine
          At morning, noon, and night.

          I think and speak of other things
          To keep my mind at rest,
          But still to thee my memory clings
          Like love in woman's breast.
          I hide it from the world's wide eye
          And think and speak contrary,
          But soft the wind comes from the sky
          And whispers tales of Mary.

          The night-wind whispers in my ear,
          The moon shines on my face;
          The burden still of chilling fear
          I find in every place.
          The breeze is whispering in the bush,
          And the leaves fall from the tree,
          All sighing on, and will not hush,
          Some pleasant tales of thee.

                                                                 - John Clare

 

          AS virtuous men passe mildly away,
               And whisper to their soules, to goe,
          Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
               The breath goes now, and some say, no;

          So let us melt, and make no noise,
               No teare-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
          T'were prophanation of our joyes
               To tell the layetie our love.

          Moving of th' earth brings harmes and feares,
               Men reckon what it did and meant,
          But trepidation of the speares,
               Though greater farre, is innocent.

          Dull sublunary lovers love
               (Whose soule is sense) cannot admit
          Absence, because it doth remove
               Those things which elemented it.

          But we by a love, so much refin'd,
               That our selves know not what it is,
          Inter-assured of the mind,
               Care lesse, eyes, lips, and hands to misse.

          Our two soules therefore, which are one,
               Though I must goe, endure not yet
          A breach, but an expansion,
               Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate.

          If they be two, they are two so
               As stiffe twin compasses are two,
          Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show
               To move, but doth, if th' other doe.

          And though it in the center sit,
               Yet when the other far doth rome,
          It leanes, andhearkens after it,
               And growes erect, as that comes home.

          Such wilt thou be to mee, who must
               Like th' other foot, obliquely runne;
          Thy firmnes drawes my circle just,
               And makes me end, where I begunne.

                                                                             - John Donne

 

          LOVE for such a cherry lip
             Would be glad to pawn his arrows;
          Venus here to take a sip
             Would sell her doves and teams of sparrows.
                But they shall not so;
                   Hey nonny, nonny no!
                None but I this lip must owe,
                   Hey nonny, nonny no!

          Did Jove see this wanton eye,
             Ganymede must wait no longer;
          Phoebe here one night did lie,
             Would change her face and look much younger.
                But they shall not so;
                   Hey nonny, nonny no!
                None but I this lip must owe;
                   Hey nonny, nonny no!

                                                        - Thomas Middleton

 

        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.

                                                                   -William Shakespeare
 

                                             I

          HOW beautiful, how beautiful you streamed upon my sight,
          In glory and in grandeur, as a gorgeous sunset-light!
          How softly, soul-subduing, fell your words upon mine ear,
          Like low aerial music when some angel hovers near!
          What tremulous, faint ecstasy to clasp your hand in mine,
          Till the darkness fell upon me of a glory too divine!
          The air around grew languid with our intermingled breath,
          And in your beauty's shadow I sank motionless as death.
          I saw you not, I heard not, for a mist was on my brain--
          I only felt that life could give no joy like that again.

                                                   II

          And this was Love, I knew it not, but blindly floated on,
          And now I'm on the ocean waste, dark, desolate, alone;
          The waves are raging round me--I'm reckless where they guide;
          No hope is left to right me, no strength to stem the tide.
          As a leaf along the torrent, a cloud across the sky,
          As dust upon the whirlwind, so my life is drifting by. 
         The dream that drank the meteor's light--the form from Heav'n has flown
          The vision and the glory, they are passing--they are gone.
          Oh! love is frantic agony, and life one throb of pain;
          Yet I would bear its darkest woes to dream that dream again.

                                                                     - Jane Francesca Lady Wilde

 

          SHE stood breast high amid the corn,
          Clasped by the golden light of morn,
          Like the sweetheart of the sun,
          Who many a glowing kiss had won.

          On her cheek an autumn flush,
          Deeply ripened;--such a blush
          In the midst of brown was born,
          Like red poppies grown with corn.

          Round her eyes her tresses fell,
          Which were blackest none could tell,
          But long lashes veiled a light,
          That had else been all too bright.

          And her hat, with shady brim,
          Made her tressy forehead dim;
          Thus she stood amid the stooks,
          Praising God with sweetest looks:

          Sure, I said, Heav'n did not mean,
          Where I reap, thou shouldst but glean;
          Lay thy sheaf adown and come,
          Share my harvest and my home.

                                                 - Thomas Hood

 

          LOVE, meet me in the green glen,
               Beside the tall elm-tree,
          Where the sweetbriar smells so sweet agen;
               There come with me.
                   Meet me in the green glen.

          Meet me at the sunset
               Down in the green glen,
          Where we've often met
               By hawthorn-tree and foxes' den,
                   Meet me in the green glen.

          Meet me in the green glen,
               By sweetbriar bushes there;
          Meet me by your own sen,
               Where the wild thyme blossoms fair.
                   Meet me in the green glen.

          Meet me by the sweetbriar,
               By the mole-hill swelling there;
          When the west glows like a fire
               God's crimson bed is there.
                   Meet me in the green glen.

                                                       - John Clare

 

          MUSIC I heard with you was more than music,
          And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
          Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
          All that was once so beautiful is dead.

          Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
          And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
          These things do not remember you, belovèd,
          And yet your touch upon them will not pass.

          For it was in my heart you moved among them,
          And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes;
          And in my heart they will remember always,--
          They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.

                                                      - Conrad Aiken