[ { "title": "Epitaph. on Two Lovers Struck Dead by Lightning.", "author": "Alexander Pope", "lines": [ "When Eastern lovers feed the funeral fire,", "On the same pile the faithful pair expire.", "Here pitying Heaven that virtue mutual found,", "And blasted both, that it might neither wound.", "Hearts so sincere, the Almighty saw well pleased,", "Sent his own lightning, and the victims seized.", "", " NEAR THIS PLACE LIE THE BODIES OF", " JOHN HEWET AND SARAH DREW,", " AN INDUSTRIOUS YOUNG MAN,", " AND VIRTUOUS MAIDEN OF THIS PARISH;", " WHO, BEING AT HARVEST-WORK", " (WITH SEVERAL OTHERS),", "WERE IN ONE INSTANT KILLED BY LIGHTNING,", " THE LAST DAY OF JULY 1718.", "", "Think not, by rigorous judgment seized,", " A pair so faithful could expire;", "Victims so pure Heaven saw well pleased,", " And snatch'd them in celestial fire.", "", "Live well, and fear no sudden fate;", " When God calls virtue to the grave,", "Alike 'tis justice soon or late,", " Mercy alike to kill or save.", "", "Virtue unmoved can hear the call,", " And face the flash that melts the ball." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "To The Memory Of My Beloved, The Author, Mr William Shakespeare, And What He Hath Left Us", "author": "Ben Jonson", "lines": [ "To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name", "Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;", "While I confess thy writings to be such", "As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much.", "'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways", "Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;", "For silliest ignorance on these may light,", "Which when it sounds at best but echoes right;", "Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance", "The truth, but gropes, and urges all by chance;", "Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,", "And think to ruin where it seemed to raise.", "These are as some infamous bawd or whore", "Should praise a matron. What could hurt her more?", "But thou art proof against them, and indeed", "Above th' ill fortune of them, or the need.", "I therefore will begin: Soul of the Age!", "The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!", "My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by", "Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie", "A little further, to make thee a room:", "Thou art a monument without a tomb,", "And art alive still, while thy book doth live,", "And we have wits to read, and praise to give.", "That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,", "I mean with great but disproportioned Muses,", "For if I thought my judgement were of years,", "I should commit thee surely with thy peers,", "And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,", "Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.", "And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,", "From thence to honour thee I would not seek", "For names; but call forth thundering Aeschylus,", "Euripides, and Sophocles to us,", "Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,", "To live again, to hear thy buskin tread,", "And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on,", "Leave thee alone for the comparison", "Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome", "Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.", "Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show", "To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.", "He was not of an age, but for all time!", "And all the Muses still were in their prime", "When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm", "Our ears, or, like a Mercury, to charm!", "Nature herself was proud of his designs,", "And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines!", "Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,", "As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.", "The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,", "Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;", "But antiquated and deserted lie,", "As they were not of Nature's family.", "Yet must I not give Nature all; thy art,", "My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.", "For though the poet's matter nature be,", "His art doth give the fashion; and that he", "Who casts to write a living line must sweat", "(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat", "Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same,", "And himself with it, that he thinks to frame,", "Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn;", "For a good poet's made as well as born.", "And such wert thou. Look how the father's face", "Lives in his issue, even so the race", "Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines", "In his well turned and true-filed lines:", "In each of which he seems to shake a lance,", "As brandished at the eyes of ignorance.", "Sweet swan of Avon! what a sight it were", "To see thee in our waters yet appear,", "And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,", "That did so take Eliza and our James!", "But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere", "Advanced, and made a constellation there:", "Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage,", "Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stage,", "Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night,", "And despairs day, but for thy volume's light." ], "linecount": "80" }, { "title": "The Passionate Shepherd To His Love", "author": "Christopher Marlowe", "lines": [ "Come live with me, and be my love,", "And we will all the pleasures prove,", "That hills and valleys, dales and fields,", "And all the craggy mountain yields.", "", "There we will sit upon the rocks,", "And see the shepherds feed their flocks", "By shallow rivers, to whose falls", "Melodious birds sing madrigals.", "", "And I will make thee beds of roses,", "With a thousand fragrant posies,", "A cap of flowers and a kirtle", "Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;", "", "A gown made of the finest wool,", "Which from our pretty lambs we pull;", "Fair lined slippers for the cold,", "With buckles of the purest gold;", "", "A belt of straw and ivy buds,", "With coral clasps and amber studs;", "And if these pleasures may thee move,", "Come live with me, and be my love.", "", "The shepherd swains shall dance and sing", "For thy delight each May morning:", "If these delights thy mind may move,", "Then live with me, and be my love." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "Sonnet 40 - Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!", "I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth.", "I have heard love talked in my early youth,", "And since, not so long back but that the flowers", "Then gathered, smell still. Mussulmans and Giaours", "Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth", "For any weeping. Polypheme's white tooth", "Slips on the nut if, after frequent showers,", "The shell is over-smooth,—and not so much", "Will turn the thing called love, aside to hate", "Or else to oblivion. But thou art not such", "A lover, my Beloved! thou canst wait", "Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch,", "And think it soon when others cry 'Too late.'" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 12 - Indeed this very love which is my boast", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "Indeed this very love which is my boast,", "And which, when rising up from breast to brow,", "Doth crown me with a ruby large enow", "To draw men's eyes and prove the inner cost,—", "This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,", "I should not love withal, unless that thou", "Hadst set me an example, shown me how,", "When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,", "And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak", "Of love even, as a good thing of my own:", "Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,", "And placed it by thee on a golden throne,—", "And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)", "Is by thee only, whom I love alone." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 44 - Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers", "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", "lines": [ "Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers", "Plucked in the garden, all the summer through", "And winter, and it seemed as if they grew", "In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.", "So, in the like name of that love of ours,", "Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,", "And which on warm and cold days I withdrew", "From my heart's ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers", "Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,", "And wait thy weeding; yet here's eglantine,", "Here 's ivy!—take them, as I used to do", "Thy fowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.", "Instruct thine eyes to keep their colors true,", "And tell thy soul their roots are left in mine." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Love and Friendship", "author": "Emily Bronte", "lines": [ "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 contantly?", "The wild-rose briar is sweet in the spring,", "Its summer blossoms scent the air;", "Yet wait till winter comes again", "And who wil call the wild-briar fair?", "Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now", "And deck thee with the holly's sheen,", "That when December blights thy brow", "He may still leave thy garland green." ], "linecount": "12" }, { "title": "Love -- is that later Thing than Death --", "author": "Emily Dickinson", "lines": [ "Love -- is that later Thing than Death --", "More previous -- than Life --", "Confirms it at its entrance -- And", "Usurps it -- of itself --", "", "Tastes Death -- the first -- to hand the sting", "The Second -- to its friend --", "Disarms the little interval --", "Deposits Him with God --", "", "Then hovers -- an inferior Guard --", "Lest this Beloved Charge", "Need -- once in an Eternity --", "A smaller than the Large --" ], "linecount": "12" }, { "title": "Far from Love the Heavenly Father", "author": "Emily Dickinson", "lines": [ "Far from Love the Heavenly Father", "Leads the Chosen Child,", "Oftener through Realm of Briar", "Than the Meadow mild.", "", "Oftener by the Claw of Dragon", "Than the Hand of Friend", "Guides the Little One predestined", "To the Native Land." ], "linecount": "8" }, { "title": "Ballad of women i love", "author": "Eugene Field", "lines": [ "Prudence Mears hath an old blue plate", "Hid away in an oaken chest,", "And a Franklin platter of ancient date", "Beareth Amandy Baker's crest;", "What times soever I've been their guest,", "Says I to myself in an undertone:", "\"Of womenfolk, it must be confessed,", "These do I love, and these alone.\"", "", "Well, again, in the Nutmeg State,", "Dorothy Pratt is richly blest", "With a relic of art and a land effete--", "A pitcher of glass that's cut, not pressed.", "And a Washington teapot is possessed", "Down in Pelham by Marthy Stone--", "Think ye now that I say in jest", "\"These do I love, and these alone?\"", "", "Were Hepsy Higgins inclined to mate,", "Or Dorcas Eastman prone to invest", "In Cupid's bonds, they could find their fate", "In the bootless bard of Crockery Quest.", "For they've heaps of trumpery--so have the rest", "Of those spinsters whose ware I'd like to own;", "You can see why I say with such certain zest,", "\"These do I love, and these alone.\"" ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "Modern Love XXXV: It Is No Vulgar Nature", "author": "George Meredith", "lines": [ "It is no vulgar nature I have wived.", "Secretive, sensitive, she takes a wound", "Deep to her soul, as if the sense had swooned,", "And not a thought of vengeance had survived.", "No confidences has she: but relief", "Must come to one whose suffering is acute.", "O have a care of natures that are mute!", "They punish you in acts: their steps are brief.", "What is she doing? What does she demand", "From Providence or me? She is not one", "Long to endure this torpidly, and shun", "The drugs that crowd about a woman's hand.", "At Forfeits during snow we played, and I", "Must kiss her. 'Well performed!' I said: then she:", "''Tis hardly worth the money, you agree?'", "Save her? What for? To act this wedded lie!" ], "linecount": "16" }, { "title": "Modern Love XXII: What May the Woman", "author": "George Meredith", "lines": [ "What may the woman labour to confess?", "There is about her mouth a nervous twitch.", "'Tis something to be told, or hidden:--which?", "I get a glimpse of hell in this mild guess.", "She has desires of touch, as if to feel", "That all the household things are things she knew.", "She stops before the glass. What sight in view?", "A face that seems the latest to reveal!", "For she turns from it hastily, and tossed", "Irresolute, steals shadow-like to where", "I stand; and wavering pale before me there,", "Her tears fall still as oak-leaves after frost.", "She will not speak. I will not ask. We are", "League-sundered by the silent gulf between.", "Yon burly lovers on the village green,", "Yours is a lower, and a happier star!" ], "linecount": "16" }, { "title": "Modern Love III: This Was the Woman", "author": "George Meredith", "lines": [ "This was the woman; what now of the man?", "But pass him. If he comes beneath a heel,", "He shall be crushed until he cannot feel,", "Or, being callous, haply till he can.", "But he is nothing:--nothing? Only mark", "The rich light striking out from her on him!", "Ha! what a sense it is when her eyes swim", "Across the man she singles, leaving dark", "All else! Lord God, who mad'st the thing so fair,", "See that I am drawn to her even now!", "It cannot be such harm on her cool brow", "To put a kiss? Yet if I meet him there!", "But she is mine! Ah, no! I know too well", "I claim a star whose light is overcast:", "I claim a phantom-woman in the Past.", "The hour has struck, though I heard not the bell!" ], "linecount": "16" }, { "title": "Modern Love XXIII: 'Tis Christmas Weather", "author": "George Meredith", "lines": [ "'Tis Christmas weather, and a country house", "Receives us: rooms are full: we can but get", "An attic-crib. Such lovers will not fret", "At that, it is half-said. The great carouse", "Knocks hard upon the midnight's hollow door,", "But when I knock at hers, I see the pit.", "Why did I come here in that dullard fit?", "I enter, and lie couched upon the floor.", "Passing, I caught the coverlet's quick beat:--", "Come, Shame, burn to my soul! and Pride, and Pain--", "Foul demons that have tortured me, enchain!", "Out in the freezing darkness the lambs bleat.", "The small bird stiffens in the low starlight.", "I know not how, but shuddering as I slept,", "I dreamed a banished angel to me crept:", "My feet were nourished on her breasts all night." ], "linecount": "16" }, { "title": "Modern Love XXXII: Full Faith I Have", "author": "George Meredith", "lines": [ "Full faith I have she holds that rarest gift", "To beauty, Common Sense. To see her lie", "With her fair visage an inverted sky", "Bloom-covered, while the underlids uplift,", "Would almost wreck the faith; but when her mouth", "(Can it kiss sweetly? sweetly!) would address", "The inner me that thirsts for her no less,", "And has so long been languishing in drouth,", "I feel that I am matched; that I am man!", "One restless corner of my heart or head,", "That holds a dying something never dead,", "Still frets, though Nature giveth all she can.", "It means, that woman is not, I opine,", "Her sex's antidote. Who seeks the asp", "For serpent's bites? 'Twould calm me could I clasp", "Shrieking Bacchantes with their souls of wine!" ], "linecount": "16" }, { "title": "Holy Sonnet XV: Wilt Thou Love God, As He Thee? Then Digest", "author": "John Donne", "lines": [ "Wilt thou love God, as he thee? Then digest,", "My soul, this wholesome meditation,", "How God the Spirit, by angels waited on", "In heaven, doth make his Temple in thy breast.", "The Father having begot a Son most blest,", "And still begetting, (for he ne'er be gone)", "Hath deigned to choose thee by adoption,", "Co-heir t' his glory, and Sabbath' endless rest.", "And as a robbed man, which by search doth find", "His stol'n stuff sold, must lose or buy 't again:", "The Son of glory came down, and was slain,", "Us whom he'd made, and Satan stol'n, to unbind.", "'Twas much that man was made like God before,", "But, that God should be made like man, much more." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Holy Sonnet XVII: Since She Whom I Loved", "author": "John Donne", "lines": [ "Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt", "To Nature, and to hers, and my good is dead,", "And her soul early into heaven ravished,", "Wholly on heavenly things my mind is set.", "here the admiring her my mind did whet", "To seek thee, God; so streams do show the head;", "But though I have found thee, and thou my thirst hast fed,", "a holy thristy dropsy melts me yet.", "But why should I beg more love, whenas thou", "Dost woo my soul, for hers offering all thine:", "And dost not only fear lest I allow", "My love to saints and angels, things divine,", "but in they tender jealousy dost doubt", "lest the world, flesh, yea, devil put thee out." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Love and Life", "author": "John Wilmot", "lines": [ "All my past life is mine no more,", "The flying hours are gone,", "Like transitory dreams giv'n o'er,", "Whose images are kept in store", "By memory alone.", "", "The time that is to come is not;", "How can it then be mine?", "The present moment's all my lot;", "And that, as fast as it is got,", "Phyllis, is only thine.", "", "Then talk not of inconstancy,", "False hearts, and broken vows;", "If I, by miracle, can be", "This live-long minute true to thee,", "'Tis all that Heav'n allows." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet XVII: Love Steals Unheeded", "author": "Robinson", "lines": [ "Love steals unheeded o'er the tranquil mind,", "As Summer breezes fan the sleeping main,", "Slow through each fibre creeps the subtle pain,", "'Till closely round the yielding bosom twin'd.", "Vain is the hope the magic to unbind,", "The potent mischief riots in the brain,", "Grasps ev'ry thought, and burns in ev'ry vein,", "'Till in the heart the Tyrant lives enshrin'd.", "Oh! Victor strong! bending the vanquish'd frame;", "Sweet is the thraldom that thou bid'st us prove!", "And sacred is the tear thy victims claim,", "For blest are those whom sighs of sorrow move!", "Then nymphs beware how ye profane my name,", "Nor blame my weakness, till like me ye love!" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "The Adieu to Love", "author": "Robinson", "lines": [ "LOVE, I renounce thy tyrant sway,", "I mock thy fascinating art,", "MINE, be the calm unruffled day,", "That brings no torment to the heart;", "The tranquil mind, the noiseless scene,", "Where FANCY, with enchanting mien,", "Shall in her right-hand lead along", "The graceful patroness of Song;", "Where HARMONY shall softly fling", "Her light tones o'er the dulcet string;", "And with her magic LYRE compose", "Each pang that throbs, each pulse that glows;", "Till her resistless strains dispense,", "The balm of blest INDIFFERENCE.", "", "LOVE, I defy thy vaunted pow'r!", "In still Retirement's sober bow'r", "I'll rest secure;­no fev'rish pain", "Shall dart its hot-shafts thro' my brain,", "No start'ling dreams invade my mind", "No spells my stagnate pulses bind;", "No jealous agonies impart", "Their madd'ning poisons to my heart", "But sweetly lull'd to placid rest,", "The sensate tenant of my breast", "Shall one unshaken course pursue,", "Such as thy vot'ries never knew.­", "", "SWEET SOLITUDE ! pure Nature's child,", "Fair pensive daughter of the wild;", "Nymph of the Forest; thee I press", "My weary sick'ning soul to bless;", "To give my heart the dear repose,", "That smiles unmov'd at transient woes;", "That shelter'd from Life's trivial cares,", "Each calm delicious comfort shares;", "While conscious rectitude of mind,", "Blends with each thought a bliss refin'd,", "And scorning fear's soul-chilling pow'r,", "Dares court REFLECTION'S dang'rous hour,", "To scrutinize with cautious art,", "Each hidden channel of the heart.­", "", "Ah, gentle maiden, let me stray,", "Where Innocence for ever gay,", "Shall lead me to her loveliest bow'rs", "And crown my brow with thornless flow'rs;", "And strew the weedy paths of time", "With Resignation's balm sublime;", "While Rosy SPRING, shall smiling haste,", "On light steps o'er the dewy waste,", "Eager her brightest gems to shed", "Around my verdant perfum'd bed;", "And in her train the glowing hours", "Shall bathe their wings in scented show'rs;", "And shake the fost'ring drops to earth,", "To nurse meek blossoms into birth;", "And when autumnal zephyrs fly", "Sportive, beneath the sapphire sky,", "Or in the stream their pinions lave,", "Or teach the golden sheaves to wave;", "I'll watch the ruby eye of day", "In awful lustre glide away,", "And closing sink to transient rest,", "On panting Ocean's pearly breast.", "", "O SOLITUDE ! how blest the lot", "Of her who shares thy silent cot!", "Who with celestial peace, pursues", "The pensive wand'rings of the MUSE;", "To stray unseen where'er she leads,", "O'er grassy hills and sunny meads,", "Or at the still of Night's cold noon", "To gaze upon the chilly Moon,", "While PHILOMELA'S mournful Song", "Meanders fairy haunts among,", "To tell the hopeless LOVER'S ear,", "That SYMPATHY'S FOND BIRD is near;", "Whose note shall soothe his aching heart,", "Whose grief shall emulate his smart;", "And by its sadly proud excess,", "Make every pang he suffers less;", "For oft in passion's direst woes,", "The veriest wretch can yield repose;", "While from the voice of kindred grief,", "We gain a sad, but kind relief.", "", "AH LOVE! thou barb'rous fickle boy,", "Thou semblance of delusive joy,", "Too long my heart has been thy slave:", "For thou hast seen me wildly rave,", "And with impetuous frenzy haste,", "Heedless across the thorny waste,", "And drink the cold dews, ere they fell", "On my bare bosom's burning swell;", "When bleak the wintry whirlwinds blew;", "And swift the sultry meteors flew;", "Yes, thou hast seen me, tyrant pow'r,", "At freezing midnight's witching hour,", "Start from my couch, subdu'd, oppres'd,", "While jealous anguish wrung my breast,", "While round my eager senses flew,", "Dark brow'd Suspicion's wily crew,", "Taunting my soul with restless ire,", "That set my pulsate brain on fire.", "What didst thou then ? Inhuman Boy!", "Didst thou not paint each well-feign'd joy,", "Each artful smile, each study'd grace", "That deck'd some sordid rival's face;", "Didst thou not feed my madd'ning sense", "With Love's delicious eloquence,", "While on my ear thy accents pour'd", "The voice of him my soul ador'd,", "His rapt'rous tones­his strains divine,", "And all those vows that once were mine.", "But mild Reflection's piercing ray,", "Soon chas'd the fatal dream away,", "And with it all my rending woes,", "While in its place majestic rose", "The Angel TRUTH !­her stedfast mien", "Bespoke the conscious breast serene;", "Her eye more radiant than the day", "Beam'd with persuasion's temper'd ray;", "Sweet was her voice, and while she sung", "Myriads of Seraphs hover'd round,", "Eager to iterate the sound,", "That on her heav'n-taught accents hung.", "Wond'ring I gaz'd! my throbbing breast,", "Celestial energies confest;", "Transports, before unfelt, unknown,", "Throng'd round my bosom's tremb'ling throne,", "While ev'ry nerve with rapture strange,", "Seem'd to partake the blissful change.", "", "Now with unmov'd and dauntless Eye,", "I mark thy winged arrows fly;", "No more thy baneful spells shall bind", "The purer passions of my mind;", "No more, false Love, shall jealous fears", "Inflame my check with scalding tears;", "Or shake my vanquish'd sense, or rend", "My aching heart with poignant throes,", "Or with tumultuous fevers blend,", "Self-wounding, visionary woes.­", "", "No more I'll waste the midnight hour", "In expectation's silent bow'r;", "And musing o'er thy transcripts dear,", "Efface their sorrows with a tear.", "No more with timid fondness wait", "Till morn unfolds her glitt'ring gate,", "When thy lov'd song's seraphic sound,", "Wou'd on my quiv'ring nerves rebound", "With proud delight;­no more thy blush", "Shall o'er my cheek unbidden rush,", "And scorning ev'ry strong controul,", "Unveil the tumults of my soul.", "No more when in retirement blest,", "Shalt thou obtrude upon my rest;", "And tho' encircled with delight,", "Absorb my sense, obscure my sight,", "Give to my eye the vacant glance,", "The mien that marks the mental trance;", "The fault'ring tone­the sudden start,", "The trembling hand, the bursting heart;", "The devious step, that strolls along", "Unmindful of the gazing throng;", "The feign'd indiff'rence prone to chide;", "That blazons­what it seeks to hide.", "", "Nor do I dread thy vengeful wiles,", "Thy soothing voice, thy winning smiles,", "Thy trick'ling tear, thy mien forlorn,", "Thy pray'r, thy sighs, thy oaths I scorn;", "No more on ME thy arrows show'r,", "Capricious Love­! I BRAVE THY POW'R." ], "linecount": "168" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXII: Love, Banish'd Heav'n", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "Love, banish'd Heav'n, on Earth was held in scorn,", "Wand'ring abroad in need and beggary,", "And wanting friends, though of a Goddess born,", "Yet crav'd the alms of such as passed by.", "I, like a man devout and charitable,", "Clothed the naked, lodg'd this wand'ring guest,", "With sighs and tears still furnishing his table", "With what might make the miserable blest.", "But this ungrateful, for my good desert,", "Entic'd my thoughts against me to conspire,", "Who gave consent to steal away my heart,", "And set my breast, his lodging, on a fire.", "Well, well, my friends, when beggars grow thus bold,", "No marvel then though charity grow cold." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXVI: I Ever Love", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "To Despair", "", "I ever love where never hope appears,", "Yet hope draws on my never-hoping care,", "And my life's hope would die, but for despair;", "My never-certain joy breeds ever-certain fears;", "Uncertain dread gives wings unto my hope,", "Yet my hope's wings are laden so with fear", "As they cannot ascend to my hope's sphere;", "Though fear gives them more than a heav'nly scope,", "Yet this large room is bounded with despair;", "So my love is still fetter'd with vain hope,", "And liberty deprives him of his scope,", "And thus am I imprison'd in the air.", "Then, sweet despair, awhile hold up thy head,", "Or all my hope for sorrow will be dead." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet XIX: You Cannot Love", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "To Humor", "", "You cannot love, my pretty heart, and why?", "There was a time you told me that you would;", "But now again you will the same deny,", "If it might please you, would to God you could.", "What, will you hate? Nay, that you will not, neither.", "Nor love nor hate, how then? What will you do?", "What, will you keep a mean then betwixt either,", "Or will you love me and yet hate me, too?", "Yet serves this not. What next? What other shift?", "You will, and will not; what a coil is here.", "I see your craft, now I perceive your drift,", "And all this while I was mistaken there;", "Your love and hate is this, I now do prove you:", "You love in hate, by hate to make me love you." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXXIV: Marvel Not, Love", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "To Admiration", "", "Marvel not, Love, though I thy power admire,", "Ravish'd a world beyond the farthest thought,", "And knowing more than ever hath been taught,", "That I am only starv'd in my desire.", "Marvel not, Love, though I thy power admire,", "Aiming at things exceeding all perfection,", "To Wisdom's self to minister correction,", "That I am only starv'd in my desire.", "Marvel not, Love, though I thy power admire,", "Though my conceit I further seem to bend", "Than possibly invention can extend,", "And yet am only starv'd in my desire.", "If thou wilt wonder, here's the wonder, Love:", "That this to me doth yet no wonder prove." ], "linecount": "15" }, { "title": "Sonnet VII: Love in a Humour", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "Love in a humor play'd the prodigal", "And bade my Senses to a solemn feast;", "Yet, more to grace the company withal,", "Invites my Heart to be the chiefest guest.", "No other drink would serve this glutton's turn", "But precious tears distilling from mine eyne,", "Which with my sighs this epicure doth burn,", "Quaffing carouses in this costly wine;", "Where, in his cups o'ercome with foul excess,", "Straightways he plays a swaggering ruffian's part,", "And at the banquet in his drunkenness", "Slew his dear friend, my kind and truest Heart.", "A gentle warning, friends, thus may you see", "What 'tis to keep a drunkard company." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet LIX: As Love and I", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "As Love and I, late harbor'd in one inn,", "With proverbs thus each other entertain:", "\"In Love there is no lack,\" thus I begin;", "\"Fair words make fools,\" replieth he again;", "\"Who spares to speak doth spare to speed,\" quoth I;", "\"As well,\" saith he, \"too forward as too slow\";", "\"Fortune assists the boldest,\" I reply;", "\"A hasty man,\" quoth he, \"ne'er wanted woe\";", "\"Labor is light where Love,\" quoth I, \"doth pay\";", "Saith he, \"Light burden's heavy, if far borne\";", "Quoth I, \"The main lost, cast the bye away\";", "\"You have spun a fair thread,\" he replies in scorn.", "And having thus awhile each other thwarted,", "Fools as we met, so fools again we parted." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXXVIII: Sitting Alone, Love", "author": "Michael Drayton", "lines": [ "Sitting alone, Love bids me go and write;", "Reason plucks back, commanding me to stay,", "Boasting that she doth still direct the way,", "Or else Love were unable to endite.", "Love, growing angry, vexed at the spleen", "And scorning Reason's maimed argument,", "Straight taxeth Reason, wanting to invent,", "Where she with Love conversing hath not been.", "Reason, reproached with this coy disdain,", "Despiteth Love, and laugheth at her folly;", "And Love, condemning Reason's reason wholly,", "Thought it in weight too light by many'a grain.", "Reason, put back, doth out of sight remove,", "And Love alone picks reason out of love." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "When Lovely Woman Stoops To Folly", "author": "Oliver Goldsmith", "lines": [ "When lovely woman stoops to folly,", "And finds too late that men betray,", "What charm can soothe her melancholy,", "What art can wash her guilt away?", "", "The only art her guilt to cover,", "To hide her shame from every eye,", "To give repentance to her lover,", "And wring his bosom, is—to die." ], "linecount": "8" }, { "title": "Celestial Love", "author": "Ralph Waldo Emerson", "lines": [ "Higher far,", "Upward, into the pure realm,", "Over sun or star,", "Over the flickering Dæmon film,", "Thou must mount for love,—", "Into vision which all form", "In one only form dissolves;", "In a region where the wheel,", "On which all beings ride,", "Visibly revolves;", "Where the starred eternal worm", "Girds the world with bound and term;", "Where unlike things are like,", "When good and ill,", "And joy and moan,", "Melt into one.", "There Past, Present, Future, shoot", "Triple blossoms from one root", "Substances at base divided", "In their summits are united,", "There the holy Essence rolls,", "One through separated souls,", "And the sunny &Aelig;on sleeps", "Folding nature in its deeps,", "And every fair and every good", "Known in part or known impure", "To men below,", "In their archetypes endure.", "", "The race of gods,", "Or those we erring own,", "Are shadows flitting up and down", "In the still abodes.", "The circles of that sea are laws,", "Which publish and which hide the Cause.", "Pray for a beam", "Out of that sphere", "Thee to guide and to redeem.", "O what a load", "Of care and toil", "By lying Use bestowed,", "From his shoulders falls, who sees", "The true astronomy,", "The period of peace!", "Counsel which the ages kept,", "Shall the well-born soul accept.", "As the overhanging trees", "Fill the lake with images,", "As garment draws the garment's hem", "Men their fortunes bring with them;", "By right or wrong,", "Lands and goods go to the strong;", "Property will brutely draw", "Still to the proprietor,", "Silver to silver creep and wind,", "And kind to kind,", "Nor less the eternal poles", "Of tendency distribute souls.", "There need no vows to bind", "Whom not each other seek but find.", "They give and take no pledge or oath,", "Nature is the bond of both.", "No prayer persuades, no flattery fawns,", "Their noble meanings are their pawns.", "Plain and cold is their address,", "Power have they for tenderness,", "And so thoroughly is known", "Each others' purpose by his own,", "They can parley without meeting,", "Need is none of forms of greeting,", "They can well communicate", "In their innermost estate;", "When each the other shall avoid,", "Shall each by each be most enjoyed.", "Not with scarfs or perfumed gloves", "Do these celebrate their loves,", "Not by jewels, feasts, and savors,", "Not by ribbons or by favors,", "But by the sun-spark on the sea,", "And the cloud-shadow on the lea,", "The soothing lapse of morn to mirk,", "And the cheerful round of work.", "Their cords of love so public are,", "They intertwine the farthest star.", "The throbbing sea, the quaking earth,", "Yield sympathy and signs of mirth;", "Is none so high, so mean is none,", "But feels and seals this union.", "Even the tell Furies are appeased,", "The good applaud, the lost are eased.", "", "Love's hearts are faithful, but not fond,", "Bound for the just, but not beyond;", "Not glad, as the low-loving herd,", "Of self in others still preferred,", "But they have heartily designed", "The benefit of broad mankind.", "And they serve men austerely,", "After their own genius, clearly,", "Without a false humility;", "For this is love's nobility,", "Not to scatter bread and gold,", "Goods and raiment bought and sold,", "But to hold fast his simple sense,", "And speak the speech of innocence,", "And with hand, and body, and blood,", "To make his bosom-counsel good:", "For he that feeds men, serveth few,", "He serves all, who dares be true." ], "linecount": "107" }, { "title": "But Men Loved Darkness rather than Light", "author": "Richard Crashaw", "lines": [ "The world's light shines, shine as it will,", "The world will love its darkness still.", "I doubt though when the world's in hell,", "It will not love its darkness half so well." ], "linecount": "4" }, { "title": "Love Among the Ruins", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "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", " Peace or war.", "", "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.", "", "And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass", " Never was!", "Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads", " And embeds", "Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,", " Stock or stone--", "Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe", " Long ago;", "Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame", " Struck them tame;", "And that glory and that shame alike, the gold", " Bought and sold.", "", "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", " Thro' 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.", "", "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 gray", " Melt away--", "That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair", " Waits 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,", "", "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.", "", "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 the rest!", " Love is best." ], "linecount": "84" }, { "title": "The Glove", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "\"Heigho!\" yawned one day King Francis,", "\"Distance all value enhances.", "When a man's busy, why, leisure", "Strikes him as wonderful pleasure:", "Faith, and at leisure once is he?", "Straightway he wants to be busy.", "Here we've got peace; and aghast I'm", "Caught thinking war the true pastime.", "Is there a reason in metre?", "Give us your speech, master Peter!\"", "I who, if mortal dare say so,", "Ne'er am at loss with my Naso", "\"Sire,\" I replied, \"joys prove cloudlets:", "\"Men are the merest Ixions\"--", "Here the King whistled aloud, \"Let's", "--Heigho--go look at our lions.\"", "Such are the sorrowful chances", "If you talk fine to King Francis.", "", "And so, to the courtyard proceeding,", "Our company, Francis was leading,", "Increased by new followers tenfold", "Before he arrived at the penfold;", "Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen", "At sunset the western horizon.", "And Sir De Lorge pressed 'mid the foremost", "With the dame he professed to adore most.", "Oh, what a face! One by fits eyed", "Her, and the horrible pitside;", "For the penfold surrounded a hollow", "Which led where the eye scarce dared follow", "And shelved to the chamber secluded", "Where Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded.", "", "The King hailed his keeper, an Arab", "As glossy and black as a scarab,", "And bade him make sport and at once stir", "Up and out of his den the old monster.", "They opened a hole in the wire-work", "Across it, and dropped there a firework,", "And fled: one's heart's beating redoubled;", "A pause, while the pit's mouth was troubled,", "The blackness and silence so utter,", "By the firework's slow sparkling and sputter;", "Then earth in a sudden contortion", "Gave out to our gaze her abortion.", "Such a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot", "(Whose experience of nature's but narrow", "And whose faculties move in no small mist", "When he versifies David the Psalmist)", "I should study that brute to describe you", "Illum Juda Leonem de Tribu.", "One's whole blood grew curdling and creepy", "To see the black mane, vast and heapy,", "The tail in the air stiff and straining", "The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning,", "As over the barrier which bounded", "His platform, and us who surrounded", "The barrier, they reached and they rested", "On space that might stand him in best stead:", "For who knew, he thought, what the amazement,", "The eruption of clatter and blaze meant,", "And if, in this minute of wonder,", "No outlet, 'mid lightning and thunder,", "Lay broad, and, his shackles all shivered,", "The lion at last was delivered?", "Ay, that was the open sky o'erhead!", "And you saw by the flash on his forehead,", "By the hope in those eyes wide and steady,", "He was leagues in the desert already", "Driving the flocks up the mountain", "Or catlike couched hard by the fountain", "To waylay the date-gathering negress:", "So guarded he entrance or egress.", "\"How he stands!\" quoth the King: \"we may well swear,", "(No novice, we've won our spurs elsewhere", "And so can afford the confession)", "We exercise wholesome discretion", "In keeping aloof from his threshold;", "Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold,", "Their first would too pleasantly purloin", "The visitor's brisket or surloin:", "But who's he would prove so fool-hardy?", "Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!\"", "", "The sentence no sooner was uttered,", "Than over the rails a glove fluttered,", "Fell close to the lion, and rested:", "The dame 'twas, who flung it and jested", "With life so, De Lorge had been wooing", "For months past; he sat there pursuing", "His suit, weighing out with nonchalance", "Fine speeches like gold from a balance.", "", "Sound the trumpet, no true knight's a tarrier!", "De Lorge made one leap at the barrier,", "Walked straight to the glove--while the lion", "Ne'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye on", "The palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire,", "And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir--", "Picked it up, and as calmly retreated,", "Leaped back where the lady was seated,", "And full in the face of its owner", "Flung the glove.", "", "\"Your heart's queen, you dethrone her?", "So should I!\"--cried the King--\"'twas mere vanity", "Not love set that task to humanity!\"", "Lords and ladies alike turned with loathing", "From such a proved wolf in sheep's clothing.", "", "Not so, I; for I caught an expression", "In her brow's undisturbed self-possession", "Amid the Court's scoffing and merriment,", "As if from no pleasing experiment", "She rose, yet of pain not much heedful", "So long as the process was needful,--", "As if she had tried in a crucible,", "To what \"speeches like gold\" were reducible,", "And, finding the finest prove copper,", "Felt the smoke in her face was but proper;", "To know what she had not to trust to,", "Was worth all the ashes and dust too.", "She went out 'mid hooting and laughter;", "Clement Marot stayed; I followed after,", "And asked, as a grace, what it all meant?", "If she wished not the rash deed's recalment?", "For I\"--so I spoke--\"am a poet:", "Human nature,--behoves that I know it!\"", "", "She told me, \"Too long had I heard", "Of the deed proved alone by the word:", "For my love--what De Lorge would not dare!", "With my scorn--what De Lorge could compare!", "And the endless descriptions of death", "He would brave when my lip formed a breath,", "I must reckon as braved, or, of course,", "Doubt his word--and moreover, perforce,", "For such gifts as no lady could spurn,", "Must offer my love in return.", "When I looked on your lion, it brought", "All the dangers at once to my thought,", "Encountered by all sorts of men,", "Before he was lodged in his den--", "From the poor slave whose club or bare hands", "Dug the trap, set the snare on the sands,", "With no King and no Court to applaud,", "By no shame, should he shrink, overawed,", "Yet to capture the creature made shift,", "That his rude boys might laugh at the gift", "--To the page who last leaped o'er the fence", "Of the pit, on no greater pretence", "Than to get back the bonnet he dropped,", "Lest his pay for a week should be stopped.", "So, wiser I judged it to make", "One trial what 'death for my sake'", "Really meant, while the power was yet mine,", "", "Than to wait until time should define", "Such a phrase not so simply as I,", "Who took it to mean just 'to die.'", "The blow a glove gives is but weak:", "Does the mark yet discolour my cheek?", "But when the heart suffers a blow,", "Will the pain pass so soon, do you know?\"", "", "I looked, as away she was sweeping.", "And saw a youth eagerly keeping", "As close as he dared to the doorway.", "No doubt that a noble should more weigh", "His life than befits a plebeian;", "And yet, had our brute been Nemean--", "(I judge by a certain calm fervour", "The youth stepped with, forward to serve her)", "--He'd have scarce thought you did him the worst turn", "If you whispered \"Friend, what you'd get, first earn!\"", "And when, shortly after, she carried", "Her shame from the Court, and they married,", "To that marriage some happiness, maugre", "The voice of the Court, I dared augur.", "", "For De Lorge, he made women with men vie,", "Those in wonder and praise, these in envy;", "And in short stood so plain a head taller.", "That he wooed and won... how do you call her?", "The beauty, that rose in the sequel", "To the King's love, who loved her a week well.", "And 'twas noticed he never would honour", "De Lorge (who looked daggers upon her)", "With the easy commission of stretching", "His legs in the service, and fetching", "His wife, from her chamber, those straying", "Sad gloves she was always mislaying,", "While the King took the closet to chat in,--", "But of course this adventure came pat in.", "And never the King told the story,", "How bringing a glove brought such glory,", "But the wife smiled--\"His nerves are grown firmer:", "Mine he brings now and utters no murmur.\"", "", "Venienti occurrite morbo!", "With which moral I drop my theorbo." ], "linecount": "191" }, { "title": "Porphyria's Lover", "author": "Robert Browning", "lines": [ "The rain set early in to-night,", " The sullen wind was soon awake,", "It tore the elm-tops down for spite,", " And did its worst to vex the lake:", " I listened with heart fit to break.", "When glided in Porphyria; straight", " She shut the cold out and the storm,", "And kneeled and made the cheerless grate", " Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;", " Which done, she rose, and from her form", "Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,", " And laid her soiled gloves by, untied", "Her hat and let the damp hair fall,", " And, last, she sat down by my side", " And called me. When no voice replied,", "She put my arm about her waist,", " And made her smooth white shoulder bare,", "And all her yellow hair displaced,", " And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,", " And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,", "Murmuring how she loved me--she", " Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,", "To set its struggling passion free", " From pride, and vainer ties dissever,", " And give herself to me for ever.", "But passion sometimes would prevail,", " Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain", "A sudden thought of one so pale", " For love of her, and all in vain:", " So, she was come through wind and rain.", "", "Be sure I looked up at her eyes", " Happy and proud; at last I knew", "Porphyria worshipped me; surprise", " Made my heart swell, and still it grew", " While I debated what to do.", "That moment she was mine, mine, fair,", " Perfectly pure and good: I found", "A thing to do, and all her hair", " In one long yellow string I wound", " Three times her little throat around,", "And strangled her. No pain felt she;", " I am quite sure she felt no pain.", "As a shut bud that holds a bee,", " I warily oped her lids: again", " Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.", "And I untightened next the tress", " About her neck; her cheek once more", "Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:", " I propped her head up as before,", " Only, this time my shoulder bore", "Her head, which droops upon it still:", " The smiling rosy little head,", "So glad it has its utmost will,", " That all it scorned at once is fled,", "And I, its love, am gained instead!", "Porphyria's love: she guessed not how", " Her darling one wish would be heard.", "And thus we sit together now,", " And all night long we have not stirred,", " And yet God has not said a word!" ], "linecount": "60" }, { "title": "Translation of a Romaic Love Song", "author": "George Gordon, Lord Byron", "lines": [ "Ah! Love was never yet without", "The pang, the agony, the doubt,", "Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh,", "While day and night roll darkling by.", "", "Without one friend to hear my woe,", "I faint, I die beneath the blow.", "That Love had arrows, well I knew,", "Alas! I find them poisoned too.", "", "Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net", "Which Love around your haunts hath set;", "Or, circled by his fatal fire,", "Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire.", "", "A bird of free and careless wing", "Was I, through many a smiling spring;", "But caught within the subtle snare,", "I burn, and feebly flutter there.", "", "Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,", "Can neither feel nor pity pain,", "The cold repulse, the look askance,", "The lightning of Love's angry glance.", "", "In flattering dreams I deemed thee mine;", "Now hope, and he who hoped, decline;", "Like melting wax, or withering flower,", "I feel my passion, and thy power.", "", "My light of Life! ah, tell me why", "That pouting lip, and altered eye?", "My bird of Love! my beauteous mate!", "And art thou changed, and canst thou hate?", "", "Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow:", "What wretch with me would barter woe?", "My bird! relent: one note could give", "A charm to bid thy lover live.", "", "My curdling blood, my madd'ning brain,", "In silent anguish I sustain;", "And still thy heart, without partaking", "One pang, exults--while mine is breaking.", "", "Pour me the poison; fear not thou!", "Thou canst not murder more than now:", "I've lived to curse my natal day,", "And Love, that thus can lingering slay.", "", "My wounded soul, my bleeding breast,", "Can patience preach thee into rest?", "Alas! too late, I dearly know", "That Joy is harbinger of Woe." ], "linecount": "44" }, { "title": "Love and Death", "author": "George Gordon, Lord Byron", "lines": [ "I WATCHED thee when the foe was at our side,", " Ready to strike at him--or thee and me.", "Were safety hopeless--rather than divide", " Aught with one loved save love and liberty.", "", "I watched thee on the breakers, when the rock", " Received our prow and all was storm and fear,", "And bade thee cling to me through every shock;", " This arm would be thy bark, or breast thy bier.", "", "I watched thee when the fever glazed thine eyes,", " Yielding my couch and stretched me on the ground,", "When overworn with watching, ne'er to rise", " From thence if thou an early grave hadst found.", "", "The earthquake came, and rocked the quivering wall,", " And men and nature reeled as if with wine.", "Whom did I seek around the tottering hall?", " For thee. Whose safety first provide for? Thine.", "", "And when convulsive throes denied my breath", " The faintest utterance to my fading thought,", "To thee--to thee--e'en in the gasp of death", " My spirit turned, oh! oftener than it ought.", "", "Thus much and more; and yet thou lov'st me not,", " And never wilt! Love dwells not in our will.", "Nor can I blame thee, though it be my lot", " To strongly, wrongly, vainly love thee still." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "Lovers", "author": "Edward Thomas", "lines": [ "THE two men in the road were taken aback.", "The lovers came out shading their eyes from the", " sun,", "And never was white so white, or black so black,", "As her cheeks and hair. \"There are more things", " than one", "A man might turn into a wood for, Jack,\"", "Said George; Jack whispered: \"He has not got", " a gun.", "It's a bit too much of a good thing, I say.", "They are going the other road, look. And see her", " run.\"--", "She ran.--\"What a thing it is, this picking may.\"" ], "linecount": "13" }, { "title": "324. Song—The Charms of Lovely Davies", "author": "Robert Burns", "lines": [ "O HOW shall I, unskilfu’, try", " The poet’s occupation?", "The tunefu’ powers, in happy hours,", " That whisper inspiration;", "Even they maun dare an effort mair", " Than aught they ever gave us,", "Ere they rehearse, in equal verse,", " The charms o’ lovely Davies.", "", "", "Each eye it cheers when she appears,", " Like Phoebus in the morning,", "When past the shower, and every flower", " The garden is adorning:", "As the wretch looks o’er Siberia’s shore,", " When winter-bound the wave is;", "Sae droops our heart, when we maun part", " Frae charming, lovely Davies.", "", "", "Her smile’s a gift frae ’boon the lift,", " That maks us mair than princes;", "A sceptred hand, a king’s command,", " Is in her darting glances;", "The man in arms ’gainst female charms", " Even he her willing slave is,", "He hugs his chain, and owns the reign", " Of conquering, lovely Davies.", "", "", "My Muse, to dream of such a theme,", " Her feeble powers surrender:", "The eagle’s gaze alone surveys", " The sun’s meridian splendour.", "I wad in vain essay the strain,", " The deed too daring brave is;", "I’ll drap the lyre, and mute admire", " The charms o’ lovely Davies." ], "linecount": "32" }, { "title": "204. Song—Love in the Guise of Friendship", "author": "Robert Burns", "lines": [ "YOUR friendship much can make me blest,", " O why that bliss destroy!", "Why urge the only, one request", " You know I will deny!", "", "", "Your thought, if Love must harbour there,", " Conceal it in that thought;", "Nor cause me from my bosom tear", " The very friend I sought." ], "linecount": "8" }, { "title": "COMFORT TO A YOUTH THAT HAD LOST HIS LOVE", "author": "Robert Herrick", "lines": [ "What needs complaints,", "When she a place", "Has with the race", "Of saints?", "In endless mirth,", "She thinks not on", "What's said or done", "In earth:", "She sees no tears,", "Or any tone", "Of thy deep groan", "She hears;", "Nor does she mind,", "Or think on't now,", "That ever thou", "Wast kind:--", "But changed above,", "She likes not there,", "As she did here,", "Thy love.", "--Forbear, therefore,", "And lull asleep", "Thy woes, and weep", "No more." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "Sonnet: I said I splendidly loved you; it's not true", "author": "Rupert Brooke", "lines": [ "I said I splendidly loved you; it's not true.", "Such long swift tides stir not a land-locked sea.", "On gods or fools the high risk falls -- on you --", "The clean clear bitter-sweet that's not for me.", "Love soars from earth to ecstasies unwist.", "Love is flung Lucifer-like from Heaven to Hell.", "But -- there are wanderers in the middle mist,", "Who cry for shadows, clutch, and cannot tell", "Whether they love at all, or, loving, whom:", "An old song's lady, a fool in fancy dress,", "Or phantoms, or their own face on the gloom;", "For love of Love, or from heart's loneliness.", "Pleasure's not theirs, nor pain. They doubt, and sigh,", "And do not love at all. Of these am I." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Farewell Love and All Thy Laws Forever", "author": "Sir Thomas Wyatt", "lines": [ "Farewell love and all thy laws forever;", "Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more.", "Senec and Plato call me from thy lore", "To perfect wealth, my wit for to endeavour.", "In blind error when I did persever,", "Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore,", "Hath taught me to set in trifles no store", "And scape forth, since liberty is lever.", "Therefore farewell; go trouble younger hearts", "And in me claim no more authority.", "With idle youth go use thy property", "And thereon spend thy many brittle darts,", "For hitherto though I have lost all my time,", "Me lusteth no lenger rotten boughs to climb." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "A Farewell to False Love", "author": "Sir Walter Raleigh", "lines": [ "Farewell, false love, the oracle of lies,", "A mortal foe and enemy to rest,", "An envious boy, from whom all cares arise,", "A bastard vile, a beast with rage possessed,", "A way of error, a temple full of treason,", "In all effects contrary unto reason.", "", "A poisoned serpent covered all with flowers,", "Mother of sighs, and murderer of repose,", "A sea of sorrows whence are drawn such showers", "As moisture lend to every grief that grows;", "A school of guile, a net of deep deceit,", "A gilded hook that holds a poisoned bait.", "", "A fortress foiled, which reason did defend,", "A siren song, a fever of the mind,", "A maze wherein affection finds no end,", "A raging cloud that runs before the wind,", "A substance like the shadow of the sun,", "A goal of grief for which the wisest run.", "", "A quenchless fire, a nurse of trembling fear,", "A path that leads to peril and mishap,", "A true retreat of sorrow and despair,", "An idle boy that sleeps in pleasure's lap,", "A deep mistrust of that which certain seems,", "A hope of that which reason doubtful deems.", "", "Sith then thy trains my younger years betrayed,", "And for my faith ingratitude I find;", "And sith repentance hath my wrongs bewrayed,", "Whose course was ever contrary to kind:", "False love, desire, and beauty frail, adieu.", "Dead is the root whence all these fancies grew." ], "linecount": "30" }, { "title": "Freedom And Love", "author": "Thomas Campbell", "lines": [ "How delicious is the winning", "Of a kiss at love's beginning,", "When two mutual hearts are sighing", "For the knot there's no untying!", "Yet remember, 'Midst our wooing,", "Love has bliss, but Love has ruing;", "Other smiles may make you fickle,", "Tears for other charms may trickle.", "Love he comes, and Love he tarries,", "Just as fate or fancy carries;", "Longest stays, when sorest chidden;", "Laughs and flies, when press'd and bidden.", "Bind the sea to slumber stilly,", "Bind its odour to the lily,", "Bind the aspen ne'er to quiver,", "Then bind Love to last for ever.", "Love's a fire that needs renewal", "Of fresh beauty for its fuel:", "Love's wing moults when caged and captured,", "Only free, he soars enraptured.", "Can you keep the bee from ranging", "Or the ringdove's neck from changing?", "No! nor fetter'd Love from dying", "In the knot there's no untying." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "Love's Young Dream", "author": "Thomas Moore", "lines": [ "Oh! the days are gone, when Beauty bright", "My heart's chain wove;", "When my dream of life, from morn till night,", "Was love, still love.", "New hope may bloom,", "And days may come,", "Of milder calmer beam,", "But there's nothing half so sweet in life", "As love's young dream:", "No, there's nothing half so sweet in life", "As love's young dream.", "", "Though the bard to purer fame may soar,", "When wild youth's past;", "Though he win the wise, who frown'd before,", "To smile at last;", "He'll never meet", "A joy so sweet,", "In all his noon of fame,", "As when first he sung to woman's ear", "His soul-felt flame,", "And, at every close, she blush'd to hear", "The one loved name.", "", "No, -- that hallow'd form is ne'er forgot", "Which first love traced;", "Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot", "On memory's waste.", "'Twas odour fled", "As soon as shed;", "'Twas morning's winged dream;", "'Twas a light, tht ne'er can shine again", "On life's dull stream:", "Oh! 'twas light that n'er can shine again", "On life's dull stream." ], "linecount": "33" }, { "title": "One Lovely Name", "author": "Walter Savage Landor", "lines": [ "One lovely name adorns my song,", "And, dwelling in the heart,", "Forever falters at the tongue,", "And trembles to depart." ], "linecount": "4" }, { "title": "Primeval my Love for the Woman I Love.", "author": "Walt Whitman", "lines": [ "PRIMEVAL my love for the woman I love,", "O bride! O wife! more resistless, more enduring than I can tell, the thought of you!", "Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born,", "The ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation,", "I ascend—I float in the regions of your love, O man,", "O sharer of my roving life." ], "linecount": "6" }, { "title": "A Lover's Complaint", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "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!'" ], "linecount": "331" }, { "title": "Sonnet 4: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend", "Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?", "Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,", "And being frank she lends to those are free:", "Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse", "The bounteous largess given thee to give?", "Profitless usurer, why dost thou use", "So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?", "For having traffic with thy self alone,", "Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive:", "Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,", "What acceptable audit canst thou leave?", " Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,", " Which, used, lives th' executor to be." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 10: For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,", "Who for thy self art so unprovident.", "Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belov'd of many,", "But that thou none lov'st is most evident:", "For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate,", "That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,", "Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate", "Which to repair should be thy chief desire.", "O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind:", "Shall hate be fairer lodg'd than gentle love?", "Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,", "Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:", " Make thee another self for love of me,", " That beauty still may live in thine or thee." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 13: O! that you were your self; but, love you are", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "O! that you were your self; but, love you are", "No longer yours, than you your self here live:", "Against this coming end you should prepare,", "And your sweet semblance to some other give:", "So should that beauty which you hold in lease", "Find no determination; then you were", "Yourself again, after yourself's decease,", "When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.", "Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,", "Which husbandry in honour might uphold,", "Against the stormy gusts of winter's day", "And barren rage of death's eternal cold?", " O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,", " You had a father: let your son say so." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 26: Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage", "Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,", "To thee I send this written embassage,", "To witness duty, not to show my wit:", "Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine", "May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,", "But that I hope some good conceit of thine", "In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it:", "Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,", "Points on me graciously with fair aspect,", "And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving,", "To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:", " Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;", " Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 40: Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all;", "What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?", "No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;", "All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.", "Then, if for my love, thou my love receivest,", "I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest;", "But yet be blam'd, if thou thy self deceivest", "By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.", "I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,", "Although thou steal thee all my poverty:", "And yet, love knows it is a greater grief", "To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.", " Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,", " Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 51: Thus can my love excuse the slow offence", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Thus can my love excuse the slow offence", "Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed:", "From where thou art why should I haste me thence?", "Till I return, of posting is no need.", "O! what excuse will my poor beast then find,", "When swift extremity can seem but slow?", "Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind,", "In winged speed no motion shall I know,", "Then can no horse with my desire keep pace;", "Therefore desire, of perfect'st love being made,", "Shall neigh--no dull flesh--in his fiery race;", "But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,--", " 'Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,", " Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.'" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 56: Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said", "Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,", "Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd,", "To-morrow sharpened in his former might:", "So, love, be thou, although to-day thou fill", "Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,", "To-morrow see again, and do not kill", "The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness.", "Let this sad interim like the ocean be", "Which parts the shore, where two contracted new", "Come daily to the banks, that when they see", "Return of love, more blest may be the view;", " Or call it winter, which being full of care,", " Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 62: Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye", "And all my soul, and all my every part;", "And for this sin there is no remedy,", "It is so grounded inward in my heart.", "Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,", "No shape so true, no truth of such account;", "And for myself mine own worth do define,", "As I all other in all worths surmount.", "But when my glass shows me myself indeed", "Beated and chopp'd with tanned antiquity,", "Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;", "Self so self-loving were iniquity.", " 'Tis thee,--myself,--that for myself I praise,", " Painting my age with beauty of thy days." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 63: Against my love shall be as I am now", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Against my love shall be as I am now,", "With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn;", "When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow", "With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn", "Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night;", "And all those beauties whereof now he's king", "Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,", "Stealing away the treasure of his spring;", "For such a time do I now fortify", "Against confounding age's cruel knife,", "That he shall never cut from memory", "My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life:", " His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,", " And they shall live, and he in them still green." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 95: How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame", "Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,", "Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!", "O! in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose.", "That tongue that tells the story of thy days,", "Making lascivious comments on thy sport,", "Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise;", "Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.", "O! what a mansion have those vices got", "Which for their habitation chose out thee,", "Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot", "And all things turns to fair that eyes can see!", " Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;", " The hardest knife ill-us'd doth lose his edge." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 102: My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;", "I love not less, though less the show appear;", "That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming,", "The owner's tongue doth publish every where.", "Our love was new, and then but in the spring,", "When I was wont to greet it with my lays;", "As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,", "And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:", "Not that the summer is less pleasant now", "Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,", "But that wild music burthens every bough,", "And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.", " Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:", " Because I would not dull you with my song." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 105: Let not my love be call'd idolatry", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Let not my love be call'd idolatry,", "Nor my beloved as an idol show,", "Since all alike my songs and praises be", "To one, of one, still such, and ever so.", "Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,", "Still constant in a wondrous excellence;", "Therefore my verse to constancy confin'd,", "One thing expressing, leaves out difference.", "'Fair, kind, and true,' is all my argument,", "'Fair, kind, and true,' varying to other words;", "And in this change is my invention spent,", "Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.", " Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone,", " Which three till now, never kept seat in one." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 112: Your love and pity doth the impression fill", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Your love and pity doth the impression fill,", "Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow;", "For what care I who calls me well or ill,", "So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?", "You are my all-the-world, and I must strive", "To know my shames and praises from your tongue;", "None else to me, nor I to none alive,", "That my steel'd sense or changes right or wrong.", "In so profound abysm I throw all care", "Of others' voices, that my adder's sense", "To critic and to flatterer stopped are.", "Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:", " You are so strongly in my purpose bred,", " That all the world besides methinks are dead." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 124: If my dear love were but the child of state", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "If my dear love were but the child of state,", "It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd,", "As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate,", "Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd.", "No, it was builded far from accident;", "It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls", "Under the blow of thralled discontent,", "Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:", "It fears not policy, that heretic,", "Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,", "But all alone stands hugely politic,", "That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.", " To this I witness call the fools of time,", " Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 126: O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power", "Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his fickle hour;", "Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st", "Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.", "If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,", "As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,", "She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill", "May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.", "Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!", "She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:", " Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,", " And her quietus is to render thee." ], "linecount": "12" }, { "title": "Sonnet 132: Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,", "Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,", "Have put on black and loving mourners be,", "Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.", "And truly not the morning sun of heaven", "Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,", "Nor that full star that ushers in the even,", "Doth half that glory to the sober west,", "As those two mourning eyes become thy face:", "O! let it then as well beseem thy heart", "To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,", "And suit thy pity like in every part.", " Then will I swear beauty herself is black,", " And all they foul that thy complexion lack." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 137: Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,", "That they behold, and see not what they see?", "They know what beauty is, see where it lies,", "Yet what the best is take the worst to be.", "If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks,", "Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride,", "Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,", "Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?", "Why should my heart think that a several plot,", "Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?", "Or mine eyes, seeing this, say this is not,", "To put fair truth upon so foul a face?", " In things right true my heart and eyes have err'd,", " And to this false plague are they now transferr'd." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "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 suppressed:", "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." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 141: In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,", "For they in thee a thousand errors note;", "But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,", "Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote.", "Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted;", "Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,", "Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited", "To any sensual feast with thee alone:", "But my five wits nor my five senses can", "Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,", "Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man,", "Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:", " Only my plague thus far I count my gain,", " That she that makes me sin awards me pain." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 142: Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,", "Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:", "O! but with mine compare thou thine own state,", "And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;", "Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,", "That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments", "And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,", "Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.", "Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those", "Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:", "Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,", "Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.", " If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,", " By self-example mayst thou be denied!" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 144: Two loves I have of comfort and despair", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Two loves I have of comfort and despair,", "Which like two spirits do suggest me still:", "The better angel is a man right fair,", "The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.", "To win me soon to hell, my female evil,", "Tempteth my better angel from my side,", "And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,", "Wooing his purity with her foul pride.", "And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend,", "Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;", "But being both from me, both to each friend,", "I guess one angel in another's hell:", " Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,", " Till my bad angel fire my good one out." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 145: Those lips that Love's own hand did make", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Those lips that Love's own hand did make,", "Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',", "To me that languish'd for her sake:", "But when she saw my woeful state,", "Straight in her heart did mercy come,", "Chiding that tongue that ever sweet", "Was us'd in giving gentle doom;", "And taught it thus anew to greet;", "'I hate' she alter'd 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 sav'd my life, saying 'not you'." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 147: My love is as a fever longing still", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "My love is as a fever longing still,", "For that which longer nurseth the disease;", "Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,", "The uncertain sickly appetite to please.", "My reason, the physician to my love,", "Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,", "Hath left me, and I desperate now approve", "Desire is death, which physic did except.", "Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,", "And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;", "My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,", "At random from the truth vainly express'd;", " For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,", " Who art as black as hell, as dark as night." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 148: O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head,", "Which have no correspondence with true sight;", "Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,", "That censures falsely what they see aright?", "If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,", "What means the world to say it is not so?", "If it be not, then love doth well denote", "Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,", "How can it? O! how can Love's eye be true,", "That is so vexed with watching and with tears?", "No marvel then, though I mistake my view;", "The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.", " O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,", " Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 149: Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,", "When I against myself with thee partake?", "Do I not think on thee, when I forgot", "Am of my self, all tyrant, for thy sake?", "Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,", "On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,", "Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend", "Revenge upon myself with present moan?", "What merit do I in my self respect,", "That is so proud thy service to despise,", "When all my best doth worship thy defect,", "Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?", " But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;", " Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 151: Love is too young to know what conscience is", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "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." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 154: The little Love-god lying once asleep", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "The little Love-god lying once asleep,", "Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,", "Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep", "Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand", "The fairest votary took up that fire", "Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd;", "And so the general of hot desire", "Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarm'd.", "This brand she quenched in a cool well by,", "Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,", "Growing a bath and healthful remedy,", "For men diseas'd; but I, my mistress' thrall,", " Came there for cure and this by that I prove,", " Love's fire heats water, water cools not love." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Farewell and Defiance to Love", "author": "John Clare", "lines": [ "Love and thy vain employs, away", "From this too oft deluded breast!", "No longer will I court thy stay,", "To be my bosom's teazing guest.", "Thou treacherous medicine, reckoned pure,", "Thou quackery of the harassed heart,", "That kills what it pretends to cure,", " Life's mountebank thou art.", "", "With nostrums vain of boasted powers,", "That, ta'en, a worse disorder leave;", "An asp hid in a group of flowers,", "That bites and stings when few perceive;", "Thou mock-truce to the troubled mind,", "Leading it more in sorrow's way,", "Freedom, that leaves us more confined,", " I bid thee hence away.", "", "Dost taunt, and deem thy power beyond", "The resolution reason gave?", "Tut! Falsity hath snapt each bond,", "That kept me once thy quiet slave,", "And made thy snare a spider's thread,", "Which een my breath can break in twain;", "Nor will I be, like Sampson, led", " To trust thy wiles again.", "", "I took thee as my staff to guide", "Me on the road I did pursue,", "And when my weakness most relied", "Upon its strength it broke in two.", "I took thee as my friendly host", "That counsel might in dangers show,", "But when I needed thee the most", " I found thou wert my foe.", "", "Tempt me no more with rosy cheeks,", "Nor daze my reason with bright eyes;", "I'm wearied with thy painted freaks,", "And sicken at such vanities:", "Be roses fine as eer they will,", "They, with the meanest, fade and die,", "And eyes, though thronged with darts to kill,", " Share like mortality.", "Feed the young bard, that madly sips", "His nectar-draughts from folly's flowers,", "Bright eyes, fair cheeks, and ruby lips,", "Till muses melt to honey showers;", "Lure him to thrum thy empty lays,", "While flattery listens to the chimes,", "Till words themselves grow sick with praise", " And stop for want of rhymes.", "", "Let such be still thy paramours,", "And chaunt love's old and idle tune,", "Robbing the spring of all its flowers,", "And heaven of all her stars and moon,", "To gild with dazzling similes", "Blind folly's vain and empty lay:", "I'm sobered from such phantasies,", " So get thee hence away.", "", "Nor bid me sigh for mine own cost,", "Nor count its loss, for mine annoy,", "Nor say my stubbornness hath lost", "A paradise of dainty joy:", "I'll not believe thee, till I know", "That sober reason turns an ape,", "And acts the harlequin, to show", " That cares in every shape,", "", "Heart-achings, sighs, and grief-wrung tears,", "Shame-blushes at betrayed distress,", "Dissembled smiles, and jealous fears,", "Are nought but real happiness:", "Then will I mourn what now I brave,", "And suffer Celia's quirks to be", "(Like a poor fate-bewilder'd slave,)", " The rulers of my destiny.", "", "I'll weep and sigh wheneer she wills", "To frown, and when she deigns to smile", "It shall be cure for all my ills,", "And, foolish still, I'll laugh the while;", "But till that comes, I'll bless the rules", "Experience taught, and deem it wise", "To hold thee as the game of fools,", " And all thy tricks despise." ], "linecount": "80" }, { "title": "A World for Love", "author": "John Clare", "lines": [ "Oh, the world is all too rude for thee, with much ado and care;", "Oh, this world is but a rude world, and hurts a thing so fair;", "Was there a nook in which the world had never been to sear,", "That place would prove a paradise when thou and Love were near.", "", "And there to pluck the blackberry, and there to reach the sloe,", "How joyously and happily would Love thy partner go;", "Then rest when weary on a bank, where not a grassy blade", "Had eer been bent by Trouble's feet, and Love thy pillow made.", "", "For Summer would be ever green, though sloes were in their prime,", "And Winter smile his frowns to Spring, in beauty's happy clime;", "And months would come, and months would go, and all in sunny mood,", "And everything inspired by thee grow beautifully good.", "", "And there to make a cot unknown to any care and pain,", "And there to shut the door alone on singing wind and rain--", "Far, far away from all the world, more rude than rain or wind,", "Oh, who could wish a sweeter home, or better place to find?", "", "Than thus to love and live with thee, thou beautiful delight!", "Than thus to live and love with thee the summer day and night!", "The Earth itself, where thou hadst rest, would surely smile to see", "Herself grow Eden once again, possest of Love and thee." ], "linecount": "20" }, { "title": "Love", "author": "John Clare", "lines": [ "Love, though it is not chill and cold,", " But burning like eternal fire,", "Is yet not of approaches bold,", " Which gay dramatic tastes admire.", "Oh timid love, more fond than free,", " In daring song is ill pourtrayed,", "Where, as in war, the devotee", " By valour wins each captive maid;--", "", "Where hearts are prest to hearts in glee,", " As they could tell each other's mind;", "Where ruby lips are kissed as free,", " As flowers are by the summer wind.", "No! gentle love, that timid dream,", " With hopes and fears at foil and play,", "Works like a skiff against the stream,", " And thinking most finds least to say.", "", "It lives in blushes and in sighs,", " In hopes for which no words are found;", "Thoughts dare not speak but in the eyes,", " The tongue is left without a sound.", "The pert and forward things that dare", " Their talk in every maiden's ear,", "Feel no more than their shadows there--", " Mere things of form, with nought of fear.", "", "True passion, that so burns to plead,", " Is timid as the dove's disguise;", "Tis for the murder-aiming gleed", " To dart at every thing that flies.", "True love, it is no daring bird,", " But like the little timid wren,", "That in the new-leaved thorns of spring", " Shrinks farther from the sight of men.", "", "The idol of his musing mind,", " The worship of his lonely hour,", "Love woos her in the summer wind,", " And tells her name to every flower;", "But in her sight, no open word", " Escapes, his fondness to declare;", "The sighs by beauty's magic stirred", " Are all that speak his passion there." ], "linecount": "40" }, { "title": "Love and Solitude", "author": "John Clare", "lines": [ "I hate the very noise of troublous man", "Who did and does me all the harm he can.", "Free from the world I would a prisoner be", "And my own shadow all my company;", "And lonely see the shooting stars appear,", "Worlds rushing into judgment all the year.", "O lead me onward to the loneliest shade,", "The darkest place that quiet ever made,", "Where kingcups grow most beauteous to behold", "And shut up green and open into gold.", "Farewell to poesy--and leave the will;", "Take all the world away--and leave me still", "The mirth and music of a woman's voice,", "That bids the heart be happy and rejoice." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Love Cannot Die", "author": "John Clare", "lines": [ "In crime and enmity they lie", "Who sin and tell us love can die,", "Who say to us in slander's breath", "That love belongs to sin and death.", "From heaven it came on angel's wing", "To bloom on earth, eternal spring;", "In falsehood's enmity they lie", "Who sin and tell us love can die.", "", "Twas born upon an angel's breast.", "The softest dreams, the sweetest rest,", "The brightest sun, the bluest sky,", "Are love's own home and canopy.", "The thought that cheers this heart of mine", "Is that of love; love so divine", "They sin who say in slander's breath", "That love belongs to sin and death.", "", "The sweetest voice that lips contain,", "The sweetest thought that leaves the brain,", "The sweetest feeling of the heart--", "There's pleasure in its very smart.", "The scent of rose and cinnamon", "Is not like love remembered on;", "In falsehood's enmity they lie", "Who sin and tell us love can die." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "First Love", "author": "John Clare", "lines": [ "I ne'er was struck before that hour", " With love so sudden and so sweet.", "Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower", " And stole my heart away complete.", "My face turned pale as deadly pale,", " My legs refused to walk away,", "And when she looked \"what could I ail?\"", " My life and all seemed turned to clay.", "", "And then my blood rushed to my face", " And took my sight away.", "The trees and bushes round the place", " Seemed midnight at noonday.", "I could not see a single thing,", " Words from my eyes did start;", "They spoke as chords do from the string", " And blood burnt round my heart.", "", "Are flowers the winter's choice?", " Is love's bed always snow?", "She seemed to hear my silent voice", " And love's appeal to know.", "I never saw so sweet a face", " As that I stood before:", "My heart has left its dwelling-place", " And can return no more." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "Where She Told Her Love", "author": "John Clare", "lines": [ " I saw her crop a rose", " Right early in the day,", " And I went to kiss the place", " Where she broke the rose away", " And I saw the patten rings", " Where she oer the stile had gone,", " And I love all other things", " Her bright eyes look upon.", "If she looks upon the hedge or up the leafing tree,", "The whitethorn or the brown oak are made dearer things to me.", "", " I have a pleasant hill", " Which I sit upon for hours,", " Where she cropt some sprigs of thyme", " And other little flowers;", " And she muttered as she did it", " As does beauty in a dream,", " And I loved her when she hid it", " On her breast, so like to cream,", "Near the brown mole on her neck that to me a diamond shone", "Then my eye was like to fire, and my heart was like to stone.", "", " There is a small green place", " Where cowslips early curled,", " Which on Sabbath day I trace,", " The dearest in the world.", " A little oak spreads oer it,", " And throws a shadow round,", " A green sward close before it,", " The greenest ever found:", "There is not a woodland nigh nor is there a green grove,", "Yet stood the fair maid nigh me and told me all her love." ], "linecount": "30" }, { "title": "Secret Love", "author": "John Clare", "lines": [ "I hid my love when young till I", "Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly;", "I hid my love to my despite", "Till I could not bear to look at light:", "I dare not gaze upon her face", "But left her memory in each place;", "Where eer I saw a wild flower lie", "I kissed and bade my love good bye.", "", "I met her in the greenest dells", "Where dewdrops pearl the wood blue bells", "The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,", "The bee kissed and went singing by,", "A sunbeam found a passage there,", "A gold chain round her neck so fair;", "As secret as the wild bee's song", "She lay there all the summer long.", "", "I hid my love in field and town", "Till een the breeze would knock me down,", "The bees seemed singing ballads oer,", "The fly's bass turned a lion's roar;", "And even silence found a tongue,", "To haunt me all the summer long;", "The riddle nature could not prove", "Was nothing else but secret love." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "Love Lives Beyond the Tomb", "author": "John Clare", "lines": [ " Love lives beyond", "The tomb, the earth, which fades like dew!", " I love the fond,", "The faithful, and the true.", "", " Love lives in sleep,", "The happiness of healthy dreams:", " Eve's dews may weep,", "But love delightful seems.", "", " Tis seen in flowers,", "And in the morning's pearly dew;", " In earth's green hours,", "And in the heaven's eternal blue.", "", " Tis heard in Spring", "When light and sunbeams, warm and kind,", " On angel's wing", "Bring love and music to the mind.", "", " And where is voice,", "So young, so beautiful, and sweet", " As Nature's choice,", "Where Spring and lovers meet?", "", " Love lives beyond", "The tomb, the earth, the flowers, and dew.", " I love the fond,", "The faithful, young and true." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "Epitaph on a Beloved Friend", "author": "George Gordon, Lord Byron", "lines": [ "Oh, Friend! for ever lov'd, for ever dear!", "What fruitless tears have bathed thy honour'd bier!", "What sighs re-echo'd to thy parting breath,", "Whilst thou wast struggling in the pangs of death!", "Could tears retard the tyrant in his course;", "Could sighs avert his dart's relentless force;", "Could youth and virtue claim a short delay,", "Or beauty charm the spectre from his prey;", "Thou still hadst liv'd to bless my aching sight,", "Thy comrade's honour and thy friend's delight.", "If yet thy gentle spirit hover nigh", "The spot where now thy mouldering ashes lie,", "Here wilt thou read, recorded on my heart,", "A grief too deep to trust the sculptor's art.", "No marble marks thy couch of lowly sleep,", "But living statues there are seen to weep;", "Affliction's semblance bends not o'er thy tomb,", "Affliction's self deplores thy youthful doom.", "What though thy sire lament his failing line,", "A father's sorrows cannot equal mine!", "Though none, like thee, his dying hour will cheer,", "Yet other offspring soothe his anguish here:", "But, who with me shall hold thy former place?", "Thine image, what new friendship can efface?", "Ah, none!--a father's tears will cease to flow,", "Time will assuage an infant brother's woe;", "To all, save one, is consolation known,", "While solitary Friendship sighs alone.", "", "Could youth and virtue claim a short delay,", "Or beauty charm the spectre from his prey,", "Thou still had'st liv'd to bless my aching sight,", "Thy comrade's honour, and thy friend's delight:", "Though low thy lot since in a cottage born,", "No titles did thy humble name adorn,", "To me, far dearer, was thy artless love,", "Than all the joys, wealth, fame, and friends could prove.", "For thee alone I liv'd, or wish'd to live,", "(Oh God! if impious, this rash word forgive,)", "Heart-broken now, I wait an equal doom,", "Content to join thee in thy turf-clad tomb;", "Where this frail form compos'd in endless rest,", "I'll make my last, cold, pillow on thy breast;", "That breast where oft in life, I've laid my head,", "Will yet receive me mouldering with the dead;", "This life resign'd, without one parting sigh,", "Together in one bed of earth we'll lie!", "Together share the fate to mortals given,", "Together mix our dust, and hope for Heaven._" ], "linecount": "48" }, { "title": "The First Kiss of Love", "author": "George Gordon, Lord Byron", "lines": [ " Ha barbitos de chordais", " Er_ota mounon aechei. - Anacreon", "", "Away with your fictions of flimsy romance,", " Those tissues of falsehood which Folly has wove;", "Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance,", " Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love.", "", "Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with fantasy glow, ", " Whose pastoral passions are made for the grove;", "From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow, ", " Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of love.", "", "If Apollo should e'er his assistance refuse,", " Or the Nine be dispos'd from your service to rove,", "Invoke them no more, bid adieu to the Muse,", " And try the effect, of the first kiss of love.", "", "I hate you, ye cold compositions of art,", " Though prudes may condemn me, and bigots reprove;", "I court the effusions that spring from the heart,", " Which throbs, with delight, to the first kiss of love. ", "", "Your shepherds, your flocks, those fantastical themes, ", " Perhaps may amuse, yet they never can move:", "Arcadia displays but a region of dreams; ", " What are visions like these, to the first kiss of love?", "", "Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth, ", " From Adam, till now, has with wretchedness strove;", "Some portion of Paradise still is on earth,", " And Eden revives, in the first kiss of love.", "", "When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past--", "For years fleet away with the wings of the dove--", "The dearest remembrance will still be the last,", "Our sweetest memorial, the first kiss of love." ], "linecount": "30" }, { "title": "Love's Last Adieu", "author": "George Gordon, Lord Byron", "lines": [ "The roses of Love glad the garden of life,", " Though nurtur'd 'mid weeds dropping pestilent dew,", "Till Time crops the leaves with unmerciful knife,", " Or prunes them for ever, in Love's last adieu!", "", "In vain, with endearments, we soothe the sad heart,", " In vain do we vow for an age to be true;", "The chance of an hour may command us to part,", " Or Death disunite us, in Love's last adieu!", "", "Still Hope, breathing peace, through the grief-swollen breast,", " Will whisper, \"Our meeting we yet may renew:\"", "With this dream of deceit, half our sorrow's represt,", " Nor taste we the poison, of Love's last adieu!", "", "Oh! mark you yon pair, in the sunshine of youth,", " Love twin'd round their childhood his flow'rs as they grew;", "They flourish awhile, in the season of truth,", " Till chill'd by the winter of Love's last adieu!", "", "Sweet lady! why thus doth a tear steal its way,", " Down a cheek which outrivals thy bosom in hue?", "Yet why do I ask?--to distraction a prey,", " Thy reason has perish'd, with Love's last adieu!", "", "Oh! who is yon Misanthrope, shunning mankind?", " From cities to caves of the forest he flew:", "There, raving, he howls his complaint to the wind;", " The mountains reverberate Love's last adieu!", "", "Now Hate rules a heart which in Love's easy chains,", " Once Passion's tumultuous blandishments knew;", "Despair now inflames the dark tide of his veins,", " He ponders, in frenzy, on Love's last adieu!", "", "How he envies the wretch, with a soul wrapt in steel!", " His pleasures are scarce, yet his troubles are few,", "Who laughs at the pang that he never can feel,", " And dreads not the anguish of Love's last adieu!", "", "Youth flies, life decays, even hope is o'ercast;", " No more, with Love's former devotion, we sue:", "He spreads his young wing, he retires with the blast;", " The shroud of affection is Love's last adieu!", "", "In this life of probation, for rapture divine,", " Astreadeclares that some penance is due;", "From him, who has worshipp'd at Love's gentle shrine,", " The atonement is ample, in Love's last adieu!", "", "Who kneels to the God, on his altar of light", " Must myrtle and cypress alternately strew:", "His myrtle, an emblem of purest delight,", " His cypress, the garland of Love's last adieu!" ], "linecount": "44" }, { "title": "On Being Asked What Was the \"Origin of Love.\"", "author": "George Gordon, Lord Byron", "lines": [ "The \"Origin of Love!\"--Ah, why", " That cruel question ask of me,", "When thou mayst read in many an eye", " He starts to life on seeing thee?", "And shouldst thou seek his _end_ to know:", " My heart forebodes, my fears foresee,", "He'll linger long in silent woe;", " But live until--I cease to be." ], "linecount": "8" }, { "title": "Ode to a Lady Whose Lover Was Killed by a Ball, Which at the Same Time Shivered a Portrait Next His Heart", "author": "George Gordon, Lord Byron", "lines": [ " _On peut trouver des femmes qui n'ont jamais eu de galanterie, mais", " il est rare d'en trouver qui n'en aient jamais eu", " qu'une_.--[_Réflexions_ ... du Duc de la Rochefoucauld, No.", " lxxiii.", "", " Lady! in whose heroic port", "And Beauty, Victor even of Time,", " And haughty lineaments, appear", " Much that is awful, more that's dear--", " Wherever human hearts resort", " _There_ must have been for thee a Court,", " And Thou by acclamation Queen,", " Where never Sovereign yet had been.", "That eye so soft, and yet severe,", " Perchance might look on Love as Crime;", "And yet--regarding thee more near--", "The traces of an unshed tear", " Compressed back to the heart,", "And mellowed Sadness in thine air,", "Which shows that Love hath once been there,", "To those who watch thee will disclose", "More than ten thousand tomes of woes", " Wrung from the vain Romancer's art.", "With thee how proudly Love hath dwelt!", "His full Divinity was felt,", "Maddening the heart he could not melt,", " Till Guilt became Sublime;", "But never yet did Beauty's Zone", "For him surround a lovelier throne,", "Than in that bosom once his own:", " And he the Sun and Thou the Clime", "Together must have made a Heaven", "For which the Future would be given.", "", "And thou hast loved--Oh! not in vain!", " And not as common Mortals love.", " The Fruit of Fire is Ashes,", " The Ocean's tempest dashes", "Wrecks and the dead upon the rocky shore:", "True Passion must the all-searching changes prove,", " The Agony of Pleasure and of Pain,", " Till Nothing but the Bitterness remain;", " And the Heart's Spectre flitting through the brain", "Scoffs at the Exorcism which would remove.", "", "And where is He thou lovedst? in the tomb,", " Where should the happy Lover be!", "For him could Time unfold a brighter doom,", " Or offer aught like thee?", "He in the thickest battle died,", " Where Death is Pride;", "And _Thou_ his widow--not his bride,", " Wer't not more free--", "_Here_ where all love, till Love is made", " A bondage or a trade,", "_Here_--thou so redolent of Beauty,", "In whom Caprice had seemed a duty,", "_Thou_, who could'st trample and despise", "The holiest chain of human ties", "For him, the dear One in thine eyes,", " Broke it no more.", "Thy heart was withered to it's Core,", "It's hopes, it's fears, it's feelings o'er:", "Thy Blood grew Ice when _his_ was shed,", "And Thou the Vestal of the Dead.", "", "Thy Lover died, as All", " Who truly love should die;", "For such are worthy in the fight to fall", " Triumphantly.", "No Cuirass o'er that glowing heart", "The deadly bullet turned apart:", "Love had bestowed a richer Mail,", " Like Thetis on her Son;", "But hers at last was vain, and thine could fail--", " The hero's and the lover's race was run.", "Thy worshipped portrait, thy sweet face,", "_Without_ that bosom kept it's place", " As Thou _within_.", "Oh! enviously destined Ball!", "Shivering thine imaged charms and all", " Those Charms would win:", "Together pierced, the fatal Stroke hath gored", "Votary and Shrine, the adoring and the adored.", " That Heart's last throb was thine, that blood", " Baptized thine Image in it's flood,", " And gushing from the fount of Faith", " O'erflowed with Passion even in Death,", "Constant to thee as in it's hour", "Of rapture in the secret bower.", "Thou too hast kept thy plight full well,", "As many a baffled Heart can tell." ], "linecount": "88" }, { "title": "The Drowned Lover", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "Ah! faint are her limbs, and her footstep is weary,", "Yet far must the desolate wanderer roam;", "Though the tempest is stern, and the mountain is dreary,", "She must quit at deep midnight her pitiless home.", "I see her swift foot dash the dew from the whortle,", "As she rapidly hastes to the green grove of myrtle;", "And I hear, as she wraps round her figure the kirtle,", "'Stay thy boat on the lake,--dearest Henry, I come.'", "", "High swelled in her bosom the throb of affection,", "As lightly her form bounded over the lea,", "And arose in her mind every dear recollection;", "'I come, dearest Henry, and wait but for thee.'", "How sad, when dear hope every sorrow is soothing,", "When sympathy's swell the soft bosom is moving,", "And the mind the mild joys of affection is proving,", "Is the stern voice of fate that bids happiness flee!", "", "Oh! dark lowered the clouds on that horrible eve,", "And the moon dimly gleamed through the tempested air;", "Oh! how could fond visions such softness deceive?", "Oh! how could false hope rend, a bosom so fair?", "Thy love's pallid corse the wild surges are laving,", "O'er his form the fierce swell of the tempest is raving;", "But, fear not, parting spirit; thy goodness is saving,", "In eternity's bowers, a seat for thee there." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "Love", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "Why is it said thou canst not live", "In a youthful breast and fair,", "Since thou eternal life canst give,", "Canst bloom for ever there?", "Since withering pain no power possessed,", "Nor age, to blanch thy vermeil hue,", "Nor time's dread victor, death, confessed,", "Though bathed with his poison dew,", "Still thou retain'st unchanging bloom,", "Fixed tranquil, even in the tomb.", "And oh! when on the blest, reviving,", "The day-star dawns of love,", "Each energy of soul surviving", "More vivid, soars above,", "Hast thou ne'er felt a rapturous thrill,", "Like June's warm breath, athwart thee fly,", "O'er each idea then to steal,", "When other passions die?", "Felt it in some wild noonday dream,", "When sitting by the lonely stream,", "Where Silence says, 'Mine is the dell';", "And not a murmur from the plain,", "And not an echo from the fell,", "Disputes her silent reign." ], "linecount": "24" }, { "title": "The Garden of Love", "author": "William Blake", "lines": [ "I laid me down upon a bank,", " Where Love lay sleeping;", "I heard among the rushes dank", " Weeping, weeping.", "", "Then I went to the heath and the wild,", " To the thistles and thorns of the waste;", "And they told me how they were beguiled,", " Driven out, and compelled to the chaste.", "", "I went to the Garden of Love,", " And saw what I never had seen;", "A Chapel was built in the midst,", " Where I used to play on the green.", "", "And the gates of this Chapel were shut", " And \"Thou shalt not,\" writ over the door;", "So I turned to the Garden of Love", " That so many sweet flowers bore.", "", "And I saw it was filled with graves,", " And tombstones where flowers should be;", "And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,", " And binding with briars my joys and desires." ], "linecount": "20" }, { "title": "Love's Philosophy", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "The fountains mingle with the river", "And the rivers with the Ocean,", "The winds of Heaven mix for ever", "With a sweet emotion;", "Nothing in the world is single;", "All things by a law divine", "In one spirit meet and mingle.", "Why not I with thine?--", "", "See the mountains kiss high Heaven", "And the waves clasp one another;", "No sister-flower would be forgiven", "If it disdained its brother;", "And the sunlight clasps the earth", "And the moonbeams kiss the sea:", "What is all this sweet work worth", "If thou kiss not me?" ], "linecount": "16" }, { "title": "Fragment: Love the Universe to-Day", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "And who feels discord now or sorrow?", "Love is the universe to-day--", "These are the slaves of dim to-morrow,", "Darkening Life's labyrinthine way." ], "linecount": "4" }, { "title": "Fragment: 'A Gentle Story of Two Lovers Young'", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "A gentle story of two lovers young,", "Who met in innocence and died in sorrow,", "And of one selfish heart, whose rancour clung", "Like curses on them; are ye slow to borrow", "The lore of truth from such a tale?", "Or in this world's deserted vale,", "Do ye not see a star of gladness", "Pierce the shadows of its sadness,--", "When ye are cold, that love is a light sent", "From Heaven, which none shall quench, to cheer the innocent?" ], "linecount": "10" }, { "title": "Fragment: Love's Tender Atmosphere", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "There is a warm and gentle atmosphere", "About the form of one we love, and thus", "As in a tender mist our spirits are", "Wrapped in the ... of that which is to us", "The health of life's own life--" ], "linecount": "5" }, { "title": "Fragment: 'When a Lover Clasps His Fairest'", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "When a lover clasps his fairest,", "Then be our dread sport the rarest.", "Their caresses were like the chaff", "In the tempest, and be our laugh", "His despair--her epitaph!", "", "When a mother clasps her child,", "Watch till dusty Death has piled", "His cold ashes on the clay;", "She has loved it many a day--", "She remains,--it fades away." ], "linecount": "10" }, { "title": "Love, Hope, Desire, and Fear", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "...", "", "And many there were hurt by that strong boy,", "His name, they said, was Pleasure,", "And near him stood, glorious beyond measure", "Four Ladies who possess all empery", "In earth and air and sea,", "Nothing that lives from their award is free.", "Their names will I declare to thee,", "Love, Hope, Desire, and Fear,", "And they the regents are", "Of the four elements that frame the heart,", "And each diversely exercised her art", "By force or circumstance or sleight", "To prove her dreadful might", "Upon that poor domain.", "Desire presented her glass, and then", "The spirit dwelling there", "Was spellbound to embrace what seemed so fair", "Within that magic mirror,", "And dazed by that bright error,", "It would have scorned the of the avenger", "And death, and penitence, and danger,", "Had not then silent Fear", "Touched with her palsying spear,", "So that as if a frozen torrent", "The blood was curdled in its current;", "It dared not speak, even in look or motion,", "But chained within itself its proud devotion.", "Between Desire and Fear thou wert", "A wretched thing, poor heart!", "Sad was his life who bore thee in his breast,", "Wild bird for that weak nest.", "Till Love even from fierce Desire it bought,", "And from the very wound of tender thought", "Drew solace, and the pity of sweet eyes", "Gave strength to bear those gentle agonies,", "Surmount the loss, the terror, and the sorrow.", "Then Hope approached, she who can borrow", "For poor to-day, from rich tomorrow,", "And Fear withdrew, as night when day", "Descends upon the orient ray,", "And after long and vain endurance", "The poor heart woke to her assurance.", "--At one birth these four were born", "With the world's forgotten morn,", "And from Pleasure still they hold", "All it circles, as of old.", "When, as summer lures the swallow,", "Pleasure lures the heart to follow--", "O weak heart of little wit!", "The fair hand that wounded it,", "Seeking, like a panting hare,", "Refuge in the lynx's lair,", "Love, Desire, Hope, and Fear,", "Ever will be near." ], "linecount": "55" }, { "title": "Fragment: 'I Faint, I Perish With My Love!'", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "I faint, I perish with my love! I grow", "Frail as a cloud whose pale", "Under the evening's ever-changing glow:", "I die like mist upon the gale,", "And like a wave under the calm I fail." ], "linecount": "5" }, { "title": "Love's Rose", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "Hopes, that swell in youthful breasts,", "Live not through the waste of time!", "Love's rose a host of thorns invests;", "Cold, ungenial is the clime,", "Where its honours blow.", "Youth says, 'The purple flowers are mine,'", "Which die the while they glow.", "", "Dear the boon to Fancy given,", "Retracted whilst it's granted:", "Sweet the rose which lives in Heaven,", "Although on earth 'tis planted,", "Where its honours blow,", "While by earth's slaves the leaves are riven", "Which die the while they glow.", "", "Age cannot Love destroy,", "But perfidy can blast the flower,", "Even when in most unwary hour", "It blooms in Fancy's bower.", "Age cannot Love destroy,", "But perfidy can rend the shrine", "In which its vermeil splendours shine." ], "linecount": "21" } ]