1247 Love poems

Immortal Heat, O let Thy greater flame Attract the lesser to it; let those fires Which shall consume the world first make it tame, And kindle in our hearts such true desires. As may consume our lusts, and make Thee way: Then shall our hearts pant Thee, then shall our brain All her invention on Thine altar lay, And there in hymns send back Thy fire again. Our eyes shall see Thee, which before saw dust, Dust blown by wit, till that they both were blind: Thou shalt recover all Thy goods in kind, Who wert disseized by usurping lust: All knees shall bow to Thee; all wits shall rise, And praise Him Who did make and mend our eyes.

Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back compare Song of Solomon 5:6. "I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had with drawen himself" (Authorized Version, 1611). "Bade" is past tense of "bid," and in Herbert's time was pronounced like "bad." Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack slack hesitant. Compare Herbert's use of the word in his poem The Church-Porch: "Who keeps no guard upon himself, is slack, / And rots to nothing at the next great thaw." (Perirrhanterium24, lines 139-140) From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lacked any thing. If I lacked any thing. echoes a version of Psalm 23, which begins: "The Lorde is my shepehearde: therfore can I lack nothing" (Psalms in the Version of the Great Bible, 1539) A guest, I answered, worthy to be here: Love said, You shall be he. I the unkind unkind undutiful. , ungrateful? Ah my dear Ah my dear Hopkins adopts this phrase in "The Windhover". As Norman H. MacKenzie notes, "Hopkins as an undergraduate was strongly attracted to George Herbert, an anglican divine and poet, and traces of that influence can be found throughout his writings". , I cannot look on thee. Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, Who made the eyes but I? Truth Lord, but I have marred marred to mar: "to do fatal or destructive bodily harm" (OED, 4a) them: let my shame Go where it doth deserve. And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame? My dear, then I will serve I will serve compare Luke 12:37. "Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he commeth, shall find watching: Verily, I say unto you, That he shall gird himself, and make them to sit downe to meat, and will come foorth and serve them." (Authorized Version, 1611) Compare also to the second stanza of Herbert's poem "Faith": "Hungry I was, and had no meat: / I did conceit a most delicious feast; / I had it straight, and did as truly eat, / As ever did a welcome guest." . You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat: You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat: compare Luke 12:37. "Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he commeth, shall find watching: Verily, I say unto you, That he shall gird himself, and make them to sit downe to meat, and will come foorth and serve them." (Authorized Version, 1611) Compare also to the second stanza of Herbert's poem "Faith": "Hungry I was, and had no meat: / I did conceit a most delicious feast; / I had it straight, and did as truly eat, / As ever did a welcome guest." So I did sit and eat. So I did sit and eat. compare Luke 12:37. "Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he commeth, shall find watching: Verily, I say unto you, That he shall gird himself, and make them to sit downe to meat, and will come foorth and serve them." (Authorized Version, 1611) Compare also to the second stanza of Herbert's poem "Faith": "Hungry I was, and had no meat: / I did conceit a most delicious feast; / I had it straight, and did as truly eat, / As ever did a welcome guest."

I Room after room, I hunt the house through We inhabit together. Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her— Next time, herself!—not the trouble behind her Left in the curtain, the couch's perfume! As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew: Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather. II Yet the day wears, And door succeeds door; I try the fresh fortune— Range the wide house from the wing to the centre. Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter. Spend my whole day in the quest,—who cares? But 'tis twilight, you see,—with such suites to explore, Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!

Under yonder beech-tree single on the green-sward, Couched with her arms behind her golden head, Knees and tresses folded to slip and ripple idly, Lies my young love sleeping in the shade. Had I the heart to slide an arm beneath her, Press her parting lips as her waist I gather slow, Waking in amazement she could not but embrace me: Then would she hold me and never let me go? Shy as the squirrel and wayward as the swallow, Swift as the swallow along the river's light Circleting the surface to meet his mirrored winglets, Fleeter she seems in her stay than in her flight. Shy as the squirrel that leaps among the pine-tops, Wayward as the swallow overhead at set of sun, She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer, Hard, but O the glory of the winning were she won! When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror, Tying up her laces, looping up her hair, Often she thinks, were this wild thing wedded, More love should I have, and much less care. When her mother tends her before the lighted mirror, Loosening her laces, combing down her curls, Often she thinks, were this wild thing wedded, I should miss but one for many boys and girls. Heartless she is as the shadow in the meadows Flying to the hills on a blue and breezy noon. No, she is athirst and drinking up her wonder: Earth to her is young as the slip of the new moon. Deals she an unkindness, 'tis but her rapid measure, Even as in a dance; and her smile can heal no less: Like the swinging May-cloud that pelts the flowers with hailstones Off a sunny border, she was made to bruise and bless. Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star. Lone on the fir-branch, his rattle-note unvaried, Brooding o'er the gloom, spins the brown eve-jar. Darker grows the valley, more and more forgetting: So were it with me if forgetting could be willed. Tell the grassy hollow that holds the bubbling well-spring, Tell it to forget the source that keeps it filled. Stepping down the hill with her fair companions, Arm in arm, all against the raying West Boldly she sings, to the merry tune she marches, Brave in her shape, and sweeter unpossessed. Sweeter, for she is what my heart first awaking Whispered the world was; morning light is she. Love that so desires would fain keep her changeless; Fain would fling the net, and fain have her free. Happy happy time, when the white star hovers Low over dim fields fresh with bloomy dew, Near the face of dawn, that draws athwart the darkness, Threading it with colour, as yewberries the yew. Thicker crowd the shades while the grave East deepens Glowing, and with crimson a long cloud swells. Maiden still the morn is; and strange she is, and secret; Strange her eyes; her cheeks are cold as cold sea-shells. Sunrays, leaning on our southern hills and lighting Wild cloud-mountains that drag the hills along, Oft ends the day of your shifting brilliant laughter Chill as a dull face frowning on a song. Ay, but shows the South-West a ripple-feathered bosom Blown to silver while the clouds are shaken and ascend Scaling the mid-heavens as they stream, there comes a sunset Rich, deep like love in beauty without end. When at dawn she sighs, and like an infant to the window Turns grave eyes craving light, released from dreams, Beautiful she looks, like a white water-lily Bursting out of bud in havens of the streams. When from bed she rises clothed from neck to ankle In her long nightgown sweet as boughs of May, Beautiful she looks, like a tall garden lily Pure from the night, and splendid for the day. Mother of the dews, dark eye-lashed twilight, Low-lidded twilight, o'er the valley's brim, Rounding on thy breast sings the dew-delighted skylark, Clear as though the dewdrops had their voice in him. Hidden where the rose-flush drinks the rayless planet, Fountain-full he pours the spraying fountain-showers. Let me hear her laughter, I would have her ever Cool as dew in twilight, the lark above the flowers. All the girls are out with their baskets for the primrose; Up lanes, woods through, they troop in joyful bands. My sweet leads: she knows not why, but now she totters, Eyes the bent anemones, and hangs her hands. Such a look will tell that the violets are peeping, Coming the rose: and unaware a cry Springs in her bosom for odours and for colour, Covert and the nightingale; she knows not why. Kerchiefed head and chin she darts between her tulips, Streaming like a willow grey in arrowy rain: Some bend beaten cheek to gravel, and their angel She will be; she lifts them, and on she speeds again. Black the driving raincloud breasts the iron gateway: She is forth to cheer a neighbour lacking mirth. So when sky and grass met rolling dumb for thunder Saw I once a white dove, sole light of earth. Prim little scholars are the flowers of her garden, Trained to stand in rows, and asking if they please. I might love them well but for loving more the wild ones: O my wild ones! they tell me more than these. You, my wild one, you tell of honied field-rose, Violet, blushing eglantine in life; and even as they, They by the wayside are earnest of your goodness, You are of life's, on the banks that line the way. Peering at her chamber the white crowns the red rose, Jasmine winds the porch with stars two and three. Parted is the window; she sleeps; the starry jasmine Breathes a falling breath that carries thoughts of me. Sweeter unpossessed, have I said of her my sweetest? Not while she sleeps: while she sleeps the jasmine breathes, Luring her to love; she sleeps; the starry jasmine Bears me to her pillow under white rose-wreaths. Yellow with birdfoot-trefoil are the grass-glades; Yellow with cinquefoil of the dew-grey leaf; Yellow with stonecrop; the moss-mounds are yellow; Blue-necked the wheat sways, yellowing to the sheaf: Green-yellow bursts from the copse the laughing yaffle; Sharp as a sickle is the edge of shade and shine: Earth in her heart laughs looking at the heavens, Thinking of the harvest: I look and think of mine. This I may know: her dressing and undressing Such a change of light shows as when the skies in sport Shift from cloud to moonlight; or edging over thunder Slips a ray of sun; or sweeping into port White sails furl; or on the ocean borders White sails lean along the waves leaping green. Visions of her shower before me, but from eyesight Guarded she would be like the sun were she seen. Front door and back of the mossed old farmhouse Open with the morn, and in a breezy link Freshly sparkles garden to stripe-shadowed orchard, Green across a rill where on sand the minnows wink. Busy in the grass the early sun of summer Swarms, and the blackbird's mellow fluting notes Call my darling up with round and roguish challenge: Quaintest, richest carol of all the singing throats! Cool was the woodside; cool as her white dairy Keeping sweet the cream-pan; and there the boys from school, Cricketing below, rushed brown and red with sunshine; O the dark translucence of the deep-eyed cool! Spying from the farm, herself she fetched a pitcher Full of milk, and tilted for each in turn the beak. Then a little fellow, mouth up and on tiptoe, Said, "I will kiss you": she laughed and leaned her cheek. Doves of the fir-wood walling high our red roof Through the long noon coo, crooning through the coo. Loose droop the leaves, and down the sleepy roadway Sometimes pipes a chaffinch; loose droops the blue. Cows flap a slow tail knee-deep in the river, Breathless, given up to sun and gnat and fly. Nowhere is she seen; and if I see her nowhere, Lightning may come, straight rains and tiger sky. O the golden sheaf, the rustling treasure-armful! O the nutbrown tresses nodding interlaced! O the treasure-tresses one another over Nodding! O the girdle slack about the waist! Slain are the poppies that shot their random scarlet Quick amid the wheatears: wound about the waist, Gathered, see these brides of Earth one blush of ripeness! O the nutbrown tresses nodding interlaced! Large and smoky red the sun's cold disk drops, Clipped by naked hills, on violet shaded snow: Eastward large and still lights up a bower of moonrise, Whence at her leisure steps the moon aglow. Nightlong on black print-branches our beech-tree Gazes in this whiteness: nightlong could I. Here may life on death or death on life be painted. Let me clasp her soul to know she cannot die! Gossips count her faults; they scour a narrow chamber Where there is no window, read not heaven or her. "When she was a tiny," one aged woman quavers, Plucks at my heart and leads me by the ear. Faults she had once as she learnt to run and tumbled: Faults of feature some see, beauty not complete. Yet, good gossips, beauty that makes holy Earth and air, may have faults from head to feet. Hither she comes; she comes to me; she lingers, Deepens her brown eyebrows, while in new surprise High rise the lashes in wonder of a stranger; Yet am I the light and living of her eyes. Something friends have told her fills her heart to brimming, Nets her in her blushes, and wounds her, and tames.— Sure of her haven, O like a dove alighting, Arms up, she dropped: our souls were in our names. Soon will she lie like a white-frost sunrise. Yellow oats and brown wheat, barley pale as rye, Long since your sheaves have yielded to the thresher, Felt the girdle loosened, seen the tresses fly. Soon will she lie like a blood-red sunset. Swift with the to-morrow, green-winged Spring! Sing from the South-West, bring her back the truants, Nightingale and swallow, song and dipping wing. Soft new beech-leaves, up to beamy April Spreading bough on bough a primrose mountain, you, Lucid in the moon, raise lilies to the skyfields, Youngest green transfused in silver shining through: Fairer than the lily, than the wild white cherry: Fair as in image my seraph love appears Borne to me by dreams when dawn is at my eyelids: Fair as in the flesh she swims to me on tears. Could I find a place to be alone with heaven, I would speak my heart out: heaven is my need. Every woodland tree is flushing like the dog-wood, Flashing like the whitebeam, swaying like the reed. Flushing like the dog-wood crimson in October; Streaming like the flag-reed South-West blown; Flashing as in gusts the sudden-lighted white beam: All seem to know what is for heaven alone.

Snow hurries the strawberries from the bush. Star-wet water rides you into summer, into my autumn. Your cactus hands are at my heart again. Lady, I court my dream of you in lilies and in rain. I vest myself in your oldest memory and in my oldest need. And in my passion you are the deepest blue of the oldest rose. Star circle me an axe. I cannot cut myself from any of your emblems. It will soon be cold here, and dark here; the grass will lie flat to search for its spring head. I will bow again in the winter of your eyes. If there is music, it will be the weather's bells to call me to the abandoned chapel of your simple body.

Love is a sickness full of woes, All remedies refusing; A plant that with most cutting grows, Most barren with best using. Why so? More we enjoy it, more it dies; If not enjoyed, it sighting cries, Heigh ho! Love is a torment of the mind, A tempest everlasting; And Jove hath made it of a kind Not well, not full, nor fasting. Why so? More we enjoy it, more it dies; If not enjoyed, it sighing cries, Heigh ho!

after Billie these vitamin double ds gonna put cows outta business. these Sunday bests if frozen would delight. unpasteurized & untamed they swing in the hammock of my torso. they magnetize my man's hands. like a Wonder Woman blast or a web of thunder from Storm's wrist, this cocktail is nurturing napalm manna dew, Pepto Bismol for civilization. you can't outwit these aureolas. these nipples are necrophilia's enemy. Coltrane couldn't blow these tumescent tubas. these are gourds that'll make a shekere obsolete, make an eggplant go pale. these breasts gonna put old Betsy outta business & send the men with goats a-packin. this love is like a faucet, it turns on & on.

love is more thicker than forget more thinner than recall more seldom than a wave is wet more frequent than to fail it is most mad and moonly and less it shall unbe than all the sea which only is deeper than the sea love is less always than to win less never than alive less bigger than the least begin less littler than forgive it is most sane and sunly and more it cannot die than all the sky which only is higher than the sky

Dear Miss, First of all I want to say that I have enjoyed the imaginary possibility, built of course on the fact that such possibility does exist in nature: I have seen the birds and other forms of nonhumanity occur in such postures that must be with men and women....I have imagined myself in such postures with you, where flight was discouraged only by the inherent possibility of the firm horizontal... As men give vast lands to little papers with line and color, I have imagined more on the surface of your body, giving all the universe in this model.... Yet, I must be curious about your breasts...curious...hungry is the word, to see, to touch, to taste....I am curious as to how your hands undress your body. I am interested in your mind: will you undress in front of me? Will you permit me the unparalleled pleasure of taking your clothes off? I feel that if I should have my penis in your vagina I should have your love; for you do not receive the wretched hardness of my desire into the sweet body of yourself without that you have not come to love me for reasons, if love has reasons, I cannot tell.... Your admirer

for B. H. I didn’t fall in love. I fell through it: Came out the other side moments later, hands full of matter, waking up from the dream of a bullet tearing through the middle of my body. I no longer understand anything for longer than a long moment, or the time it takes to receive the shot. This kind of gravity is like falling through a cloud, forgetting it all, and then being told about it later.On the day you fell through a cloud . . . It must be true. If it were not, then when did these strands of silver netting attach to my hair? The problem was finding that you were real and not just a dream of clouds. If you weren’t real, I would address this letter to one of two entities: myself, or everyone else. The effect would be equivalent. The act of falling happens in time. That is, it takes long enough for the falling to shear away from the moments before and the moments after, long enough for one to have thought I am falling. I have been falling. I continue to fall. Falling through a ring, in this case, would not mean falling through the center of the annulus—a planet floats there. Falling through the ring means falling through the spaces between the objects that together make the ring. On the way through, clasp your fists around the universe: Nothing but ice-gravel. But open your hands when you reach the other side. Quickly, before it melts. What did I leave you?