I've always loved "Faustine" by Algernon Charles Swinburne. A small, sickly guy who loved partying, paganism and free love -- a Lord Byron wannabe born half a century too late. It seems either people love him or hate him, because no one else I know likes him. But I think he's a lot of fun.This poem is too long, and possibly too racy, to post here so here's a link:
http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/d.../poem2082.html
If you had to live with this you'd rather lie than fall.
You think I can't fly? Well, you just watch me!
~The Dresden Dolls
Neruda wrote some of the best love poems without any doubt. I'm spanish so maybe it is easy for me to enjoy Neruda's poetry but you must read "Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche". I have found it in english but it's not the same... I like to read poetry in the original language, it's better but I guess you would not understand it in spanish
SADDEST POEM
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."
The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.
To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.
What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.
That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.
As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.
The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.
I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.
Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.
Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.
Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.
Tal vez consumirá la luz de enero, su rayo cruel, mi corazón entero, robándome la llave del sosiego.
por favor, Xiketa, quiero leerla en espanol, si la tiene. gracias.
shh!!!
the air and water have been here a long time, and they are telling stories.
Yes, of course I have it!
PUEDO ESCRIBIR LOS VERSOS MÁS TRISTES ESTA NOCHE
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Escribir, por ejemplo: "La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos."
El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.
En las noches como esta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.
Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.
Oir la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.
Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche esta estrellada y ella no está conmigo.
Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.
La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.
De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.
Porque en noches como esta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Aunque este sea el ultimo dolor que ella me causa,
y estos sean los ultimos versos que yo le escribo.
Tal vez consumirá la luz de enero, su rayo cruel, mi corazón entero, robándome la llave del sosiego.
One of the best love poets of all time, in my opinion, is the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire. "Company Commander" is one of my favorite love poems:
"My mouth will flame the sulphurs of the Pit
You will find my mouth a hell of sweetness and seduction
My mouth's angels will hold sway in your heart
My mouth's soldiers will take you by storm
The priests of my mouth will cense your beauty
Your soul will shake like a terrain in an earthquake
Your eyes will be charged will all the love that humanity has stored up in its eyes since the beginning
My mouth will be an army against you a stumbling awkward army
Tricky as a magician with his sleight of changing shapes
The choirs and orchestra of my mouth will tell you my love
It murmurs to you now from far away
While I stand here eyes fastened to my watch waiting for the exact moment to go over the top"
~ Company Commander (Chef de section), Guillaume Apollinaire
And as always, e.e. cummings and Dickinson are favorites as well. Also, check out Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, and Langston Hughes.
Yours,
Raven
Love is anterior to life,
Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, and
The exponent of breath.
~ Emily Dickinson
My favourite one is by Paul Eluard, but somehow I don't know its title, I can't find it anywhere. I can only write it in Polish:
Z czołem na szybie jak w smutku bezsenni
Niebo którego noc przebyłem
Małe równiny w moich otwartych dłoniach
W ich podwójnym horyzoncie biernym obojętnym
Z czołem na szybie jak w smutku bezsenni
Szukam Cię poza oczekiwaniem
Szukam Cie poza sobą
I już nie wiem tak Cię kocham
Kto z nas dwojga jest nieobecny
In dreams begin responsibilities.
I've found another one by Paul Eluard. This time fortunately in English.
The Beloved
She is standing on my eyelids
And her hair is wound in mine,
She has the form of my hands,
She has the colour of my eyes,
She is swallowed by my shadow
Like a stone against the sky.
Her eyes are always open
And will not let me sleep.
Her dreams in broad daylight
Make the suns evaporate
Make me laugh, cry and laugh,
Speak with nothing to say.
In dreams begin responsibilities.
shh!!!
the air and water have been here a long time, and they are telling stories.
My favorite love poem by Henrry VIII annd is called greensleeves, I do´t remember it well, but I think it is like:
Greensleeves was my delight
greensleeves was my heart of gold
Greensleeves was my heart of joy
and who but my lady greensleeves?
The most romantic poem in history proves difficult to decide, but Shakespeare's sonnet LXXV should make the list.
So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found;
Now proud as an enjoyer and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure;
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight
And by and by clean starved for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight,
Save what is had or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.
My favorate is <<when u r old>> by William Butler Yeats:
WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
"Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! "
Matthew Arnold: Dover Beach
they may be the sadest lines in the history. in this untrue world, the only thing that is true is true love. but is love always be true?
Vango,
Shakespeare says 'love is not love which alters when it alterations finds'. In other words, if love ends then it wasn't true love to begin with because love is everlasting.
Miranda
Hi, Miranda. Maybe you and Shakespeare are right. But before the feeling (since it is not love in your sense, i can only think of this word) ends, we take it as love. And when one is in..., he doesn't know (till he dies) if it will end some day. Anyway, Anything may happen. So no one can tell if he is in the true love? Only others can after his death?
Originally Posted by WingedSpirit
I can't help it, but this reminds me of another far less pretty verse:
Since I still appreciate you
Let's find love while we may
Because I know I'll hate you
When you are old and gray
So say you love me here and now
I'll make the most of that
Say you love and trust me
For I know you'll disgust me
When you're old and getting fat
An awful debility, a lessened utility
A loss of mobility is a strong possibility
In all probability I'll lose my virility
And you your fertility and desirability
And this liability of total sterility
Will lead to hostility and a sense of futility
So let's act with agility while we still have facility
For we'll soon reach senility and lose the ability
Your teeth will start to go, dear
Your waist will start to spread
In twenty years or so, dear
I'll wish that you were dead
I'll never love you then at all
The way I do today
So please remember
When I leave in December:
I told you so in May!
(Tom Lehrer)
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