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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
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.
:) beautiful.
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?
Quote:
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)
I've always thought Neruda's love and sex poems were the best... but only in their original spanish. Alot of the lyrical effect is lost when its translated.
But still, "I Have Gone Marking" ( "He ido marcando") is definatly one of the best love poems ever written.
the best lines are the last ones:
Cuando he llagado al verice mas atrvido y frio
mi corazon se cierra como una flor nocturna.
translation:
When i have reached the most awesome and the coldest summit
my heart closes like a nocturnal flower.
I posted a Shakespeare sonnet here earlier, LXXV, I think, but I thought to share the below that I just read:
My lady carries love within her eyes;
All that she looks on is made a pleasanter;
Upon her path men turn to gaze at her;
He whom she greeteth feels his heart to rise,
And droops his troubled visage, full of sighs,
And of his evil heart is then aware:
Hate loves, and pride becomes a worshipper.
O women, help to praise her in somewise.
Humbleness, and the hope that hopeth well,
By speech of hers into the mind are brought,
And who beholds is blessed oftenwhiles.
The look she hath when she a little smiles
Cannot be said, nor holden in the thought;
'Tis such a new and gracious miracle.
Dante Alighieri
Translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
There are so many beautiful love poems and I agree with many of those which are posted on here. However, my favorite love poem is by E.E. Cummings. I love his poetry althought I am first to admit that I can barely appreciate and praise them as they should be. :rolleyes:
I would like to hear what you think of this poem as everytime I read it, I am in awe and cannot stop my heart pounding in my chest. So strong to me the feelings and sentiments he expresses in this poem. :blush:
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
Yet another post:
Sonnet LXXV
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
jBut came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
'Vain man,' said she, 'thou do'st in vain assay,
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay.
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.'
'Not so,' quoth I, 'let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name,
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.'
Sir Edmund Spenser
just got one ancient Chinese poem:
by Wen Tinjun
The feelings of the separation
What there is to say
But that the heart is
An endless river of stars
Some of the best love songs are the best poetry personally my two favorites are "leaving on a jet plane" and "Why don't you and I" the latter one is by CHad Kroeger and Santana
Morning Sleep
When ye morning riseth redde
Rise not thou, but keepe thy bedde,
When ye dawne is dull and graye
Sleepe is still ye better way,
Beastes arise betimes - but then
They are beastes, and we are men.
Is ye weather fayre and fine?
It shall give thee dreams divine;
Doth it poure with pelting rayne?
'Tis a hint to doze agayne.
Is it niether drye nor wette?
Waite until ye weather's sette.
Wouldst thou walke unscaveng'd streetes,
Catch from shaken mattes ye sweetes,
Straye forlorne though chillie roomes,
Stumble over casuall broomes,
Scowling house-maydes round thee scan?
These befall ye earlie man.
Morning sleepe avoydeth broyles,
Wasteth not in greedye toyles;
Doth not suffer care nor greefe,
Giveth aking bones releefe.
Of all ye crimes beneath ye sunne,
Say, which in morning sleepe was done?
Anon.
Maybe it's a burlesque, but I love it literally: Can be used as a love poem
In conjunction with a certain Ian Dury track
Which part of the UK are you from originally BSturdy? :)
The Bard is hard to beat. Not really a poem exactly but, anyway:
O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
my room is empty...
my self
self-inflicted scars, by myself.
Spinning out of control...
once again I'll go away and hold on
to my pride where I lock it up inside
my room...
my self
it's all empty now
you've drained me of my dignity
self-infliction of wounds poured over
a sauce of *%#@.
easily I fall down on to you from 90 stories
over and over...
Patience is time.
time is ugly, ugly, like me...
easily flying by, 90 stories down onto you.
green eyes, brown possessive cold stares
my life is over and i'm going down with it ending up
in a nightmare of my sanity pushing til' the end of my
chain, chain of love and anger.
full of myself...
once again we come back to you, back again...
we come back to you!
dw
BSturdy> Yes, it seems like Romeo has said it all :)
Pepper39> Is that your own poetry?
This is a good one, short for Donne yet that doesn't make it easier to work through.
Stay, O sweet, and do not rise;
The light that shines comes from thine eyes;
The day breaks not, it is my heart,
Because that you and I must part.
Stay, or else my joys will die.
And perish in their infancy.
Originally I think this is about a dream he had of his wife that had passed on, but let me know what you think!
My favourite is Wordsworth's - She Was a Phantom of Delight...
She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.
I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin-liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
A Traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.
I thought this poem was beautiful when I read it and I'm normally not a fan of "love poems".
Amor condusse noi ad una morte
Love is an anguish, a question,
a luminous doubt suspended;
it is a desire to know the whole of you
and a fear of finally knowing it.
To love is to reconstruct, when you are away,
your steps, your silences, your words,
and to pretend to follow your thoughts
when unmoving at last by me side, you fall silent.
Love is a secret rage,
an icy and diabolic pride.
To love is not to sleep when in my bed
you dream between my circling arms,
and to hate the dream in which, beneath your brow,
you abandon yourself, perhaps in other arms.
To love is to listen at your breast,
until my greedy ear is glutted,
to the noise of your blood and the tide
of your measured breath.
To love is to absorb your young sap
and join our mouths in one river-bed
until the breeze of your breath
impregnates my entrails forever.
Love is a mute, green envy,
a subtle and shining greed.
To love is to provoke the sweet moment
in which your skin seekd my awakened skin,
to gratify the nocturnal appetite
and to die once more the same death—
provisional, heart-rending, dark.
Love is a thirst, like that of a wound
that burns without being consumed or healing,
and the hunger of a tormented mouth
that begs for more and more and is not sated.
Love is an unaccustomed luxury
and a voracious gluttony, always empty.
But to love is also to close our eyes,
to let sleep invade our bodies
like a river of darkness and oblivion,
and to sail without a course, drifting;
because love, in the end, is indolence.
I agree with Leaving on a Jet Plane! It's so sweet!Quote:
Originally Posted by Jester
One of the best love poems is this one... although I don't know who wrote it:
Absence
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle
Everything I do is stitched with its colour
Tell me what you think of this one?
I have posted in this thread multiple times, but, well, this seems the life of a "sucker" for both art and love. I cannot possibly choose my favorite love poem, but I read this poem today, and felt an urge to share.
Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral;
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.
Soul and body have no bounds;
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's sensual ecstasy.
Certainy, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry;
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.
Beauty, midnight, vision dies;
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of sweetness show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find the mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness see you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.
W.H. Auden (1907-1973)
mono: You act as if you were the only one here. IF YOU FALL for Auden's drivel then you are aptly self-described. I would prefer "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" although I would not be so boorish as to quote it in its entirety. Dialogue, not mono-logue is what I desire. But please, don't be offended by my pale fire! I'm really an easy guy to get to know. If you'd care to, that is.
1 Corinthians 13 is, of course, the best poem on love available. I can guess what's coming next, of course!
Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress"
:lol:Since when is a poem on seduction an example of love!Quote:
Originally Posted by Rifka
It always amazes me how easily people confuse lust with love.
To His Coy Mistress is an elaborate ploy to make the "mistress"
give in to his sexual desires--simply put, he wants to have his way with her.
This is NOT a love poem.
Good suggestion. Some of T.S. Eliot's work I find a little difficult to understand, The Wasteland, for example, but The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock I have adored since my first read:Quote:
Originally Posted by SwiftSleigh7
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, `` What is it? ''
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening.
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains.
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys.
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me.
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ``Do I dare?'' and, ``Do I dare?''
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
[They will say: ``How his hair is growing thin!'']
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
[They will say: ``But how his arms and legs are thin!'']
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep. . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: `` I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all''--
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: ``That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.''
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor--
And this, and so much more?--
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow, or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
``That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.''
. . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
T.S. Eliot
---
I loved this one too - a classic of which I can never grow weary, though I can understand SwiftSleigh7's interpretation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rifka
To His Coy Mistress
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Andrew Marvell
Phyllis Gotlieb (1926-)
First Person Demonstrative
1 I'd rather
2 heave half a brick than say
3 I love you, though I do
4 I'd rather
5 crawl in a hole than call you
6 darling, though you are
7 I'd rather
8 wrench off an arm than hug you though
9 it's what I long to do
10 I'd rather
11 gather a posy of poison ivy than
12 ask if you love me
13 so if my
14 hair doesn't stand on end it's because
15 I never tease it
16 and if my
17 heart isn't in my mouth it's because
18 it knows its place
19 and if I
20 don't take a bite of your ear it's because
21 gristle gripes my guts
22 and if you
23 miss the message better get new
24 glasses and read it twice
This is one of the best modern love poems I can remember
I love how its understated irony mingles with the flavor of sarcasm to create an aftertaste of satire that teases as much as it satiates.
It's a great one, Swift! :) I've not heard anything about the author yet, so I'll have to google. The last 3 lines are hilarious and sad at the same time.
Paul Eluard "I Cannot Be Known"
I cannot be known
Better than you know me
Your eyes in which we sleep
We together
Have made for my man's gleam
A better fate than for the common nights
Your eyes in which I travel
Have given to signs along the roads
A meaning alien to the earth
In your eyes who reveal to us
Our endless solitude
Are no longer what they thought themselves to be
You cannot be known
Better than I know you.
Short and oh! so sweet:
"A Deep-Sworn Vow"
Others because you did not keep
That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine;
Yet always when I look death in the face,
When I clamber to the heights of sleep,
Or when I grow excited with wine,
Suddenly I meet your face.
"When You Are Old"
When you are old and grey 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 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.
I suppose unrequited (or almost unrequited) love has always been a catalyst for poetry.
Yeats is great:
I carry from my mother's womb
A fanatic heart.
By the way, how's the Brit-Lit coming along? :)
Re: the Brit-Lit -- I'm proceeding and persevering. Right now we're "doing Dickens," or more precisely, Great Expectations. I've a renewed appreciation for Mr. Dickens (it had been years since I'd last read any of his work); his abilities in character development and narrative technique are remarkable. But then I suppose that's why he's still being read. Some of the students have difficulty following the long descriptive passages. To counter the problem, we read excerpts and I try to get alot of discussion going. I think we'll wrap it all up with a Victorian-style tea party. Then...it's on to Ivanhoe. I might try a little Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Anyway, thanks for asking.
I just thought of another favorite love poem -- The Old Testament's "Song of Songs." If you want to read a wonderful translation, try the one by Ariel Bloch and Chana Bloch:
Bind me as a seal upon your heart,
a sign upon your arm,
for love is as fierce as death
its jealousy bitter as the grave
Even its sparks are a raging fire,
a devouring flame.
Great seas cannot extinguish love,
no river can sweep it away.
Another good one, classic:
The Passionate Shepherd to his Love
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers and a kirtle
Embroider'd 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.
Christopher Marlowe
I have to admit I don't really like poetry, but there is one poem that I love and will always stay with me called, "What were they like?" by Denise Levertov:
1. Did the people of Vietnam
use lanterns of stone?
2. Did they hold ceremonies
to reverence the opening of buds?
3. Were they inclined to quiet laughter?
4. Did they use bone and ivory,
and silver, for ornament?
5. Had they an epic poem?
6. Did they distinguish between speech and singing?
1. Sir, their light hearts turned to stone.
It is not remembered whether in gardens the lanterns illumined pleasant ways.
2. Perhaps they gathered once to delight in blossom,but after the children were killed, there were no more buds.
3. Sir, laughter is bitter to the burned mouth.
4. A dream ago, perhaps. Ornament is for joy.
All the bones were charred.
5. It is not remembered. Remember,
most were peasants; their life
was in rice and bamboo.
When peaceful clouds were reflected in the paddies
And the water buffalo stepped surely along terraces,
maybe fathers told their sons old tales.
When bombs smashed those mirrors
there was time only to scream.
6. There is an echo yet
Of their speech which was like a song.
It was reported their singing resembled
the flight of moths in moonlight.
Who can say? It is silent now.
Denise Levertov
It's not that you don't like poetry - it's jsut that you haven't found anything you like yet! Keep looking. ;)
This is mine :-)
Oh Beloved,
take me.
Liberate my soul.
Fill me with your love and
release me from the two worlds.
If I set my heart on anything but you
let fire burn me from inside.
Oh Beloved,
take away what I want.
Take away what I do.
Take away what I need.
Take away everything
that takes me from you.
[Rumi]