| Beloved, My
Beloved
Beloved, My Beloved, when
I think
That thou wast in the world
a year ago,
What time I sat alone here
in the snow
And saw no footprint, heard
the silence sink
No momentat thy voice, but,
link by link,
Went counting all my chains
as if that so
They never could fall off
at any blow
Struck by thy possible hand,-why,
thus I drink
Of life's great cup of wonder!
Wonderful,
Never to feel thee thrill
the day or night
With personal act or speech,-nor
ever cull
Some prescience of thee
with the blossoms white
Thou sawest growing! Atheists
are as dull,
Who cannot guess God's presence
out of sight.
-- Elizabeth Barrett
Here are fruits,
flowers, leaves and branches,
And here is my heart which
beats only for you.
- - - -Paul Verlaine
"Romances sans Paroles"
The fountains
mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the
ocean,
The winds of heaven mix
forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world
is single;
All things by law divine
In one another's being 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 sunlight clasps the
earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the
sea;
What are all these kissings
worth
If thou kiss not me?
-- Shelly
I have loved
many, the more and the few -
I have loved many that I
might love you.
- - - -Grace Fallow Norton |
Sonnet XLIII
How do I love thee? Let me
count the ways.
I love thee to the depth
and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when
feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and
ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level
of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun
and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men
strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they
turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion
put to use
In my old griefs, and with
my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love
I seemed to lose
With my lost saint, - I
love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my
life! - and if God choose,
I shall but love thee better
after death.
--Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Love me sweet
With all thou art
Feeling, thinking, seeing;
Love me in the
Lightest part,
Love me in full
Being.
- - - - Elizabeth Barrett
Browning
Music, when the soft voices
die,
Vibrates in the memory.
Odours, when the sweet violets
sicken,
Live within the sense they
quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose
is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's
bed.
And so thy thoughts, when
thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber
on.
- Percy Shelley
Beauty never
slumbers;
All is in her name;
But the rose remembers
The dust from which it came.
- - - -Edna St. Vincent Millay |
