I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in neverending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazedand gazedbut little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

wordsworth

Who Ever Loved that Loved not at First Sight?

Who Ever Loved that Loved not at First Sight?

It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped,
long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should love,
the other win;
And one especially do we affect Of two gold ingots,
like in each respect: The reason no man knows;
let it suffice What we behold is censured by our eyes.
Where both deliberate,
the love is slight: Who ever loved, t
that loved not at first sight?.

christopher marlowe

The Bait

The Bait

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.
There will the river whisp'ring run
Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the sun ;
And there th' enamour'd fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.
When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.
If thou, to be so seen, be'st loth,
By sun or moon, thou dark'nest both,
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.
Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset,
With strangling snare, or windowy net.
Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks outwrest ;
Or curious traitors, sleevesilk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes.
For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait :
That fish, that is not catch'd thereby,
Alas ! is wiser far than I.

john donne

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

robert frost

The Canonization

The Canonization

For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love ;
Or chide my palsy, or my gout ;
My five gray hairs, or ruin'd fortune flout ;
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve ;
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his Honour, or his Grace ;
Or the king's real, or his stamp'd face
Contemplate ; what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.
Alas ! alas ! who's injured by my love?
What merchant's ships have my sighs drown'd?
Who says my tears have overflow'd his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
When did the heats which my veins fill
Add one more to the plaguy bill?
Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
Litigious men, which quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.
Call's what you will, we are made such by love ;
Call her one, me another fly,
We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,
And we in us find th' eagle and the dove.
The phoenix riddle hath more wit
By us ; we two being one, are it ;
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.
We can die by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tomb or hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse ;
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms ;
As well a wellwrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as halfacre tombs,
And by these hymns, all shall approve
Us canonized for love ;
And thus invoke us, "You, whom reverend love
Made one another's hermitage ;
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage ;
Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes ;
So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize—
Countries, towns, courts beg from above
A pattern of your love."

john donne

The Computation

The Computation

For my first twenty years, since yesterday,
I scarce believed thou couldst be gone away ;
For forty more I fed on favours past,
And forty on hopes that thou wouldst they might last ;
Tears drown'd one hundred, and sighs blew out two ;
A thousand, I did neither think nor do,
Or not divide, all being one thought of you ;
Or in a thousand more, forgot that too.
Yet call not this long life ; but think that I
Am, by being dead, immortal ; can ghosts die?.

john donne

The Flea

The Flea

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.
O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that selfmurder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

john donne

A Fever

A Fever

O! Do not die, for I shall hate
All women so, when thou art gone,
That thee I shall not celebrate,
When I remember thou wast one.
But yet thou canst not die, I know ;
To leave this world behind, is death ;
But when thou from this world wilt go,
The whole world vapours with thy breath.
Or if, when thou, the world's soul, go'st,
It stay, 'tis but thy carcase then ;
The fairest woman, but thy ghost,
But corrupt worms, the worthiest men.
O wrangling schools, that search what fire
Shall burn this world, had none the wit
Unto this knowledge to aspire,
That this her feaver might be it?.
And yet she cannot waste by this,
Nor long bear this torturing wrong,
For more corruption needful is,
To fuel such a fever long.
These burning fits but meteors be,
Whose matter in thee is soon spent ;
Thy beauty, and all parts, which are thee,
Are unchangeable firmament.
Yet 'twas of my mind, seizing thee,
Though it in thee cannot perséver ;
For I had rather owner be
Of thee one hour, than all else ever.

john donne

I Am Not Alone

I Am Not Alone

The night, it is desertedfrom the mountains to the sea.
But I, the one who rocks you, I am not alone!.
The sky, it is desertedfor the moon falls to the sea.
But I, the one who holds you,I am not alone!.
The world, it is deserted.
All flesh is sad you see.
But I, the one who hugs you,I am not alone!.

Close To Me

Close To Me

Little fleece of my flesh
that I wove in my womb,
little shivering fleece,
sleep close to me!.
The partridge sleeps in the clover
hearing its heart beat.
My breathing will not wake you.
Sleep close to me!.
Little trembling blade of grass
astonished to be alive,
don't leave my breast.
Sleep close to me!.
I who have lost everything
am now afraid to sleep.
Don't slip away from my arms.
Sleep close to me!.

Gabriela Mistral

Book Of Love - The Types

Book Of Love - The Types

List, and in memory bearThese six fond loving pair.
Love, when aroused, kept trueRustan and Rad!
Strangers approach from farJoseph and Suleika;
Love, void of hope, is inFerhad and Schirin.
Born for each other areMedschnun and Lily;
Loving, though old and grey,Dschemil saw Boteinah.
Love's sweet caprice anon,Brown maid and Solomon!
If thou dost mark them well,Stronger thy love will swell.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Clenched Soul

Clenched Soul

We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window
The fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun
Burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched
In that sadness of mine that, you know.
Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?

Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly?
When I am sad and feel you are far away?
The book fell, that always closed at twilight
And my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.
Always, always you recede through the evenings
Toward the twilight, erasing statues.

Lovely one.

Lovely one.

Lovely one,
There is nothing like your hips,
Perhaps earth has
In some hidden place
The curve and the fragrance of your body,
Perhaps in some place,
Lovely one.

Lovely one, my lovely one,
Your voice, your skin, your nails,
Lovely one, my lovely one,
Your being, your light, your shadow,
Lovely one,
All that is mine, lovely one,
All that is mine, my dear,
When you walk or rest,
When you sing or sleep,
When you suffer or dream,
Always,
When you are near or far,
Always,
You are mine, my lovely one,
Always.

And Now You´re Mine

And Now You´re Mine

And now you're mine. Rest with your dream in my dream.
Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.
The night turns on its invisible wheels,
And you are pure beside me as a sleeping ember.

No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go,
We will go together, over the waters of time.
No one else will travel through the shadows with me,
Only you, ever green, ever sun, ever moon.

Your hands have already opened their delicate fists
And let their soft drifting signs drop away;
Your eyes closed like two gray wings, and I move
After, following the folding water you carry, that carries
Me away. The night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny.
Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all.

Love, We´re Going Home Now

Love, We´re Going Home Now

Love, we're going home now,
Where the vines clamber over the trellis:
Even before you, the summer will arrive,
On its honeysuckle feet, in your bedroom.

Our nomadic kisses wandered over all the world:
Armenia, dollop of disinterred honey:
Ceylon, green dove: and the YangTse with its old
Old patience, dividing the day from the night.

And now, dearest, we return, across the crackling sea
Like two blind birds to their wall,
To their nest in a distant spring:

Because love cannot always fly without resting,
Our lives return to the wall, to the rocks of the sea:
Our kisses head back home where they belong.

Your Laughter

Your Laughter

Take my breath away, if you wish,
Take the air away, but
Do not take your laughter away from me.

Do not take the rose away,
The lanceflower that you pluck,
The water that suddenly
Bursts forth in your joy,
The sudden wave
Of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
With tired eyes
At times from having seen
The unchanging earth,
But when your laughter enters
It rises to the sky seeking me
And it opens for me all
The doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
Hour your laughter
Opens, and if suddenly
You see my blood staining
The stones of the street
Laugh, because your laughter
Will be for my hands
Like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in autumn,
Your laughter must raise
Its foamy cascade,
And in spring, love,
I want your laughter like
The flower I was waiting for,
The blue flower, the rose
Of my echoing country.

Laugh in the night,
In the day, on the moon,
Laugh at the twisted
Streets of the island,
Laugh at this clumsy
Boy who loves you,
But when I open
My eyes and close them,
When my steps go,
When my steps return,
Deny me bread, air,
Light, spring,
But never your laughter
For which I would die.

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

If Your Eyes Were Not The Colour Of The Moon

If Your Eyes Were Not The Colour Of The Moon

If your eyes were not the colour of the moon,
Of a day full of clay, and work, and fire,
If even held in you did not move in agile grace like the air,
If you were not an amber week,

Not the yellow moment
When autumn climbs up through the vines;
If you were not that bread the fragrant moon
Kneads, sprinkling its flour across the sky

Oh, my dearest, I would not love you so!
But when I hold you I hold everything that is,
Sand, time, the tree of the rain,

Everything is alive so that I can be alive:
Without moving I can see it all:
In your life I see everything that lives.

pablo neruda

The Queen

The Queen
I have named you queen.
There are taller than you, taller.
There are purer than you, purer.
There are lovelier than you, lovelier.
But you are the queen.

When you go through the streets
No one recognizes you.
No one sees your crystal crown, no one looks
At the carpet of red gold
That you tread as you pass,
The nonexistent carpet.

And when you appear
All the rivers sound
In my body, bells
Shake the sky,
And a hymn fills the world.

Only you and I,
Only you and I, my love,
Listen to me.

Pablo neruda

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (Sonnet 18)

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (Sonnet 18)

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare

Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun

Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

William Shakespeare

A Pretty Woman
I.
That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers,And the blue eyeDear and dewy,And that infantine fresh air of hers!
II.
To think men cannot take you, Sweet,And enfold you,Ay, and hold you,And so keep you what they make you, Sweet!
III
You like us for a glance, you know---For a word's sakeOr a sword's sake,All's the same, whate'er the chance, you know.
IV.
And in turn we make you ours, we say---You and youth too,Eyes and mouth too,All the face composed of flowers, we say.
V.
All's our own, to make the most of, Sweet---Sing and say for,Watch and pray for,Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet!
VI.
But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet,Though we prayed you,Paid you, brayed youin a mortar---for you could not, Sweet!
VII.
So, we leave the sweet face fondly there:Be its beautyIts sole duty!Let all hope of grace beyond, lie there!
VIII.
And while the face lies quiet there,Who shall wonderThat I ponderA conclusion? I will try it there.
IX.
As,---why must one, for the love foregone,Scout mere liking?Thunder-strikingEarth,---the heaven, we looked above for, gone!
X.
Why, with beauty, needs there money be,Love with liking?Crush the fly-kingIn his gauze, because no honey-bee?
XI.
May not liking be so simple-sweet,If love grew there'Twould undo thereAll that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet?
XII.
Is the creature too imperfect,Would you mend itAnd so end it?Since not all addition perfects aye!
XIII.
Or is it of its kind, perhaps,Just perfection---Whence, rejectionOf a grace not to its mind, perhaps?
XIV.
Shall we burn up, tread that face at onceInto tinder,And so hinderSparks from kindling all the place at once?
XV.
Or else kiss away one's soul on her?Your love-fancies!---A sick man seesTruer, when his hot eyes roll on her!
XVI.
Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose,---Plucks a mould-flowerFor his gold flower,Uses fine things that efface the rose:
XVII.
Rosy rubies make its cup more rose,Precious metalsApe the petals,---Last, some old king locks it up, morose!
XVIII.
Then how grace a rose? I know a way!Leave it, rather. Must you gather?Smell, kiss, wear it---at last, throw away!

Robert Browning

Song

Song

I.
Nay but you, who do not love her,
Is she not pure gold, my mistress?
Holds earth aught---speak truth---above her?
Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,
And this last fairest tress of all,So fair, see, ere I let it fall?
II.
Because, you spend your lives in praising;
To praise, you search the wide world over:
Then why not witness, calmly gazing,
If earth holds aught---speak truth---above her?
Above this tress, and this, I touch
But cannot praise, I love so much!

Robert Browning