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A Magic
Moment I Remember ~ Pushkin
A
Wedding-Song ~ John White Chadwick
From
- Air and Angels ~ John Donne
Destiny ~
Edwin Arnold
He who
knows Love ~ Elsa Barker
Sonnets
From The Portuguese 43: How Do I Love Thee? ~ Elizabeth
Barrett Browning
I Carry Your Heart with Me ~
e.e. cummings
I
Would Live In Your Love ~ Sara Teasdale
Irish Blessing
Love One Another ~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (1883-1931)
Love's
Philosophy ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
Prelude
~ Richard Aldington
Somewhere
I Have Never Traveled ~ e. e. cummings
Sonnet VII
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Tell me, my
Heart, if this be Love ~ George Lyttelton, Lord Lyttelton
The
Beloved: Reflections on the Path of the Heart ~ Kahlil Gibran
The Indian
Serenade ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
The
Kiss ~ Sara Teasdale, 1884-1933
True Love ~ Helen Steiner Rice
Your
Laughter ~ Pablo Neruda
A
Magic Moment I Remember ~ Pushkin
A magic moment I remember:
I raised my eyes and you were there,
A fleeting vision, the quintessence
Of all that's beautiful and rare.
I pray to mute despair and anguish,
To vain pursuits the world esteems,
Long did I near your soothing accents,
Long did your features haunt my dreams.
Time passed. A rebel storm-blast scattered
The reveries that once were mine
And I forgot your soothing accents,
Your features gracefully divine.
In dark days of enforced retirement
I gazed upon grey skies above
With no ideals to inspire me,
No one to cry for, live for, love.
Then came a moment of renaissance,
I looked up - you again are there,
A fleeting vision, the quintessence
Of all that`s beautiful and rare.
A Wedding-Song ~ John White Chadwick
I SAID: “My heart, now let us
sing a song
For a fair lady on her wedding-day;
Some solemn hymn or pretty roundelay,
That shall be with her as she goes along
To meet her joy, and for her happy feet
Shall make a pleasant music, low and sweet.”
Then said my heart: “It is right bold of thee
To think that any song that we could sing
Would for this lady be an offering
Meet for such gladness as hers needs must be,
What time she goes to don her bridal ring,
And her own heart makes sweetest carolling.”
And so it is that with my lute unstrung,
Lady, I come to greet thy wedding-day;
But once, methinks, I heard a poet say,
The sweetest songs remain for aye unsung.
So mine, unsung, at thy dear feet I lay,
And with a “Peace be with you!” go my way.
From - Air and Angels ~ John Donne
Twice or thrice had I loved thee,
Before I knew thy face or name;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame,
Angels affect us oft, and worshipped be;
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtle than the parent is
Love must not be, but take a body too;
And therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid love ask, and now
That it assume thy body I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.
Destiny ~ Edwin Arnold
Somewhere there waiteth in this
world of ours
For one lone soul another lonely soul
Each choosing each through all the weary hours
And meeting strangely at one sudden goal.
The blend they, like green leaves with golden flowers,
Into one beautiful and perfect whole;
And life's long night is ended, and the way
Lies open onward to eternal day.
He who knows Love ~ Elsa Barker
HE who knows Love—becomes Love,
and his eyes
Behold Love in the heart of everyone,
Even the loveless: as the light of the sun
Is one with all it touches. He is wise
With undivided wisdom, for he lies
In Wisdom’s arms. His wanderings are done,
For he has found the Source whence all things run—
The guerdon of the quest, that satisfies.
He who knows Love becomes Love, and he knows
All beings are himself, twin-born of Love.
Melted in Love’s own fire, his spirit flows
Into all earthly forms, below,
above;
He is the breath and glamour of the rose
Sonnets From The Portuguese 43:
How Do I Love Thee?
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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 everyday'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 the 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 saints,
--I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears,
of all my life!
--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
I Carry Your Heart with Me ~ e.e. cummings
i
carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it
in my heart)
I Would Live In Your Love ~ Sara Teasdale
I would live in your love as the sea-grasses
live in the sea,
Borne up by each wave as it passes,
drawn down by each wave that recedes;
I would empty my soul as the dreams
that have gathered in me,
I would beat with your heart as it beats,
I would follow your soul as it leads.
Irish
Blessing
May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
May God be with you and bless you:
May you see your children's children.
May you be poor in misfortune,
Rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward.
May the road rise up to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home
And may the hand of a friend always be near.
May green be the grass you walk on,
May blue be the skies above you,
May pure be the joys that surround you,
May true be the hearts that love you.
Love One Another
~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (1883-1931)
Love one another, but make not
a bond of love
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your
souls.
Fill each other's cup, but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread, but eat not from the same
loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone
though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping;
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together;
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's
shadow.
Love's Philosophy ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
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 a law divine
In another's being mingle--
Why not I with thine?
See, the mountains kiss high
heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower could be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?
Prelude
~ Richard Aldington
HOW could I love you more?
I would give up
Even that beauty I have loved too well
That I might love you better.
Alas, how poor the gifts that lovers give—
I can but give you of my flesh and strength,
I can but give you these few passing days
And passionate words that, since our speech began,
All lovers whisper in all ladies' ears.
I try to think of some one
lovely gift
No lover yet in all the world has found;
I think: If the cold sombre gods
Were hot with love as I am
Could they not endow you with a star
And fix bright youth for ever in your limbs?
Could they not give you all things that I lack?
You should have loved a god; I am but dust.
Yet no god loves as loves this poor frail dust.
Somewhere I Have Never Traveled
~ e. e. cummings
somewhere i have never
traveled,
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 easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, 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 colour 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
Sonnet VII
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The face of all the world is
changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole
God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,
And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
The names of country, heaven, are changed away
For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;
And this . . . this lute and song . . . loved yesterday,
(The singing angels know) are only dear
Because thy name moves right in what they say.
Tell me, my Heart, if this be Love
~ George Lyttelton, Lord Lyttelton
WHEN Delia on the plain
appears,
Awed by a thousand tender fears
I would approach, but dare not move:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
Whene'er she speaks, my ravish'd ear
No other voice than hers can hear,
No other wit but hers approve:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
If she some other youth commend,
Though I was once his fondest friend,
His instant enemy I prove:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
When she is absent, I no more
Delight in all that pleased before—
The clearest spring, or shadiest grove:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
When fond of power, of beauty vain,
Her nets she spread for every swain,
I strove to hate, but vainly strove:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
The Beloved:
Reflections on the Path of the Heart
~ Kahlil Gibran
Tell
me, O people, tell me!
Who among you would not wake from the sleep of life
if love were to brush your spirit with its fingertips?
Who among you would not forsake your father and your mother
and your home if the girl whom your heart loved were to call
to him?
Who among you would not cross the seas, traverse deserts,
go over mountains and valleys to reach the woman whom his
spirit has chosen?
What youth would not follow his heart to the ends of the earth
to breathe the sweetness of his lover's breath, feel the soft
touch of her hands,
delight in the melody of her voice?
What man would not immolate his soul
that its smoke might rise to a god who would hear his plea
and answer his prayer?
The
Indian Serenade ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me-who knows how? -
To thy chamber-window, sweet!
The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream,-
The champak odors fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
O, beloved as thou art!
O, lift me from the grass!
I die, I faint, I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast:
Oh! press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last!
The
Kiss ~ Sara Teasdale, 1884-1933
Before you kissed me only winds
of heaven
Had kissed me, and the tenderness of rain -
Now you have come, how can I care for kisses
Like theirs again?
I sought the sea, she sent her
winds to meet me,
They surged about me singing of the south -
I turned my head away to keep still holy
Your kiss upon my mouth.
And swift sweet rains of
shining April weather
Found not my lips where living kisses are;
I bowed my head lest they put out my glory
As rain puts out a star.
I am my love's and he is mine
forever,
Sealed with a seal and safe forevermore -
Think you that I could let a beggar enter
Where a king stood before?
True Love ~ Helen Steiner Rice
True
love is a sacred flame
That burns eternally,
And none can dim its special glow
Or change its destiny.
True love speaks in tender tones
And hears with gentle ear,
True love gives with open heart
And true love conquers fear.
True love makes no harsh demands
It neither rules nor binds,
And true love holds with gentle hands
The hearts that it entwines.
Your Laughter ~ Pablo Neruda
Take breath away from me, if
you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.
Do not take away the rose,
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 eyes tired
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 the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.
Laugh at the night,
at the day, at 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 I would die.
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