Poetry about love

Poetry about love.

A

 * “Love,” Asa said, “is like a pigeon shitting over a crowd.” “How so?” “Where it lands hasn’t got much to do with who deserves it.”
 * Daniel Abraham, The Meaning of Love, in George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois (eds.) Rogues (2014), p. 397

Hast thou more of pain or pleasure! Endless torments dwell about thee: Yet who would live, and live without thee!
 * Mysterious love, uncertain treasure,
 * Joseph Addison, Rosamond (c. 1707), Act III, scene 2

The strong, the brave, the virtuous, and the wise, Sink in the soft captivity together.
 * When love's well-timed 'tis not a fault to love;
 * Joseph Addison, Cato, A Tragedy (1713), Act III, scene 1

(In spite of all the virtue we can boast), The woman that deliberates is lost.
 * When love once pleads admission to our hearts,
 * Joseph Addison, Cato, A Tragedy (1713), Act IV, scene 1

exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life.
 * We, unaccustomed to courage
 * Maya Angelou, Love's Exquisite Freedom (2011)

Who shines so bright In all the songs of Love's unending spells? Holy lightning strikes all that's evil Teaching us to love for goodness sake. Hear the music of Love Eternal Teaching us to reach for goodness sake.
 * Who sings of all of Love's eternity
 * Jon Anderson, in "Loved by the Sun", from movie Legend (1985)


 * If we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls.
 * Maya Angelou, Love's Exquisite Freedom (2011)

and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.
 * Love costs all we are
 * Maya Angelou, Love's Exquisite Freedom (2011)

ἐκ σέθεν οὐλόμεναί τ᾽ ἔριδες στοναχαί τε γόοι τε, ἄλγεά τ᾽ ἄλλ᾽ ἐπὶ τοῖσιν ἀπείρονα τετρήχασιν.
 * Σχέτλι᾽ Ἔρως, μέγα πῆμα, μέγα στύγος ἀνθρώποισιν,
 * Unconscionable Love, bane and tormentor of mankind, parent of strife, fountain of tears, source of a thousand ills.
 * Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book IV, lines 445–447 (tr. E. V. Rieu)

To unlock the heart, and let it speak? Are even lovers powerless to reveal To one another what indeed they feel? I knew the mass of men conceal'd Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd They would by other men be met With blank indifference, or with blame reproved; I knew they lived and moved Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest Of men, and alien to themselves — and yet The same heart beats in every human breast!
 * Alas! is even love too weak
 * Matthew Arnold, "The Buried Life" (1852), st. 2

To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.
 * Ah, love, let us be true
 * Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach (1867), St. 4

All the things that we accept Be the things that we regret
 * What love will make you do
 * Ashanti, Foolish (January 29, 2002) from the April 2, 2002 album Ashanti

To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die.
 * Hunger allows no choice
 * W. H. Auden, September 1, 1939'' (1939) Lines 78-88; for a 1955 anthology text the poet changed this line to "We must love one another and die" to avoid what he regarded as a falsehood in the original.

B
Ask what is good of God above; Ask of the great sun what is light; Ask what is darkness of the night; Ask sin of what may be forgiven; Ask what is happiness of heaven; Ask what is folly of the crowd; Ask what is fashion of the shroud; Ask what is sweetness of thy kiss; Ask of thyself what beauty is.
 * Ask not of me, love, what is love?
 * Philip James Bailey, Festus (1813), scene A Party and Entertainment


 * Could I love less, I should be happier now.
 * Philip James Bailey, Festus (1813), scene Garden and Bower by the Sea

And yet I know not why; It is the one great woe of life To feel all feeling die.
 * I cannot love as I have loved,
 * Philip James Bailey, Festus (1813), scene A Party and Entertainment


 * Love spends his all, and still hath store.
 * Philip James Bailey, Festus (1813), scene A Party and Entertainment


 * The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love.
 * Philip James Bailey, Festus (1813), scene Alcove and Garden

Dark is the sky I know this love of mine Will never die And I love her
 * Bright are the stars that shine
 * The Beatles, And I Love Her (1964)from the 1964 album A Hard Day's Night

Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives its ease, And builds a heaven in hell’s despair.
 * Love seeketh not itself to please,
 * William Blake, The Clod and the Pebble, st. 1 in: Songs of Experience (1794)


 * Man, you got to have love just to set it straight Take control of your mind and meditate Let your soul gravitate to the love y'all
 * The Black Eyed Peas, Where Is the Love? (2003)


 * If you never know truth then you never know love.
 * The Black Eyed Peas, Where Is the Love? (2003)

Love that does not expect to be loved.
 * The mightiest love was granted him
 * Jorge Luis Borges, of Baruch Spinoza in "Baruch Spinoza", as translated in Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Marrano of Reason (1989) by Yirmiyahu Yovel

Except for love's sake only. Do not say "I love her for her smile — her look — her way Of speaking gently, — for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" — For these things in themselves, Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee, — and love, so wrought, May be unwrought so. Neither love me for Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, — A creature might forget to weep, who fbore Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby! But love me for love's sake, that evermore Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.
 * If thou must love me, let it be for nought
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portugese, No. XIV

A queen might stop at, near the palace-door, To say to a courtier, "Pluck that rose for me, It's prettier than the rest." O Romney Leigh! I'd rather far be trodden by his foot, Than lie in a great queen's bosom.
 * I would not be a rose upon the wall
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1856), Book IV

And when a woman says she loves a man, The man must hear her, though he love her not.
 * But I love you, sir:
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1856), Book IX

And hope and fear (believe the aged friend), Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,— How love might be, hath been indeed, and is.
 * For life, with all it yields of joy and woe,
 * Robert Browning, A Death in the Desert (1864)

On earth, that soonest pass away. The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
 * Loveliest of lovely things are they,
 * William Cullen Bryant, A Scene on the Banks of the Hudson, st. 3 (1828)

I shall concern myself anew about the boundary Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No And pressing forward honor reality. We cannot avoid Using power, Cannot escape the compulsion To afflict the world, So let us, cautious in diction And mighty in contradiction, Love powerfully.
 * Every morning
 * Martin Buber, in "Power and Love" (1926)

To love us too. We wait for your move.
 * We needed you
 * Kate Bush, The Dreaming (1982), All The Love

Of love and grief never normally seen. I didn't want to let them see me weep, I didn't want to let them see me weak, But I know I have shown That I stand at the gates alone.
 * Only tragedy allows the release
 * Kate Bush, The Dreaming (1982), All The Love

To love me too. I wait for your move.
 * I needed you
 * Kate Bush, The Dreaming (1982), All The Love

All the love we should have given. All the love, all the love, All the love you could have given. All the love...
 * All the love, all the love,
 * Kate Bush, The Dreaming (1982), All The Love

I need love love love love love, yeah!
 * Do you know what I really need?
 * Kate Bush, Hounds of Love (1985), Hounds of Love

Begin to bleed, Begin to breathe, Begin to speak. D'you know what? I love you better now.
 * The light
 * Kate Bush, Hounds of Love (1985), side two of the album called The Ninth Wave, song The Morning Fog

We give it out And in the end What's it all about? It must be love.
 * We let it in
 * Kate Bush, The Red Shoes (1993), And So Is Love

"Ah Hell, we're young" But now we see that life is sad And so is love.
 * We used to say
 * Kate Bush, The Red Shoes (1993), And So Is Love

A song of seeds The food of love. Eat the music.
 * What am I singing?
 * Kate Bush, The Red Shoes (1993), Eat the Music

But don't I know you? There's just something about you. Haven't we met before? We've been in love forever.
 * Excuse me I'm sorry to bother you,
 * Kate Bush, 50 Words for Snow (2011), Snowed In at Wheeler Street

You might feel it and just not show it.
 * There's someone who's loved you forever but you don't know it.
 * Kate Bush, 50 Words for Snow (2011), Among Angels

Beloved, ooh, All and everywhere, Only the fools blew it. You and me Knew life itself is Breathing...
 * I love my
 * Kate Bush, Never for Ever (1980), Breathing

As fire in antique Roman urns.
 * Love in your hearts as idly burns
 * Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part II (1664), Canto I

Then spare the rod and spoil the child.
 * Love is a boy by poets styl'd:
 * Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part II (1664), Canto I, line 843

To gain a soft and gentle bride? Or for a lady tender-hearted, In purling streams or hemp departed?
 * What mad lover ever dy'd,
 * Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part III (1678), Canto I

Let sage or cynic prattle as he will, These hours, and only these, redeem Life's years of ill.
 * Oh Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band,
 * Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto II (1812), Stanza 81

Their love can scarce deserve the name.
 * The cold in clime are cold in blood,
 * Lord Byron, The Giaour (1813), line 1,099

Is human love the growth of human will?
 * Why did she love him? Curious fool!—be still—
 * Lord Byron, Lara, A Tale (1814), Canto II, Stanza 22

There was but one beloved face on earth, And that was shining on him.
 * And to his eye
 * Lord Byron, The Dream (1816), Stanza 2

For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart Was darken'd with her shadow.
 * She knew she was by him beloved,—she knew
 * Lord Byron, The Dream (1816), Stanza 3

Is bitterer still.
 * Who loves, raves—'tis youth's frenzy—but the cure
 * Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto IV (1818), Stanza 123

With one fair Spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her!
 * O! that the Desert were my dwelling place,
 * Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto IV (1818), Stanza 177

'Tis woman's whole existence: man may range The court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart, Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart, And few there are whom these cannot estrange; Men have all these resources, we but one, To love again, and be again undone.
 * Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
 * Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto I, Stanza 194

To be a lovely and a fearful thing.
 * Alas! the love of women! it is known
 * Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto II, Stanza 199

In all the others, all she loves is love.
 * In her first passion woman loves her lover;
 * Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto III, Stanza 3. La Rochefoucauld. Maxims. No. 497

C

 * I fall in love too easily I fall in love too fast I fall in love too terribly hard For love to ever last My heart should be well-schooled Cause I've been fooled in the past But still I fall in love so easily I fall in love too fast
 * Sammy Cahn,  (1944)


 * Amor é um fogo que arde sem se ver, É ferida que dói, e não se sente; É um contentamento descontente, É dor que desatina sem doer. É um não querer mais que bem querer; É um andar solitário entre a gente; É nunca contentar-se de contente; É um cuidar que ganha em se perder. É querer estar preso por vontade; É servir a quem vence, o vencedor; É ter com quem nos mata, lealdade. Mas como causar pode seu favor Nos corações humanos amizade, Se tão contrário a si é o mesmo Amor?
 * Love is a ﬁre that burns, but is never seen; a wound that hurts, but is never perceived; a pleasure that starts a pain that’s unrelieved; a pain that maddens without any pain; a serene desire for nothing, but wishing her only the best; a lonely passage through the crowd; the resentment of never being content with one’s contentment; a caring that gains only when losing; an obsessed desire to be bound, for love, in jail; a capitulation to the one you’ve conquered yourself; a devotion to your own assassin every single day. So how can Love conform, without fail, every captive human heart, if Love itself is so contradictory in every possible way?
 * Luís de Camões, Amor é fogo que arde sem se ver, translated by William Baer

To me the worst of crimes—outliv'd my liking.
 * What have I done? What horrid crime committed?
 * Colley Cibber, Richard III (1700), Act III, scene 2; altered from Shakespeare

There are no stars aligned, No amulets no charms, To bring you back to my arms. There's just this human heart. That's built with this human fault. What was your question? Love is the answer.
 * There are no signs,
 * Annie Clark (St. Vincent), in "All My Stars Aligned" on Marry Me (2007)

Ye shall grow a part Of the laughing Sea; Of the moaning heart Of the glittered wave Of the sun-gleam's dart In the ocean-grave. Fair, cold, and faithless wert thou, my own! For that I love Thy heart of stone! From the heights above To the depths below, Where dread things move, There is naught can show A life so trustless! Proud be thy crown! Ruthless, like none, save the Sea, alone!
 * Years! Years, ye shall mix with me!
 * Voltairine de Cleyre, "The Dirge of the Sea" (April 1891)

When the path is thorny and Wild, I'll look back to the Eyes in the twilight, Back to the eyes that smiled. And pray that a wreath like a rainbow May slip from the beautiful past, And Crown me again with the sweet, strong love And keep me, and hold me fast.
 * And sometimes when I am weary,
 * Voltairine de Cleyre, And Thou Too (1888)

They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem. If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn, They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.
 * When they lay down beside me I made my confession to them.
 * Leonard Cohen, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), Sisters of Mercy

But you sent me down below. You kept me from believing Until you let me know: That I am not the one who loves — It's love that chooses me. When hatred with his package comes, You forbid delivery.''
 * I swept the marble chambers,
 * Leonard Cohen, Ten New Songs (2001), You Have Loved Enough

Straight from the sun above, And so inside my little room There plunged the rays of Love. In streams of light I clearly saw The dust you seldom see, Out of which the Nameless makes A Name for one like me.
 * The light came through the window,
 * Leonard Cohen, Ten New Songs (2001), "Love Itself"


 * Anything that's worth havin' Sure enough worth fighting for. Quittin's out of the question When it gets tough, gotta fight some more. ... We gotta fight, fight, fight, fight, fight for this love. If its woth having, it's worth fightin for.
 * Cheryl Cole, Fight for This Love (2009)


 * Now everyday ain't gonna be no picnic Love ain't no walk in the park All you can do is make the best of it now Can't be afraid of the dark Just know that you're not in this thing alone There's always a place in me that you can call home.
 * Cheryl Cole, Fight for This Love (2009)

Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame.
 * All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
 * Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Love, st. 1 (1799)

There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee, The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy. You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within.
 * And in Life's noisiest hour,
 * Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Presence of Love (1807), lines 1-4

How oft! I bless the Lot, that made me love you.
 * And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,
 * Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Presence of Love (1807), lines 10-11

Friendship is a sheltering tree; Oh the joys that came down shower-like, Of friendship, love, and liberty, Ere I was old!
 * Flowers are lovely; love is flower-like;
 * Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Youth and Age, st. 2 (1823-1832)

The presence of the love it would conceal.
 * In many ways doth the full heart reveal
 * Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Poems Written in Later Life, motto (1826)

Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart!
 * To know, to esteem, to love, and then to part,
 * Samuel Taylor Coleridge,Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), On taking Leave of ————'' (1817)

Why Love must needs be blind, But this the best of all I hold,— His eyes are in his mind.
 * I have heard of reasons manifold
 * Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), To a Lady, Offended by a Sportive Observation

To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! He prayeth well, who loveth well Both man and bird and beast.
 * Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
 * Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1817), Stanza 22


 * Now here we are, The two of us, And nothing's gonna come between us again. Forever love, I feel you're with me, You're the sun that chases away the rain. I cherish all the love you bring, It's here forever and a day, I love you more than anything, I can't throw that away. My Love. [...] For the memory of you, For all the times we shared together, For all we've been through, Forever Love.
 * ,, Forever Love (1992)

In reason, is judicious, manly, free.
 * Our love is principle, and has its root
 * William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book V, line 353

Mine, all mine, and for love, not duty: Love given willingly, full and free, Love for love's sake — as mine to thee. Duty's a slave that keeps the keys, But Love, the master, goes in and out Of his goodly chambers with song and shout, Just as he please — just as he please.
 * Mine to the core of the heart, my beauty!
 * Dinah Craik, Poems (1866), "Plighted"


 * I was searching for an answer In a world so full of strangers But what I found was never really enough Now that I've found you I'm looking in the eyes of love (In the eyes of love) Baby you've been good to me Oh, so much more that you could know, yeah, yeah I never thought that I would find Someone who's so sweet and kind Like you...  Please believe me when I say This time I won't run away I swear by all the heaven's stars above Now that I've found you I'm looking in the eyes of love  Looking in the eyes of love... I can see forever, yeah... I can see you and me Walking in this world together  Oh, my heart's found a hope... I've been dreaming of... Now that I've found you I'm looking in the eyes of love
 * The Corrs, Looking in the Eyes of Love from the In Blue'' (2004)

—i say though hate were why men breathe— because my father lived his soul love is the whole and more than all
 * and nothing quite so least as truth
 * E. E. Cummings, 50 Poems (1940), Poem #34

…it is more sane and sunly and more it cannot die than all the sky which only is higher than the sky
 * Love is more thicker than forget
 * E. E. Cummings, 50 Poems (1940), Poem #42

whose doom is beauty and its fate to grow
 * Measureless our pure living complete love
 * E. E. Cummings, 50 Poems (1940), Poem #50

but' her,my 'love creates love only' our
 * 'And liars kill their kind
 * E. E. Cummings, 1 x 1 (1944), XXXII

(who's imagined, therefore limitless) love's to giving as to keeping's give; as yes is to if, love is to yes
 * Nothing false and possible is love
 * E. E. Cummings, 1 x 1 (1944), XXXIV

live longer than all which and every who;
 * True lovers in each happening of their hearts
 * E. E. Cummings, 1 x 1 (1944), XXXVI

love is a deeper season than reason
 * Yes is a pleasant country…
 * E. E. Cummings, 1 x 1 (1944), XXXVIII

Love only has ever been, is, and will ever be, So
 * I feel that(false and true are merely to know)
 * E. E. Cummings, XAIPE (1950), 33

so worse than worst you fall in hate with love —human one mortally immortal I can turn immense all time's because to why
 * No evil is
 * E. E. Cummings, 95 poems (1958), poem #7


 * Lovers alone wear sunlight
 * E. E. Cummings, 95 poems (1958), poem #91

sings only —and all lovers are the song
 * The whole truth…
 * E. E. Cummings, 95 poems (1958), poem #91

…love was and shall be this only truth (a dream of a deed, born not to die)
 * it's love by whom (my beautiful friend) the gift to live is without until:
 * E. E. Cummings, 73 poems (1963), poem#4

—love
 * The axis of the universe
 * E. E. Cummings, 73 poems (1963), poem#73

D
In things that are ephemeral I'm my only friend of mine And love is just a piece of time in the world in the world. And I couldn't help but fall in love again.
 * I somehow see what's beautiful
 * Zooey Deschanel, She & Him : Volume One (2008), "I Thought I Saw Your Face Today"

Piece of the puzzle, you're my missing part Oh what can you do with a sentimental heart?
 * Old habits die hard when you got, when you got a sentimental heart
 * Zooey Deschanel, She & Him : Volume One (2008), "Sentimental Heart"

Like the balmy breath of a Summer's day....... Love is not a passion of earthly mould As a thirst for honour, or fame, or gold
 * Love is not a feeling to pass away
 * Charles Dickens, From Lucy's Song in The Poems and Verses of Charles Dickens, Chapman & Hall, London 1903

With the device of a great snake, whose breath Was a fiery flame: which when I did behold I fell a-weeping and I cried, "Sweet youth, Tell me why, sad and sighing, thou dost rove These pleasant realms? I pray thee speak me sooth What is thy name?" He said, "My name is Love." Then straight the first did turn himself to me And cried, "He lieth, for his name is Shame, But I am Love, and I was wont to be Alone in this fair garden, till he came Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame." Then sighing said the other, "Have thy will, "I am the Love that dare not speak its name."
 * A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought with gold
 * Lord Alfred Douglas from Two Loves (1894)

Which kindles honor into noble acts.
 * Love is a passion
 * John Dryden, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 392

Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.
 * Love taught him shame, and shame with love at strife
 * John Dryden, Cymon and Iphigenia (1700), line 134

Than all other pleasures are.
 * Pains of love be sweeter far
 * John Dryden, Tyrannick Love (1669), Act IV, scene i

That I shall do some wild extravagance Of love in public, and the foolish world, Which knows not tenderness, will think me mad.
 * My heart's so full of joy,
 * John Dryden, All for Love (1678), Act II, scene i

E
That makes true good?
 * But is it what we love, or how we love,
 * George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book I


 * 'Tis what I love determines how I love.
 * George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book I

Loving the strong, they can forsake the strong; Man clings because the being whom he loves Is weak and needs him.
 * Women know no perfect love:
 * George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book III

Calm and distressed Torn and most whole Rose of memory Rose of forgetfulness Exhausted and life-giving Worried reposeful The single Rose Is now the Garden Where all loves end Terminate torment Of love unsatisfied The greater torment Of love satisfied End of the endless Journey to no end Conclusion of all that Is inconclusible Speech without word and Word of no speech Grace to the Mother For the Garden Where all love ends.
 * Lady of silences
 * T. S. Eliot, Ash-Wednesday (1930)

Something created in our own imaginations? Are we all in fact unloving and unloveable? Then one is alone, and if one is alone Then lover and beloved are equally unreal And the dreamer is no more real than his dreams.
 * Can we only love
 * T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party (1949)

Not in itself desirable; Love is itself unmoving, Only the cause and end of movement, Timeless, and undesiring Except in the aspect of time Caught in the form of limitation Between un-being and being.
 * Desire itself is movement
 * T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, Burnt Norton (1935), (V)

When here and now cease to matter. Old men ought to be explorers Here or there does not matter We must be still and still moving Into another intensity For a further union, a deeper communion Through the dark cold and the empty desolation, The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters Of the petrel and the porpoise.
 * Love is most nearly itself
 * T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, East Coker (1940), (V)

Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. We only live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire.
 * Who then devised the torment? Love.
 * T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets,Little Gidding (1942), (IV)

F
For Love, the vine that round your base Its tendrils twines, and dares to climb And lay one flower-capped spray in grace Without the asking on your cold Unsmiling and unfrowning face.
 * Old sundial, you stand here for Time:
 * Eleanor Farjeon, Pan-Worship and Other Poems (1908), Time And Love

This vine will flourish still, as rare, As fresh, as fragrant as of old. Love will not crumble.
 * Upon your shattered ruins where
 * Eleanor Farjeon, Pan-Worship and Other Poems (1908), Time And Love

And brought you one step nigher death; And you have heard, unthrilled, unmoved, The music of Love's golden breath And seen the light in eyes that loved. You think you hold the core and kernel Of all the world beneath your crust, Old dial? But when you lie in dust, This vine will bloom, strong, green, and proved. Love is eternal.
 * Dropt tears have hastened your decay
 * Eleanor Farjeon, Pan-Worship and Other Poems (1908), Time And Love

Yet I, too, must each dusk renew my heart, For daytime's vulture talons tear apart The tender alcoves built by love at night.
 * Prometheus, I have no Titan's might,
 * Philip José Farmer, "In Common" in Starlanes #14 (April 1954); re-published in Pearls From Peoria (2006)

That fights to keep us rooted in the earth, But also urges us to dare the stars, This irresistible, this ancient power Wedged in the soul, unshakable, is the light That burns our roots and leaves us free for Space.
 * One thing is sure, O comrades, that the love
 * Philip José Farmer, Sestina of the Space Rocket (1953), first published in Startling Stories (February 1953); re-published in Pearls From Peoria (2006)

Alone is free. The only gold is love, A coin that we have minted from the light Of others who have cared for us on Earth And who have deposited in us the power That nerves our nerves to seize the burning stars.
 * The way is open, comrades, free as Space
 * Philip José Farmer, Sestina of the Space Rocket (1953), first published in Startling Stories (February 1953); re-published in Pearls From Peoria (2006)

We hope to breed a race of men whose power Dwells in hearts as open as all Space Itself, who ask for nothing but the light That rinses the heart of hate so that the stars Above will be below when man has Love.
 * Yes, we hope to seed a new, rich earth.
 * Philip José Farmer, Sestina of the Space Rocket (1953), first published in Startling Stories (February 1953); re-published in Pearls From Peoria (2006)

And closer to destiny I knew at a glance There'd always be a chance for me With someone I could live for Nowhere I would rather be. Is your love strong enough Like a rock in the sea? Am I asking too much? Is your love strong enough?
 * Just one step at a time
 * "Is Your Love Strong Enough?" by Bryan Ferry

I love being in love I don't care what it does to me
 * I love love
 * The Format, in "Inches and Failing"

That myth is more potent than history. I believe that dreams are more powerful than facts — That hope always triumphs over experience — That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.
 * I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge —
 * Robert Fulghum, "Credo" at his official website; this may be partly influenced by remarks of Albert Einstein in "What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck" The Saturday Evening Post (26 October 1929): I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

Remember: Acting is living truthfully in imaginary circumstances. Remember: Acting is the way to live the greatest number of lives. Remember: Acting is the same as real life, lived intentionally. Never forget: The Fruit is out on the end of the limb. Go there.
 * Love the battle between chaos and imagination.
 * Robert Fulghum, "Alice-Alice" in Third Wish (2006)

G
Aujourd'hui plus qu'hier et bien moins que demain.'' Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.
 * ''Car, vois-tu, chaque jour je t'aime davantage,
 * For, you see, each day I love you more,
 * Rosemonde Gérard, "L'éternelle chanson", IX, Les Pipeaux; in P. Dupré, Encyclopédie des Citations (1959), p. 176

A bright stain on the vision Blotting out reason.
 * Love is a universal migraine.
 * Robert Graves, "Symptoms of Love," lines 1-3, from More Poems (1961)

Spring again from hidden roots Pull or stab or cut or burn, Love must ever yet return.
 * New beginnings and new shoots
 * Robert Graves, Fairies and Fusiliers (1917), "Marigolds"

Preserve the meaning of my rhyme: Love is not kindly nor yet grim But does to you as you to him.
 * Lovers to-day and for all time
 * Robert Graves, Country Sentiment (1920), "Advice To Lovers"

Vex not young Love in word or deed: Love never leaves an unpaid debt, He will not pardon nor forget.
 * Then all you lovers have good heed
 * Robert Graves, Country Sentiment (1920), "Advice To Lovers"

As long as stars are above you, And longer if I may
 * How long will I love you?
 * Ellie Goulding, How Long Will I Love You (10 November 2013) from the 2013 album Halcyon Days

Non v'avere ò provate, ò possedute.'' To lose than never to have tasted bliss.
 * ''Che mai
 * Far worse it is
 * Giovanni Battista Guarini, Il pastor fido (1590)

Love of feeling evokes the opposite Love of body depends only on type and polarity.
 * Love of consciousness evokes the same in response
 * G. I. Gurdjieff, All and Everything: Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson (1950)

H
I need your time When everything's wrong You make it right I feel so high I come alive I need to be free with you tonight I need your love
 * I need your love
 * Calvin Harris feat. Ellie Goulding, I Need Your Love (2013) from the 2012 album 18 Months

I love the girl I'm near.
 * When I'm not near the girl I love,
 * Yip Harburg, "When I'm Not Near the Girl I Love" in Finian's Rainbow (1946)

Love, which is lust, is the Call from the Gloom. Love, which is lust, is the Main of Desire. Love, which is lust, is the Centric Fire. So man and woman will keep their trust, Till the very Springs of the Sea run dust. Yea, each with the other will lose and win, Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in. For the strife of Love's the abysmal strife, And the word of Love is the Word of Life. And they that go with the Word unsaid, Though they seem of the living, are damned and dead.
 * Love, which is lust, is the Lamp in the Tomb.
 * William Ernest Henley, Hawthorn and Lavender (1901), XXI


 * You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love is to live by it. Love! A dark and starry transfiguration is mingled with that torment. There is ecstacy in the agony.
 * Les Misérables (1862) by Victor Hugo, Book V - An End Unlike the Beginning, Ch. IV - A Heart Beneath A Stone

J
Love, love is the answer and that's all right So don't you give up now so easy to find Just look to your soul and open your mind
 * Better get ready gonna see the light
 * Tommy James, Eddie Gray and Mike Vale, Crystal Blue Persuasion (1969)

K
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charact’ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love! — then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
 * When I have fears that I may cease to be
 * John Keats, "When I have fears that I may cease to be" (1817)

Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
 * A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
 * John Keats, Endymion (1818), Bk. I, l. 1

Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot; Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit, Where long ago a giant battle was; And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass In every place where infant Orpheus slept. Feel we these things? — that moment have we stept Into a sort of oneness, and our state Is like a floating spirit's. But there are Richer entanglements, enthralments far More self-destroying, leading, by degrees, To the chief intensity: the crown of these Is made of love and friendship, and sits high Upon the forehead of humanity.
 * Ghosts of melodious prophesyings rave
 * John Keats, Endymion (1818), Bk. I, l. 789

Is — Love, forgive us! — cinders, ashes, dust.
 * Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
 * John Keats, Poems (1820), "Lamia", Pt. II, l. 1

That shadowy thought can win, A bright torch, and a casement ope at night, To let the warm Love in!
 * And there shall be for thee all soft delight
 * John Keats, Poems (1820), "Ode to Psyche", st. 5


 * Love will come find you Just to remind you Of who you are [...] See that's the thing about love [...] Then life It will embrace you Totally amaze you So you don't give up
 * Alicia Keys, The Thing About Love from the 2007 album As I Am


 * Baby lets go have that wreckless love, that crazy love That off the wall, wont stop till I get enough kind of love I need that love So baby lets go have that wreckless love, that crazy love That I dont really care we can have it anywhere kind of love That wreckless love
 * Alicia Keys, Wreckless Love from the 2007 album As I Am

To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire Would we not shatter it to bits—and then Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire?
 * Ah Love! could you and I with him conspire
 * Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1120), Stanza IX. FitzGerald's Trans

And tuned to love his eager voice. Like any cavalier of France He wooed the maiden of his choice. And now deep in his weary heart Are sacred flames that whitely burn. He has of Heaven's grace a part Who loves, who is beloved in turn.
 * For, once he thrilled with high romance
 * Joyce Kilmer, Trees and Other Poems (1914), Delicatessen

Until love bade it spread its wings and soar.
 * The song within your heart could never rise
 * Joyce Kilmer, Main Street and Other Poems (1917), In Memory

Love is a poignant and accustomed pain. It is a burst of Heaven-shaking thunder; It is a linnet's fluting after rain.
 * Love is made out of ecstasy and wonder;
 * Joyce Kilmer, Main Street and Other Poems (1917), In Memory

You give your love so sweetly Tonight the light of love is in your eyes, But will you love me tomorrow?
 * Tonight You're mine completely,
 * Carole King, Will You Love Me Tomorrow (1961)

Is love I can be sure of, So tell me now and I won't ask again, Will you still love me tomorrow?
 * I'd like to know that your love
 * Carole King, Will You Love Me Tomorrow (1961)

And show the world all the love in your heart The people gonna treat you better, You're gonna find, yes you will, That you're beautiful as you feel.
 * You've got to get up every morning with a smile on your face
 * Carole King, Tapestry (1971), Beautiful

Maybe not, oh, but we can only try.
 * If there's any answer, maybe love can end the madness
 * Carole King, Tapestry (1971), Beautiful

Light of my tents, be fleet— Morning awaits at the end of the world, And the world is all at our feet.
 * The heart of a man to the heart of a maid—
 * Rudyard Kipling, The Gypsy Trail (1892)

The bee to the open clover, And the Gypsy blood to the Gypsy blood Ever the wide world over.
 * The white moth to the closing vine,
 * Rudyard Kipling, The Gypsy Trail (1892)

The deer to the wholesome wold; And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid, As it was in the days of old.
 * The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky
 * Rudyard Kipling, The Gypsy Trail (1892)

L

 * You may find many a brighter one Than your own rose, but there are none So true to thee, Love.
 * Letitia Elizabeth Landon The London Literary Gazette (5th January 1822) 'Song - Are other eyes beguiling, Love ?'


 * Do any thing but love ; or if thou lovest And art a Woman, hide thy love from him Who thou dost worship ; never let him know How dear he is ; flit like a bird before him, — Lead him from tree to tree, from flower to flower ; But be not won, or thou wilt, like that bird, When caught and caged, be left to pine neglected, And perish in forgetfulness.
 * Letitia Elizabeth Landon The London Literary Gazette (26th April 1823) 'Fragment'


 * Love, thou hast hopes like summers, short and bright, Moments of ecstasy, and maddening dreams, Intense delicious throbs!
 * Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The London Literary Gazette (12th October 1822), 'The Basque Girl and Henri Quatre'


 * I loved him too as woman loves — Reckless of sorrow, sin, or scorn.
 * Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The Improvisatrice (1824), Title poem


 * Love is like the glass, That throws its own rich colour over all, And makes all beautiful.
 * Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The Improvisatrice (1824), 'Roland's Tower'


 * And Love is like the lightning in its might, Winging where least bethought its fiery flight, Melting the blade, despite the scabbard's guard.
 * Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The Golden Violet - The Child of the Sea (1827)


 * And this is Love! Oh! why should woman love; Wasting her dearest feelings, till health, hope, Happiness, are but things of which henceforth She'll only know the name?
 * Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The Improvisatrice (1824), 'Love'


 * What was our parting ?—one wild kiss, How wild I may not say, One long and breathless clasp, and then As life were past away.
 * Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The London Literary Gazette (29th March 1823), 'Song - What was our parting ?—one wild kiss'


 * Love is a pearl of purest hue, But stormy waves are round it; And dearly may a woman rue, The hour that she found it.
 * Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The London Literary Gazette (24th May 1823), 'Inez'


 * Ah! never is that cherished face Banished from its accustomed place— It shines upon my weariest night It leads me on in thickest fight: All that seems most opposed to be Is yet associate with thee— Together life and thee depart, Dream—idol—treasure of my heart.
 * Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1834 (1833), 'The Zenana'

With dear companions now passed out of sight, Shall not be laid upon their graves. They live, Since love is deathless. Pleasure now nor pride Is theirs in mortal wise, but hallowing thoughts Will meet the offering, of so little worth, Wanting the benison death has made divine.
 * These blossoms, gathered in familiar paths,
 * Lucy Larcom, Poems (1869), Introductory poem

only make manifest their own lovelessness, and the loveless never find love, only the loving find love, and they never have to seek for it.
 * Those that go searching for love
 * D. H. Lawrence, Search for Love


 * 'Cause all of me Loves all of you Love your curves and all your edges All your perfect imperfections Give your all to me I'll give my all to you You're my end and my beginning
 * John Legend, All of Me (12 August 2013) from the August 2013 album Love in the Future

Nothing you can sing that can't be sung Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game It's easy. All you need is love.
 * There's nothing you can do that can't be done
 * John Lennon, in "All You Need Is Love" from Magical Mystery Tour (1967)

Some kinda druid dudes lifting the veil. Doing the mind guerrilla, Some call it magic — the search for the grail.  Love is the answer and you know that for sure. Love is a flower, you got to let it — you got to let it grow.''
 * ''We all been playing those mind games forever
 * John Lennon, in "Mind Games" on Mind Games (1973)


 * Say you'll love, love me forever Never stop, not for whatever Near and far and always and Everywhere and everything. I love you, always forever Near and far, close and together Everywhere, I will be with you Everything, I will do for you I love you, always forever Near and far, close and together Everywhere, I will be with you Everything, I will do for you.
 * Donna Lewis, I Love You Always Forever (1996) from the 1996 album Now in a Minute


 * Without love I mean nothing to you Without love broken in two Without love give me some value some worth Without love no life left on earth.
 * Donna Lewis, Without Love (1996) from the 1996 album Now in a Minute


 * The power of love is a curious thing Make a one man weep, make another man sing Change a hawk to a little white dove More than a feeling that's the power of love Tougher than diamonds, rich like cream Stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream Make a bad one good make a wrong one right Power of love that keeps you home at night
 * Huey Lewis and the News, The Power of Love (1985)


 * You don't need money, don't take fame Don't need no credit card to ride this train It's strong and it's sudden and it's cruel sometimes But it might just save your life That's the power of love
 * Huey Lewis and the News, The Power of Love (1985)

That obeyeth Love's command! It is the heart, and not the brain, That to the highest doth attain, And he who followeth Love's behest Far excelleth all the rest!
 * Ah, how skillful grows the hand
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "The Building of the Ship" in Voices of the Night: The Seaside and the Fireside; and Other Poems (1846), p. 34

Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound. Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings Of that mysterious instrument, the soul, And play the prelude of our fate. We hear The voice prophetic, and are not alone.
 * That was the first sound in the song of love!
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Spanish Student (1843), Act I, scene 3, line 109


 * I love thee, as the good love heaven.
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Spanish Student (1843), Act I, scene 3, line 146

It serves for food and raiment.
 * Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak.
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Spanish Student (1843), Act I, scene 5, line 52

By which one heart another heart divines? How can I tell the many thousand ways By which it keeps the secret it betrays?
 * How can I tell the signals and the signs
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863-1874), Part III. Student's Tale. Emma and Eginhard, line 75


 * What is love? Baby, don't hurt me. Don't hurt me, no more.
 * Nestor Alexander Haddaway, "What Is Love" (1993), written by Dieter Lünstedt and Karin Hartmann-Eisenblätter, The Album (May 1993), Germany: Coconut Records


 * Underneath a starry sky Time was still but hours must really have rushed by I didn't realize But love was in your eyes I really should have gone But love went on and on
 * Jeff Lynne, '', Discovery (1979)

M

 * Now there's no point in placing the blame And you should know I'd suffer the same If I lose you my heart will be broken Love is a bird... she needs to fly Let all the hurt inside of you die You're frozen when your heart's not open  If I could melt your heart We'd never be apart Give yourself to me You hold the key
 * Madonna, Frozen (February 23, 1998) from the album Ray of Light (March 3, 1998)

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in.
 * He drew a circle that shut me out —
 * Edwin Markham, "Outwitted", from The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems (1913)


 * I am human and I need to be loved Just like everybody else does
 * Johnny Marr and Morrissey, ', ' (1985)

Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again; Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; Yet many a man is making friends with death Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
 * Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
 * Edna St. Vincent Millay, in "Sonnet XXX" from Fatal Interview (1931)

The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many. And whoever sees that way heals his heart, Without knowing it, from various ills — A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.
 * Love means to look at yourself
 * Czesław Miłosz, Rescue (1945), "The World": Love (1943), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz


 * Imparadis'd in one another's arms.
 * John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book IV, line 50

Of human offspring.
 * Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source
 * John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book IV, line 750-751

Because we freely love, as in our will To love or not; in this we stand or fall.
 * Freely we serve,
 * John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book V, lines 538-540

I could endure, without him live no life.
 * So dear I love him, that with him all deaths
 * John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book IX, line 832

Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit, That woman's love can win, or long inherit; But what it is, hard is to say, Harder to hit.
 * It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit,
 * John Milton, Samson Agonistes (1671), line 1,010

N
It is the final purpose Of the world story, The Amen of the universe.
 * Love works magic.
 * Novalis, Blüthenstaub-Fragmente (1798)

To the Light that holds the days; We have sought in haunts of fear For that all-enfolding sphere: And lo! it was not far, but near. We have found, O foolish-fond, The shore that has no shore beyond. Deep in every heart it lies With its untranscended skies; For what heaven should bend above Hearts that own the heaven of love?
 * We have come by curious ways
 * Alfred Noyes, The Flower of Old Japan and Other Poems (1907), The Flower of Old Japan, Epilogue

The shadow of a dream, Your sages may deem it A bubble on the stream; Yet our kingdom draweth nigher With each dawn and every day, Through the earthquake and the fire "Love will find out the way."
 * Your dreamers may dream it
 * Alfred Noyes, Drake, an English Epic (1908), Song, Book VIII, p. 146

Love lies hidden in every rose! Every song that the skylark sung Once, we thought, must come to a close: Now we know the spirit of song, Song that is merged in the chant of the whole, Hand in hand as we wander along, What should we doubt of the years that roll?
 * Heart of my heart, the world is young;
 * Alfred Noyes, Unity, § I, Unity, § I

One with the clouds that are whirled o'er the lea, One in many, O broken and blind, One as the waves are at one with the sea! Ay! when life seems scattered apart, Darkens, ends as a tale that is told, One, we are one, O heart of my heart, One, still one, while the world grows old.
 * Heart of my heart, we are one with the wind,
 * Alfred Noyes, Unity, § I, Unity, § III

P
And over the waves, Over the fountains, And under the graves; Over the floods that are deepest, Which do Neptune obey; Over the rocks that are steepest, Love will find out the way.
 * Over the mountains,
 * Thomas Percy, "Love Will Find Out the Way" as published in Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765); in its publshed form this is suspected to have been extensively written by Percy himself; it was later used by Pierre de Beaumarchais in Act III of The Marriage of Figaro'' (1778)

O sexo é só um acidente. '' Sex is the merest accident.
 * ''O amor é que é essencial.
 * It's love that is inescapable.
 * Fernando Pessoa, Poem (5 April 1935), reported in Poesias inéditas (1930-1935), p. 192
 * Variant translation:
 * Love is essential. Sex, a mere accident.
 * Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good.
 * Petrarch, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 392

In the hatred of a minute.
 * Years of love have been forgot
 * Edgar Allan Poe, To M——— (1829), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

From its present pathway part not! Being everything which now thou art, Be nothing which thou art not. So with the world thy gentle ways, Thy grace, thy more than beauty, Shall be an endless theme of praise, And love — a simple duty.
 * Thou wouldst be loved? — then let thy heart
 * Edgar Allan Poe, "To Frances S. Osgood" (1845)


 * Through years of my prime I walked with a heart crazy about love.
 * Suman Pokhrel, The Tajmahal and my Love


 * May the river of love always flow from its own lap
 * Suman Pokhrel, Song of Soul


 * May my pain remain drunk singing its own love songs
 * Suman Pokhrel, Song of Soul


 * I wanted my heart to bloom and shelter a shadow of love
 * Suman Pokhrel, The Tajmahal and my Love


 * Tonight, may I get so drunk in love that I do not see any dreams!
 * Suman Pokhrel, May I Not See Dreams


 * How vast a memory has Love!
 * Alexander Pope, "Sappho to Phaon", line 52 (1712)

And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.
 * Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
 * Alexander Pope, "The Wife of Bath her Prologue, from Chaucer" (c.1704, published 1713), line 369


 * Curse on all laws but those which love has made.
 * Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard (1717), line 74


 * Fame, wealth, and honour! what are you to Love?
 * Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard (1717), line 77

And if I lose thy love, I lose my all.
 * Not grace, or zeal, love only was my call,
 * Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard (1717), line 177

'Tis true the hardest science to forget.
 * Of all affliction taught a lover yet,
 * Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard (1717), line 189

Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight.
 * One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight;
 * Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard (1717), line 273

R
Is always there, accessible In total immanence. The nodes Of transcendence coagulate In you, the experiencer, And in the other, the lover.
 * The holiness of the real
 * Kenneth Rexroth, In Defense of the Earth (1956)

However much I have blotted our Waking love, its memory is still there. And I know the web, the net, The blind and crippled bird. For then, for One brief instant it was not blind, nor Trapped, not crippled. For one heart beat the Heart was free and moved itself. O love, I who am lost and damned with words, Whose words are a business and an art, I have no words. These words, this poem, this Is all confusion and ignorance. But I know that coached by your sweet heart, My heart beat one free beat and sent Through all my flesh the blood of truth.
 * Now I know surely and forever,
 * Kenneth Rexroth, She Is Away

How can I fight with someone that I can't see? There's two of us but it feels like three I wish her ghost would just let us be Boy you're everything I ever wanted But I got to let you go 'cause this love is Haunted.
 * I can't compete with a memory
 * Rihanna Haunted, Good Girl Gone Bad

Which annuls the danger and provides a way of escape. Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment intuition. Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment is intuition.
 * Love is the ark appointed for the righteous,
 * Rumi, The Masnavi, Book IV, Story II, as translated in Masnavi I Ma'navi : The Spiritual Couplets of Maulána Jalálu-'d-Dín Muhammad Rúmí (1898) by Edward Henry Whinfield
 * Variant: Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
 * As quoted in The Perennial Philosophy (1945) by Aldous Huxley


 * Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.
 * Rumi as quoted in Path for Greatness : Spiritualty at Work (2000) by Linda J. Ferguson, p. 51

of your love, that somehow contains the entire universe.
 * What is the body? That shadow of a shadow
 * Rumi, "Where are we?" in Ch. 2 : Bewilderment

Someone sober will worry about events going badly. Let the lover be.
 * Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absent-minded.
 * Rumi, The Essential Rumi (1995), Ch. 4 : Spring Giddiness, p. 46

if you are a true human being.
 * Gamble everything for love,
 * Rumi, The Essential Rumi (1995), "On Gambling" Ch. 18 : The Three Fish, p. 193

every success depends upon focusing the heart.
 * Come, seek, for search is the foundation of fortune:
 * Rumi, Jewels of Remembrance : A Daybook of Spiritual Guidance : Containing 365 Selections from the Wisdom of Rumi (1996) Translated by Camille and Kabir Helminski, III, 2302-5

It is an endless ocean, with no beginning or end.
 * Love rests on no foundation.
 * Rumi, Hush Don't Say Anything to God : Passionate Poems of Rumi (1999) as translated by Shahram Shiva

In this gathering there is no high, no low, no smart, no ignorant, no special assembly, no grand discourse, no proper schooling required. There is no master, no disciple. This gathering is more like a drunken party, full of tricksters, fools, mad men and mad women. This is a gathering of Lovers.
 * This is a gathering of Lovers.
 * Rumi, Hush Don't Say Anything to God : Passionate Poems of Rumi (1999) as translated by Shahram Shiva

there is nothing that is not me. Be silent.
 * Love said to me,
 * Rumi, Hush Don't Say Anything to God : Passionate Poems of Rumi (1999) as translated by Shahram Shiva

S
The golden time of first love! The eye sees the open heaven, The heart is intoxicated with bliss; O that the beautiful time of young love Could remain green forever.
 * O tender yearning, sweet hoping!
 * Friedrich Schiller, The Song of the Bell (1799)

Wouldst thou other men know, look thou within thine own heart. If you want to know yourself, Just look how others do it; If you want to understand others, Look into your own heart
 * Wouldst thou know thyself, observe the actions of others.
 * Friedrich Schiller, Tabulae Votivae  (Votive Tablets) (1796), "The Key"; tr. Edgar Alfred Bowring, The Poems of Schiller, Complete (1851)
 * Variant translation:

To prove the reality of endless love?
 * How could I think the brief years were enough
 * Delmore Schwartz, in "I am a Book I neither Wrote nor Read" in Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge (1959)

As long as stars are above you And longer if I can
 * How long will I love you?
 * Mike Scott, How Long Will I Love You? from Room to Roam album (1990)

As long as you want me to And longer by far
 * How long will I want you?
 * Mike Scott, How Long Will I Love You? from Room to Roam album (1990)

Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom passing fair Playing in the wanton air
 * On a day — alack the day! —
 * William Shakespeare, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music, II. Not to be confused with The Sonnets; this poem is not a sonnet

And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
 * Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
 * William Shakespeare, Helena, A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595), Act I, scene i


 * My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have.
 * Shakespeare, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 1

Given or returned. Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever. They who inspire it most are fortunate, As I am now: but those who feel it most Are happier still after long sufferings As I shall soon become.
 * Yet all love is sweet
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound, Asia, Act II, sc. v, l. 39


 * Familiar acts are beautiful through love.
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound, The Earth, Act IV, l. 403


 * Soul meets soul on lovers' lips.
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound, The Moon, Act IV, l. 451

At the Earth-born’s spell yawns for Heaven’s despotism And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep: Love, from its awful throne of patient power In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep, And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs And folds over the world its healing wings.
 * This is the day, which down the void abysm
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound, Demogorgon, Act IV, l. 554–561

That to divide is not to take away. Love is like understanding, that grows bright, Gazing on many truths; 'tis like thy light, Imagination! which from earth and sky, And from the depths of human phantasy, As from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills The Universe with glorious beams, and kills Error, the worm, with many a sun-like arrow Of its reverberated lightning.
 * True Love in this differs from gold and clay,
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley, Epipsychidion (1821)

But its reward is in the world divine Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave.
 * Love's very pain is sweet,
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley, Epipsychidion (1821), l. 595

And leave the troop which errs, and which reproves, And come and be my guest, — for I am Love's.
 * And bid them love each other and be blest:
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley, Epipsychidion (1821), l. 602

And like light can flee, But above all other things, Spirit, I love thee — Thou art love and life! Oh come, Make once more my heart thy home.
 * I love Love — though he has wings,
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley, Song: Rarely, Rarely, Comest Thou (1821), stanza 8

The answer is easy if you take it logically I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free There must be fifty ways to leave your lover.
 * The problem is all inside your head, she said to me
 * Paul Simon, Still Crazy After All These Years (1975), 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

And I believe, in the morning you'll begin to see the light And then she kissed me and I realized she probably was right There must be fifty ways to leave your lover, fifty ways to leave your lover
 * She said, why don't we both just sleep on it tonight
 * Paul Simon, Still Crazy After All These Years (1975), 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

I said I wanna get that girl, no matter what I do Well I guess I've been in love before and once or twice have been on the floor But I've never loved no-one the way that I love you.
 * First thing I remember when you came into my life
 * Paul Simon, One-Trick Pony (1980), Late in the Evening

Everybody sees you're blown apart, Everybody feels the wind blow.'
 * And she said 'Losing love is like a window in your heart,
 * Paul Simon, Graceland (1986), Graceland

The earth is blue. And everything about it is a love song. Everything about it.
 * Far above the golden clouds, the darkness vibrates.
 * Paul Simon, Surprise (2006), Everything About It Is a Love Song

And that's all that there is or could ever exist. Maybe and maybe and maybe some more. Maybe's the exit that I'm looking for.
 * Maybe the heart is part of the mist.
 * Paul Simon, Surprise (2006), I Don't Believe

And my will was broken by my pride and my vanity. Who's gonna love you when you're looks are gone? God will. Like he waters the flowers on your window sill.
 * Take me. I'm an ordinary player in the key of C.
 * Paul Simon, Surprise (2006), Outrageous

When I met you, I was afraid of kissing you. When I kissed you, I was afraid to love you. Now that I love you, I'm afraid of losing you.
 * When I saw you, I was afraid of meeting you.
 * Silard Somorjay, in "The Voice Of Love" on The Streets of Beijing movie soundtrack, Video Art Beijing


 * If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together In sad or singing weather, Blown fields or flowerful closes, Green pasture or gray grief; If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf.
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, Poems and Ballads (1866-89), "A Match"

There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran, Pleasure with pain for leaven, Summer with flowers that fell, Remembrance fallen from heaven, And Madness risen from hell, Strength without hands to smite, Love that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light, And Life, the shadow of death.
 * Before the beginning of years
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, Atalanta in Calydon (1865), Second chorus, lines 1-12


 * Time found our tired love sleeping, And kissed away his breath; But what should we do weeping, Though light love sleep to death? We have drained his lips at leisure, Till there's not left to drain A single sob of pleasure, A single pulse of pain.
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, Poems and Ballads (1866-89), "Rococo", lines 17-24

While time is with us and hands are free, (Time, swift to fasten and swift to sever Hand from hand, as we stand by the sea) I will say no word that a man might say Whose whole life's love goes down in a day; For this could never have been; and never, Though the gods and the years relent, shall be. Is it worth a tear, is it worth an hour, To think of things that are well outworn? Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower, The dream foregone and the deed forborne? Though joy be done with and grief be vain, Time shall not sever us wholly in twain; Earth is not spoilt for a single shower; But the rain has ruined the ungrown corn.
 * Before our lives divide for ever,
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Triumph of Time

In the clamour and rumour of life to be, We, drinking love at the furthest springs, Covered with love as a covering tree, We had grown as gods, as the gods above, Filled from the heart to the lips with love, Held fast in his hands, clothed warm with his wings, O love, my love, had you loved but me!
 * In the change of years, in the coil of things,
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Triumph of Time

They are swift and sad, being born of the sea. Hours that rejoice and regret for a span, Born with a man's breath, mortal as he; Loves that are lost ere they come to birth, Weeds of the wave, without fruit upon earth. I lose what I long for, save what I can, My love, my love, and no love for me!
 * The loves and hours of the life of a man,
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Triumph of Time

You had grown strong as the sun or the sea. But none shall triumph a whole life through: For death is one, and the fates are three. At the door of life, by the gate of breath, There are worse things waiting for men than death; Death could not sever my soul and you, As these have severed your soul from me. You have chosen and clung to the chance they sent you, Life sweet as perfume and pure as prayer. But will it not one day in heaven repent you? Will they solace you wholly, the days that were? Will you lift up your eyes between sadness and bliss, Meet mine, and see where the great love is, And tremble and turn and be changed? Content you; The gate is strait; I shall not be there.
 * I had grown pure as the dawn and the dew,
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Triumph of Time

The heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine, The stars that sing and the loves that thunder, The music burning at heart like wine, An armed archangel whose hands raise up All senses mixed in the spirit's cup Till flesh and spirit are molten in sunder — These things are over, and no more mine. These were a part of the playing I heard Once, ere my love and my heart were at strife; Love that sings and hath wings as a bird, Balm of the wound and heft of the knife. Fairer than earth is the sea, and sleep Than overwatching of eyes that weep, Now time has done with his one sweet word, The wine and leaven of lovely life.
 * The pulse of war and passion of wonder,
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Triumph of Time

And Love knows where: We are in Love’s hand to-day.
 * Our way is where God knows
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, Love at Sea

T
Than never to have loved at all.
 * 'Tis better to have loved and lost,
 * Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849), Part XXVII, Stanza 4


 * For love reflects the thing beloved.
 * Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849), Part LII

A little grain shall not be spilt.
 * Love's too precious to be lost,
 * Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849), Part LXV

From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;" And the white rose weeps, "She is late;" The larkspur listens, "I hear; I hear;" And the lily whispers, "I wait."
 * There has fallen a splendid tear
 * Alfred Tennyson, Maud; A Monodrama (1855), Part XXII, Stanza 10

Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthly bed; My dust would hear her and beat, Had I lain for a century dead; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red.
 * She is coming, my own, my sweet;
 * Alfred Tennyson, Maud; A Monodrama (1855), Part XXII, Stanza 11

Man dreams of Fame while woman wakes to love.
 * Yet is there one true line, the pearl of pearls:
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1856–1885), chapter Merlin and Vivien

For me, I love you somewhat; rest: and Love Should have some rest and pleasure in himself, Not ever be too curious for a boon, Too prurient for a proof against the grain Of him ye say ye love: but Fame with men, Being but ampler means to serve mankind, Should have small rest or pleasure in herself, But work as vassal to the larger love, That dwarfs the petty love of one to one.
 * You, methinks you think you love me well;
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1856–1885), chapter Merlin and Vivien

And sweet is death who puts an end to pain: I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be: Love, thou art bitter; sweet is death to me. O Love, if death be sweeter, let me die. … I fain would follow love, if that could be; I needs must follow death, who calls for me; Call and I follow, I follow! let me die.
 * Sweet is true love though given in vain, in vain;
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1856–1885), chapter Lancelot and Elaine, line 1000

"Let love be free; free love is for the best: And, after heaven, on our dull side of death, What should be best, if not so pure a love Clothed in so pure a loveliness? yet thee She failed to bind, though being, as I think, Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know."
 * "Free love, so bound, were freëst," said the King.
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1856–1885), chapter Lancelot and Elaine, line 1370

I loved you and I deemed you beautiful, I cannot brook to see your beauty marred Through evil spite: and if ye love me not, I cannot bear to dream you so forsworn: I had liefer ye were worthy of my love, Than to be loved again of you — farewell; And though ye kill my hope, not yet my love, Vex not yourself: ye will not see me more.
 * Lady, for indeed
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1856–1885), chapter Pelleas and Ettarre

And therefore is my love so large for thee, Seeing it is not bounded save by love.
 * We love but while we may;
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1856–1885), chapter The Last Tournament

And out beyond into the dream to come.
 * I will love thee to the death,
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1856–1885), chapter The Last Tournament

Let no man dream but that I love thee still.
 * My doom is, I love thee still.
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1856–1885), chapter Guinevere


 * Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths.
 * Alfred Tennyson, Lover's Tale (1879), line 466


 * Where love could walk with banish'd Hope no more.
 * Alfred Tennyson, Lover's Tale (1879), line 813

And Hope kiss'd Love, and Love drew in her breath In that close kiss and drank her whisper'd tales. They said that Love would die when Hope was gone. And Love mourn'd long, and sorrow'd after Hope; At last she sought out Memory, and they trod The same old paths where Love had walked with Hope, And Memory fed the soul of Love with tears.
 * Love's arms were wreathed about the neck of Hope,
 * Alfred Tennyson, Lover's Tale (1879), line 815


 * Love will conquer at the last.
 * Alfred Tennyson, Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Line 280

Love most, say least
 * Who are wise in love
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1859-1865), Merlin and Vivien

Man dreams of Fame while woman wakes to love.
 * Yet is there one true line, the pearl of pearls:
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1859-1865), Merlin and Vivien


 * In a wink the false love turns to hate.
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1859-1865), Merlin and Vivien

And sweet is death who puts an end to pain: I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be: Love, thou art bitter; sweet is death to me. O Love, if death be sweeter, let me die. … I fain would follow love, if that could be; I needs must follow death, who calls for me; Call and I follow, I follow! let me die.
 * Sweet is true love though given in vain, in vain;
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1859-1865), Lancelot and Elaine, Line 1000

"Let love be free; free love is for the best: And, after heaven, on our dull side of death, What should be best, if not so pure a love Clothed in so pure a loveliness? yet thee She failed to bind, though being, as I think, Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know."
 * "Free love, so bound, were freëst," said the King.
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1859-1865), Lancelot and Elaine, Line 1370

And therefore is my love so large for thee, Seeing it is not bounded save by love.
 * We love but while we may;
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1859-1865), The Last Tournament

And out beyond into the dream to come.
 * I will love thee to the death,
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1859-1865), The Last Tournament

Let no man dream but that I love thee still.
 * My doom is, I love thee still.
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1859-1865), Guinevere

Grasped, made her vail her eyes: she looked and saw The novice, weeping, suppliant, and said to her, "Yea, little maid, for am I not forgiven?" Then glancing up beheld the holy nuns All round her, weeping; and her heart was loosed Within her, and she wept with these and said, "Ye know me then, that wicked one, who broke The vast design and purpose of the King. O shut me round with narrowing nunnery-walls, Meek maidens, from the voices crying 'shame.'  I must not scorn myself: he loves me still. Let no one dream but that he loves me still."
 * Here her hand
 * Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King (1859-1865), Guinevere

And in his presence I attend To hear the tidings of my friend, Which every hour his couriers bring.
 * Love is and was my Lord and King,
 * CXXVI
 * Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849), Parts I-CXXXI, CXXVI


 * I feel it in my fingers I feel it in my toes Love is all around me And so the feeling grows It is written on the wind Thats everywhere I go So if you really love me Come on and let it show
 * The Troggs, Love Is All Around (1967)


 * There's no beginning There be no end Cause on my love You can depend
 * The Troggs, Love Is All Around (1967)

That you'll never fall in love When everybody keeps retreating But you can't seem to get enough Let my love open the door Let my love open the door Let my love open the door To your heart.
 * When people keep repeating
 * Pete Townshend, in "Let My Love Open the Door" on Empty Glass (1980)

And their best promise constantly redeems.
 * For Truth makes holy Love's illusive dreams,
 * Henry Theodore Tuckerman, "Sonnet XXII", in Poems (Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1851), p. 168


 * I don't wanna lose you I don't even wanna say goodbye I just wanna hold on To this true love, true love I don't wanna lose you And I always wanna feel this way Cause everytime I'm with you I feel true love, true love
 * Tina Turner, I Don't Wanna Lose You, (November 18, 1989) from the album Foreign Affair (September 13, 1989)


 * Oh what's love got to do, got to do with it What's love but a second hand emotion What's love got to do, got to do with it Who needs a heart When a heart can be broken
 * Tina Turner, What's Love Got to Do with It, (June 4, 1984[) from the album Private Dancer (May 29, 1984)


 * I just sware That I'll always be there I'd give anything and everything And I will always care Through weekness and strength Happiness and sorrow For better or for worse I will love you With every beat of my heart.
 * Shania Twain, From This Moment On, (1998) from the 1997 album Come On Over


 * When I first saw you, I saw love And the first time you touched me, I felt love And after all this time, You're still the one I love. [...] (You're still the one) You're still the one I run to The one that I belong to You're still the one I want for life (You're still the one) You're still the one that I love The only one I dream of You're still the one I kiss good night.
 * Shania Twain, You're Still the One, (1998) from the 1997 album Come On Over


 * In your eyes (I can still see the look of the one) I can still see the look Of the one who really loves me (II can still feel the way that you want) The one who wouldn't put anything Else in the world above me (I can still see your love for me) I can still see your love for me in your eyes (I still see the love)
 * Shania Twain, Forever and for Always, (2003) from the 2003 album Up!

U
Love is a temple, love the higher law You ask me to enter but then you make me crawl And I can't be holdin' on to what you got When all you got is hurt
 * You say love is a temple, love a higher law
 * U2, One (6 March 1992) from the 1990 album Achtung Baby

Where the eagles cry On a mountain high Love lifts us up where we belong Far from the world we know Up where the clear winds blow
 * Love lifts us up where we belong
 * "Up Where We Belong", song performed by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes for An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)

V
And every kind of love makes a glory in the night. There is love that stirs the heart, and love that gives it rest, But the love that leads life upward is the noblest and the best.
 * There are many kinds of love, as many kinds of light,
 * Henry van Dyke, Love and Light


 * Omnia vincit Amor; et nos cedamus Amori.
 * Love conquers all and we must yield to Love.
 * Virgil, Eclogues (37 BC), Book X, line 69.
 * Variant translation: "Love conquers all; let us, too, yield to love."


 * Quis fallere possit amantem?
 * Who can deceive a lover?
 * Virgil, Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book IV, line 296. Variant: "Who could deceive a lover?"

In human hearts, subjected to thy laws!
 * Improbe Amor, quid non mortalia pectora cogis!
 * All-powerful Love! what changes canst thou cause
 * Virgil, Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book IV, line 412 (as translated by John Dryden); referring to the unwise actions undertaken by Dido, actuated by amorous passion.
 * Variant translation: Oh wretched love! to what do you not impel the human breast?


 * Amor omnibus idem.
 * Love is lord of all, and is in all the same.
 * Virgil, Georgics (29 BC), III, 244

Il l'est—le fut—ou le doit être.'' He was—or is—or is to be.
 * ''Qui que tu sois, voici ton maître;
 * Whoe'er thou art, thy master see;
 * Voltaire, Works, II, p. 765 (Ed. 1837). Used as an inscription for a statue of Cupid

W
Of every human soul.
 * Love,—the shining goal
 * Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff, Eris: A Dramatic Allegory (New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1914), p. 19

We should agree as angels do above.
 * Could we forbear dispute, and practise love,
 * Edmund Waller, in "Of Divine Love" (c. 1686)

That still the knot, in spite of death, does last; For as your tears, and sorrow-wounded soul, Prove well that on your part this bond is whole, So all we know of what they do above, Is that they happy are, and that they love. Let dark oblivion, and the hollow grave, Content themselves our frailer thoughts to have; Well-chosen love is never taught to die, But with our nobler part invades the sky.
 * Consent in virtue knit your hearts so fast,
 * Edmund Waller, Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham (1857)


 * Love is to die, love is to not die, Love is to dance, love is to dance. Love is to die, Why don't you not die? Why don't you dance? Why don't you dance and dance?
 * Warpaint, Love Is To Die, Warpaint (2014)

Whoever recognizes that reality recognizes also that link. Because of it, he holds every human being without any exception as something sacred to which he is bound to show respect. This is the only possible motive for universal respect towards all human beings. Whatever formulation of belief or disbelief a man may choose to make, if his heart inclines him to feel this respect, then he in fact also recognizes a reality other than this world's reality. Whoever in fact does not feel this respect is alien to that other reality also.
 * The combination of these two facts — the longing in the depth of the heart for absolute good, and the power, though only latent, of directing attention and love to a reality beyond the world and of receiving good from it — constitutes a link which attaches every man without exception to that other reality.
 * Simone Weil, Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)

And Love can never lose its own.
 * Life is ever lord of Death
 * John Greenleaf Whittier, Snow Bound, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Those who love each other shall become invincible...
 * Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problems of freedom yet,
 * Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass, DRUM-TAPS, Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice (1860; 1867)

Take now the enclosing theme of all, the solvent and the setting, Love, that is pulse of all, the sustenance and the pang, The heart of man and woman all for love, No other theme but love — knitting, enclosing, all-diffusing love.
 * * Blow again trumpeter! and for thy theme,
 * Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass, The Mystic Trumpeter

Love, that is day and night — love, that is sun and moon and stars, Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume, No other words but words of love, no other thought but love.
 * Love, that is all the earth to lovers — love, that mocks time and space,
 * Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass, The Mystic Trumpeter


 * Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone, But love is not over...
 * Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass, SONGS OF PARTING, Ashes of Soldiers


 * There is no language that love does not speak.
 * Ella Wheeler Wilcox from Love's Language Poems of Progress 1913 edition

Well worth the price of anguish. I detect More good than evil in humanity. Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes, And men grow better as the world grows old.
 * I find a rapture linked with each despair,
 * Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Poems of Pleasure (1900), Optimism

The missing link of Love has left a void. Supply the link, and earth with Heaven will join In one continued chain of endless life.
 * Between the finite and the infinite
 * Ella Wheeler Wilcox, New Thought Pastels (1913), The Way (1913)

Of what thou lovest; and ask no returning. And wheresoe'er thy pathway leads on earth, There thou shalt find the lamp of love-light burning.
 * Give of thy love, nor wait to know the worth
 * Ella Wheeler Wilcox, New Thought Pastels (1913), Give

Is like a mansion built upon the sand.
 * All love that has not friendship for its base,
 * Ella Wheeler Wilcox, New Thought Pastels (1913), Love


 * Some kill their love when they are young, And some when they are old; Some strangle with the hands of Lust, Some with the hands of Gold.
 * Oscar Wilde, Ballad of Reading Goal (1898)

And let your love grow with the smallest of dreams And let your love show and you'll know what I mean It's the season Let your love fly like a bird on a wing And let your love bind you to all livin' things And let your love shine and you'll know what I mean That's the reason.
 * Just let your love flow like a mountain stream
 * Larry E. Williams, in Let Your Love Flow (1976)

Loving might be a mistake, but it's worth making.
 * Living might mean taking chances, but they're worth taking.
 * Lee Ann Womack, I Hope You Dance (2000)

Whose veil is unremoved Till heart with heart in concord beats, And the lover is beloved.
 * True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
 * William Wordsworth, To ____ . (Let other Bards of Angels sing), st. 3 (1824)

Of young imagination have kept pure Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know that pride, Howe'er disguised in its own majesty, Is littleness; that he who feels contempt For any living thing, hath faculties Which he has never used; that thought with him Is in its infancy. The man whose eye Is ever on himself doth look on one, The least of Nature's works, one who might move The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds Unlawful, ever. O be wiser, thou ! Instructed that true knowledge leads to love; True dignity abides with him alone Who, in the silent hour of inward thought, Can still suspect, and still revere himself, In lowliness of heart.
 * If Thou be one whose heart the holy forms
 * William Wordsworth, Lines (1795)

Y
Is hid in the heart of love.
 * A pity beyond all telling
 * William Butler Yeats, "The Pity of Love" in The Rose (1893)

Everywhere I look around Love is in the air Every sight and every sound And I don't know if I'm being foolish Don't know if I'm being wise But it's something that I must believe in And it's there when I look in your eyes.
 * Love is in the air
 * John Paul Young, in Love Is in the Air (1977) (Performance in 1978)

In the whisper of the trees Love is in the air In the thunder of the sea And I don't know if I'm just dreaming Don't know if I feel sane But it's something that I must believe in And it's there when you call out my name.
 * Love is in the air
 * John Paul Young, in "Love Is in the Air" (1977)

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

 * Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 464-84.

Hate to return with love.
 * Che amar chi t'odia, ell'è impossibil cosa.
 * For 'tis impossible
 * Vittorio Alfieri, Polinice, II. 4

For one lone soul another lonely soul, Each choosing each through all the weary hours, And meeting strangely at one sudden goal, Then 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.
 * Somewhere there waiteth in this world of ours
 * Edwin Arnold, Somewhere There Waiteth

Un amour éternel en un moment concu. La mal est sans remède, aussi j'ai dû le taire, Et elle qui l'a fait n'en a jamais rien su.'' A mighty love within my breast has grown, Unseen, unspoken, and of no one known; And of my sweet, who gave it, least of all.
 * ''Ma vie a son secret, mon âme a son mystére:
 * One sweet, sad secret holds my heart in thrall;
 * Félix Arvers, Sonnet. Translation by Joseph Knight. In The Athenæum, Jan. 13, 1906. Arvers in Mes Heures Perdues, says that the sonnet was "mite de l'italien"

Tell me how many beads there are In a silver chain Of evening rain Unravelled from the trembling main And threading the eye of a yellow star:— So many times do I love again.
 * How many times do I love, again?
 * Thomas Lovell Beddoes, How Many Times

Was ist denn Liebe, sag? "Zwei Seelen und ein Gedanke, Zwei Herzen und ein Schlag."'' What then is Love? say on. "Two souls and one thought only Two hearts that throb as one."
 * ''Mein Herz ich will dich fragen,
 * My heart I fain would ask thee
 * Von Münch Bellinghausen (Friedrich Halm)—Der Sohn der Wildniss, Act II. Translation by W. H. Charlton. (Commended by author). Popular translation. of the play is by Marie Lovell—Ingomar the Barbarian. Two souls with but a single thought, / Two hearts that beat as one

But he crept in at Myra's pocket-hole.
 * To Chloe's breast young Cupid slily stole,
 * William Blake, Couplets and Fragments, IV

In a rosy bower beside a brook, And winked and nodded with conscious pride To his votaries drenched on the other side. Come hither, sweet maids, there's a bridge below, The toll-keeper, Hymen, will let you through. Come over the stream to me.
 * Love in a shower safe shelter took,
 * Bloomfield, Glee, Stanza 1

He woold love, and she woold not, She sayd, "Never man was trewe;" He sayes, "None was false to you."
 * Much ado there was, God wot;
 * Nicholas Breton, Phillida and Corydon

Quiet as a street at night; And thoughts of you, I do remember, Were green leaves in a darkened chamber, Were dark clouds in a moonless sky.
 * In your arms was still delight,
 * Rupert Brooke, Retrospect

I love thee so, Dear, that I only can love thee.
 * For none can express thee, though all should approve thee.
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Insufficiency

Of thy loving, for I love thee!
 * Behold me! I am worthy
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lady Geraldine's Courtship, Stanza 79

Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll— Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year? Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear, To love me also in silence, with thy soul.
 * Who can fear
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese, Sonnet XXI

No other is sweet in its rhythm; Unless you can feel when left by one That all men else go with him.
 * Unless you can feel when the song is done
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Unless

All the world's loves in its unworldliness.
 * I think, am sure, a brother's love exceeds
 * Robert Browning, Blot on the 'Scutcheon, Act II, scene 1

And the loved one all together.
 * Never the time and the place
 * Robert Browning, Never the Time and the Place

Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her.
 * God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures
 * Robert Browning, One Word More, Stanza XVII

Love buys not with the ruthless usurer's gold The loathsome prostitution of a hand Without a heart! Love sacrifices all things To bless the thing it loves!
 * Love has no thought of self!
 * Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The Lady of Lyons, Act V, scene 2, line 23

Thou wilt not laugh at poets.
 * Love thou, and if thy love be deep as mine,
 * Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu (1839), Act I, scene 1, line 177

And his heart was true to Poll.
 * No matter what you do, if your heart is ever true,
 * F. C. Burnand, His Heart was true to Poll

And love but her forever; For nature made her what she is, And never made anither!
 * To see her is to love her,
 * Robert Burns, Bonny Lesley

He dearly loved the lasses, O.
 * The wisest man the warl' e'er saw,
 * Robert Burns, Green Grow the Rashes

Flew o'er me and my dearie, For dear to me as light and life Was my sweet Highland Mary.
 * The golden hours on angel wings
 * Robert Burns, Highland Mary

That's newly sprung in June; Oh my luve's like the melodie That's sweetly played in tune.
 * Oh my luve's like a red, red rose,
 * Robert Burns, Red, Red Rose

Night without a morning; Love's the cloudless summer sun, Nature gay adorning.
 * What is life, when wanting love?
 * Robert Burns, Thine am I, my Faithful Fair

I thought 'twas the spring; but alas it was she.
 * When things were as fine as could possibly be
 * John Byrom, A Pastoral

I'll teach my grotto green to be; And sing my true love, all below The holly bower and myrtle tree.
 * I'll bid the hyacinth to blow,
 * Thomas Campbell, Caroline, Part I


 * My love lies bleeding.
 * Thomas Campbell, O'Connor's Child, Stanza 5

Or a coral lip admires, Or from star-like eyes doth seek Fuel to maintain his fires, As Old Time makes these decay, So his flames must waste away.
 * He that loves a rosy cheek,
 * Thomas Carew, Disdain Returned

Conquer love, that run away.
 * Then fly betimes, for only they
 * Thomas Carew, Song, Conquest by Flight

There's none like pretty Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And lives in our alley.
 * Of all the girls that are so smart
 * Henry Carey, Sally in our Alley

Let Time and Chance combine! The fairest love from heaven above, That love of yours was mine, My Dear! That love of yours was mine.
 * Let Time and Chance combine, combine!
 * Thomas Carlyle, Adieu

In vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua.''
 * ''Mulier cupido quod dicit amanti,
 * What woman says to fond lover should be written on air or the swift water.
 * Catullus, Carmina, LXX. 3


 * Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem.
 * It is difficult at once to relinquish a long-cherished love.
 * Catullus, Carmina, LXXVI. 13

Nescio: sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.'' I cannot say; but I feel it to be so, and I am tormented accordingly.
 * ''Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
 * I hate and I love. Why do I do so you perhaps ask.
 * Catullus, Carmina, LXXXV


 * Vivamus, mea Lesbia atque amemus.
 * My Lesbia, let us live and love.
 * Catullus, Carmina, V. 1


 * It's love, it's love that makes the world go round.
 * Popular French song in Chansons Nationales et Populaires de France, Volume II, p. 180 (c. 1821)

Causing a spring of virtues where he shines.
 * I tell thee Love is Nature's second sun,
 * George Chapman, All Fools, Act I, scene 1, line 98

But whispering tongues can poison truth, And constancy lives in realms above; And life is thorny, and youth is vain; And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain.
 * Alas! they had been friends in youth;
 * Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christabel (c. 1797-1801, published 1816), Part II

Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame.
 * All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
 * Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Love, Stanza 1

Why love must needs be blind, But this is the best of all I hold— His eyes are in his mind.
 * I have heard of reasons manifold
 * Samuel Taylor Coleridge, To a Lady, Stanza 2

I know not when our eyes may meet; What welcome you may give to me, Or will your words be sad or sweet, It may not be 'till years have passed, 'Till eyes are dim and tresses gray; The world is wide, but, love, at last, Our hands, our hearts, must meet some day.
 * I know not when the day shall be,
 * Hugh Conway, Some Day

And 'tis a pain that pain to miss; But, of all pains, the greatest pain Is to love, but love in vain.
 * A mighty pain to love it is,
 * Abraham Cowley, Translation of Anacreontic Odes, VII. Gold. (Anacreon's authorship doubted)


 * Heaven's great artillery.
 * Richard Crashaw, Flaming Heart, line 56


 * Love's great artillery.
 * Richard Crashaw, Prayer, line 18


 * Mighty Love's artillery.
 * Richard Crashaw, Wounds of the Lord Jesus, line 2

Vnless it be a crime to haue lou'd too well.
 * And I, what is my crime I cannot tell,
 * Richard Crashaw, Alexias

For life to come, is false to the past sweet Of mortal life, hath killed the world above. For why to live again if not to meet? And why to meet if not to meet in love? And why in love if not in that dear love of old?
 * He who, being bold
 * Sydney Dobell, Sonnet, To a Friend in Bereavement''

Give to your boy, your Cæsar, The rattle of a globe to play withal, This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off; I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra.
 * Give, you gods,
 * John Dryden, All for Love, Act II, scene 1

How easy his chain, How pleasing his pain, How sweet to discover He sighs not in vain.
 * How happy the lover,
 * John Dryden, King Arthur, IV. 1. Song

And Jove but laughs at lovers' perjury.
 * Fool, not to know that love endures no tie,
 * John Dryden, Palamon and Arcite, Book II, line 75. Amphitron, Act I, scene 2

Than all other pleasures are.
 * Pains of love be sweeter far
 * John Dryden, Tyrannic Love, Act IV, scene 1

Where we sat side by side.
 * I'm sitting on the stile. Mary,
 * Lady Dufferin, Lament of the Irish Emigrant

Love comes uncall'd, unsent. Oh, tell me where Love goeth! That was not Love that went.
 * Oh, tell me whence Love cometh!
 * Burden of a Woman. Found in J. W. Ebsworth's Roxburghe Ballads

Is pervious to Love; With bandaged eyes he never errs, Around, below, above. His blinding light He flingeth white On God's and Satan's brood, And reconciles By mystic wiles The evil and the good.
 * The solid, solid universe
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson, Cupido

The surging sea outweighs; The world uncertain comes and goes, The lover rooted stays.
 * A ruddy drop of manly blood
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, First Series. Epigraph to Friendship


 * All mankind love a lover.
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Of Love

Than smiles of other maidens are.
 * Her very frowns are fairer far
 * Hartley Coleridge, Song, She is not Fair

In ours, it fills up all the room it finds.
 * Poor love is lost in men's capacious minds,
 * John Crowne, Thyestes

Reason, confounds discretion; deaf to Counsel It runs a headlong course to desperate madness.
 * Love is the tyrant of the heart; it darkens
 * John Ford, The Lover's Melancholy (licensed 24 November 1628; printed 1629), Act III, scene 3, line 105

'Tis friendship, and 'tis something more. Each other every wish they give; Not to know love is not to live.
 * Love, then, hath every bliss in store;
 * John Gay, Plutus, Cupid and Time, line 135

I love the love she withholds, I love my love that loveth her, And anew her being moulds.
 * I love her doubling and anguish;
 * R. W. Gilder, The New Day, Part III. Song XV

The best things are the truest! When the earth lies shadowy dark below Oh, then the heavens are bluest!
 * Love, Love, my Love.
 * R. W. Gilder, The New Day, Part IV. Song I

Sweetheart, light of the land and the sea! The wide, wide world could not inclose thee, For thou art the whole wide world to me.
 * Not from the whole wide world I chose thee,
 * R. W. Gilder, Song

But find none to remind me, How blest the hours pass'd away With the girl I left behind me.
 * I seek for one as fair and gay,
 * The Girl I Left Behind Me (1759)

Was Mühe kaum in langer Zeit erreicht.'' What toil can hardly achieve in an age.
 * ''In einem Augenblick gewährt die Liebe
 * Love grants in a moment
 * Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Torquato Tasso, II. 3. 76

Und an dem Jüngling was er ankündigt.'' Young men for what they promise to be.
 * ''Man liebt an dem Mädchen was es ist,
 * Girls we love for what they are;
 * Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Die Wahrheit und Dichtung, III. 14

And every care resign: And we shall never, never part, My life—my all that's mine!
 * Thus let me hold thee to my heart,
 * Oliver Goldsmith, The Hermit, Stanza 39

Thou wast my Slave, thou art, or thou shalt be.
 * Whoe'er thou art, thy Lord and master see,
 * George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne, Inscription for a Figure representing the God of Love. See Genuine Works. (1732) I. 129. Version of a Greek couplet from the Greek Anthology

Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart.
 * Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,
 * Thomas Gray, The Bard, I. 3, line 12

The bloom of young Desire and purple light of love.
 * O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move
 * Thomas Gray, The Progress of Poesy. I. 3, line 16

Faith is the key that shuts the spring of love.
 * Love is a lock that linketh noble minds,
 * Robert Greene, Alcida. Verses Written under a Carving of Cupid Blowing Bladders in the Air

Greensleeves was my delight, Greensleeves was my heart of gold, And who but Lady Greensleeves?
 * Greensleeves was all my joy,
 * A new Courtly Sonnet of the Lady Greensleeves, to the new tune of "Greensleeves", from "A Handful of Pleasant Deities" (1584)

Will this perishing mould, Were it made out of mire, Transmute into gold.
 * The chemist of love
 * Hafiz, Divan

Ich shau' dich an und Wehmut schleicht mir ins Herz hinein.'' I gaze on thee, and yearnings, sad in my bosom hide.
 * ''Du bist wie eine Blume, so hold, so schön und rein;
 * Oh fair, oh sweet and holy as dew at morning tide,
 * Heinrich Heine, Du bist wie eine Blume

Doch bleibt sie immer neu.'' Yet is it ever new.
 * ''Es ist eine alte Geschichte,
 * It is an ancient story
 * Heinrich Heine, Lyrisches Intermezzo, 39

And titter'd, caress'd, kiss'd so dearly.
 * And once again we plighted our troth,
 * Heinrich Heine, Youthful Sorrows. No. 57, Stanza 2

And nought beyond, O earth.
 * Alas! for love, if thou art all,
 * Felicia Hemans, The Graves of a Household

Love—love and me.
 * Open your heart and take us in,
 * William Ernest Henley, Rhymes and Rhythms, V

Pray love me little, so you love me long.
 * You say to me-wards your affection's strong;
 * Robert Herrick, Love me Little, Love me Long

Was never face so pleased my mind; I did but see her passing by, And yet I love her till I die.
 * There is a lady sweet and kind,
 * Ascribed to Robert Herrick in the Scottish Student's Song-Book. Found on back of leaf 53 of Popish Kingdome or reigne of Antichrist, in Latin verse by Thomas Naogeorgus, and Englished by Barnabe Googe. Printed 1570. See Notes and Queries. S. IX. X. 427. Lines from Elizabethan Song-books. Bullen, p. 31. Reprinted from Thomas Ford's Music of Sundry Kinds. (1607)

Thy Protestant to be: Or bid me love, and I will give A loving heart to thee, A heart as soft, a heart as kind, A heart as sound and free As in the whole world thou canst find, That heart I'll give to thee.
 * Bid me to live, and I will live
 * Robert Herrick, To Anthea, who may command him anything, No. 268

Thus, and no farther shall my passion stray: The first crime, past, compels us into more, And guilt grows fate, that was but choice, before.
 * Let never man be bold enough to say,
 * Aaron Hill, Athelwold, Act V, scene The Garden

Love is like a dizziness; It winna let a poor body Gang about his biziness!
 * O, love, love, love!
 * Hogg, Love is like a Dizziness, line 9

Not the light gossamer stirs with less; But never a cable that holds so fast Through all the battles of wave and blast.
 * Soft is the breath of a maiden's Yes:
 * Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Songs of Many Seasons, Dorothy, II, Stanza 7


 * Who love too much, hate in the like extreme.
 * Homer, The Odyssey, Book XV, line 79. Pope's translation


 * For love deceives the best of woman kind.
 * Homer, The Odyssey, Book XV, line 463. Pope's translation

Happiness, and all our care, And the flower that sweetly shows Nestling lightly in your hair.
 * What's our baggage? Only vows,
 * Victor Hugo, Eviradnus, XI

The bishop Love will be; The Cupids every one, dear! Will chant—'We trust in thee!'
 * If you become a Nun, dear,
 * Leigh Hunt, The Nun

To long for, pureness to desire, a mount Of consecration it were good to scale.
 * From henceforth thou shalt learn that there is love
 * Jean Ingelow, A Parson's Letter to a Young Poet, Part II, line 55

All great loves that have ever died dropped dead.
 * But great loves, to the last, have pulses red;
 * Helen Hunt Jackson, Dropped Dead


 * Love has a tide!
 * Helen Hunt Jackson, Tides

So much that he cannot forget.
 * When love is at its best, one loves
 * Helen Hunt Jackson, Two Truths


 * Love's like the flies, and, drawing-room or garret, goes all over a house.
 * Douglas Jerrold, Jerrold's Wit, Love

Is—Love, forgive us!—cinders, ashes, dust.
 * Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
 * John Keats, Lamia, Part II

Why seemed you so deaf to my prayers? Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love But—why did you kick me downstairs?
 * When late I attempted your pity to move,
 * J. P. Kemble, Panel, Act I, scene 1. Quoted from Asylum for Fugitive Pieces, Volume I, p. 15. (1785) where it appeared anonymously. Kemble is credited with its authorship. The Panel is adapted from Bickerstaff's 'Tis Well 'Tis No Worse, but these lines are not therein. It may also be found in Annual Register. Appendix. (1783) P. 201

Robin's not near— He whom I wished to see, Wished for to hear; Where's all the joy and mirth Made life a heaven on earth? O! they're all fled with thee, Robin Adair.
 * What's this dull town to me?
 * Caroline Keppel, Robin Adair

The red deer to the wold; The Romany lass for the Romany lad, As in the days of old.
 * The hawk unto the open sky,
 * Given in the N. Y. Times Review of Books as a previously written poem by F. C. Weatherby. Not found

None so true as you and I— Sing the Lovers' Litany: "Love like ours can never die!"
 * Sing, for faith and hope are high—
 * Rudyard Kipling, Lovers Litany

There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me; For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say: "Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
 * By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
 * Rudyard Kipling, Mandalay

And Death the king of all, still would I pray, "For me the motley and the bauble, yea, Though all be vanity, as the Preacher saith, The mirth of love be mine for one brief breath!"
 * If Love were jester at the court of Death,
 * Frederic L. Knowles, If Love were Jester at the Court of Death

On peut bien dire, Adieu, prudence.'' We may to prudence bid adieu.
 * ''Amour! Amour! quand tu nous tiens
 * O tyrant love, when held by you,
 * Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, IV. 1

Ever made by the Hand above— A woman's heart, and a woman's life, And a woman's wonderful love?
 * Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing
 * Mary T. Lathrop, A Woman's Answer to a Man's Question. Erroneously credited to Mrs. Browning

She's as pure as the lily in the dell. She's as sweet as the heather, The bonnie, bloomin' heather, Mary, ma Scotch Blue-bell.
 * I love a lassie, a bonnie, bonnie lassie,
 * Harry Lauder and Gerald Grafton. I Love a Lassie

Qu'est tout le nectar du baiser.'' Is all the nectar of the kiss.
 * ''Et c'est dans la première flamme
 * And in that first flame
 * Lebrun, Mes Souvenirs, ou les Deux Rives de la Seine

But all through Love in time is healed again.
 * Love leads to present rapture,—then to pain;
 * Charles Godfrey Leland, Sweet Marjoram

Conversed as they sat on the green. They gazed on each other with tender delight, Alonzo the Brave was the name of the knight— The maiden's the Fair Imogene.
 * A warrior so bold, and a virgin so bright,
 * M. G. Lewis—Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogene. First appeared in his novel Ambrosio the Monk. Found in his Tales of Wonder, Volume III, p. 63. Lewis's copy of his poem is in the British Museum

To and fro in his breast his thoughts were heaving and dashing, As in a foundering ship.
 * Love contending with friendship, and self with each generous impulse.
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), Part III, line 7

Love gives itself, but is not bought.
 * Like Dian's kiss, unask'd, unsought,
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Endymion (1818), Stanza 4

Leap to meet thee, leap to meet thee, As the springs to meet the sunshine.
 * Does not all the blood within me
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha (1855), Wedding Feast, line 153

And cannot be undone. Thy very weakness Hath brought thee nearer to me, and henceforth My love will have a sense of pity in it, Making it less a worship than before.
 * I do not love thee less for what is done,
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Masque of Pandora, Part VIII. In the Garden, line 39

And they couldn't grow up any higher; So they twin'd themselves into a true lover's knot, For all lovers true to admire.
 * So they grew, and they grew, to the church steeple tops
 * Lord Lovel. Old Ballad. History found in Professor Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, II. 204. Also in The New Comic Minstrel. Pub. by John Cameron, Glasgow. The original version seems to be as given there

Which Neptune obey, Over rocks that are steepest, Love will find out the way.
 * Under floods that are deepest,
 * Love will find out the way. Ballad in Percy's Reliques

That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind To war and arms I fly. . . . . . . Yet this inconstancy is such As you too shall adore:— I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more.
 * Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind,
 * Richard Lovelace, To Lucasta, on going to the Wars. Given erroneously to Montrose by Scott

And hath its food served up in earthenware; It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand, Through the every-dayness of this workday world.
 * True love is but a humble, low born thing,
 * James Russell Lowell, Love, line 1

Is she that to my soul is dear; Her glorious fancies come from far, Beneath the silver evening star, And yet her heart is ever near.
 * Not as all other women are
 * James Russell Lowell, My Love, Stanza 1

Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang.'' Remains a fool his whole life long.
 * ''Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib, und Gesang,
 * He who loves not wine, woman, and song,
 * Attributed to Luther by Uhland in Die Geisterkelter. Found in Luther's Tischreden. Proverbs at end. Credited to J. H. Voss by Redlich, Die poetischen Beiträge zum Waudsbecker Bothen, Hamburg, 1871, p. 67

But Love can hope where Reason would despair.
 * None without hope e'er lov'd the brightest fair:
 * George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton, Epigram

Wilt not thou love me for myself alone? Yes, thou wilt love me with exceeding love, And I will tenfold all that love repay; Still smiling, though the tender may reprove, Still faithful, though the trusted may betray.
 * But thou, through good and evil, praise and blame,
 * Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, Lines Written July 30, 1847

Has won my right good will, I'd crowns resign to call her mine, Sweet lass of Richmond Hill.
 * This lass so neat, with smile so sweet,
 * Ascribed to Leonard McNally, who married Miss I'Anson, one of the claimants for the "Lass," by Sir Joseph Barrington in Sketches of His Own Times, Volume II, p. 47. Also credited to William Upton. It appeared in Public Advertiser, Aug. 3, 1789. "Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill" erroneously said to have been a sweetheart of King George III

We always know she's coming by her song. And every man he tells his little tale, And Madelon, she listens all day long. Our Madelon is never too severe— A kiss or two is nothing much to her— She laughs us up to love and life and God— Madelon, Madelon, Madelon.
 * When Madelon comes out to serve us drinks,
 * La Madelon, song of the French Soldiers in the Great War

And we will all the pleasures prove, That valleys, groves, or hills, or fields, Or woods and steepy mountains, yield.
 * Come live with me, and be my love,
 * Christopher Marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to his Love, Stanza 1

But why I cannot tell; But this I know full well, I do not love thee, Dr. Fell.
 * I do not love thee, Dr. Fell.
 * Paraphrase of Martial by Tom Brown, as given in his Works, ed. by Drake. (1760). Answer to Dean John Fell, of Oxford, IV. 100

Je n'en saurois dire la cause; Je sais seulement une chose. C'est que je ne vous aime pas.''
 * ''Je ne vous aime pas, Hylas;
 * Paraphrase of Martial by Robert Rabutin (De Bussy)—Epigram 32, Book I

But why I can't tell.
 * I love thee not, Nell
 * Paraphrase of Martial in Thomas Forde's Virtus Rediviva

Love is a flame to set the will on fire, Love is a flame to cheat men into mire.
 * Love is a flame to burn out human wills,
 * John Masefield, Widow in the Bye Street, Part II

Till they have gained their ends, are giants in Their promises, but, those obtained, weak pigmies In their performance. And it is a maxim Allowed among them, so they may deceive, They may swear anything; for the queen of love, As they hold constantly, does never punish, But smile, at lovers' perjuries.
 * Great men,
 * Philip Massinger, Great Duke of Florence, Act II, scene 3

'Tis well to be honest and true; 'Tis well to be off with the old love, Before you are on with the new.
 * 'Tis well to be merry and wise,
 * As used by Charles Maturin, for the motto to "Bertram," produced at Drury Lane, 1816

It is good to be honest and true, It is best to be off with the old love, Before you are on with the new.
 * It is good to be merry and wise,
 * Published in "Songs of England and Scotland." London, 1835, Volume II, p. 73

And having known you, love you better still.
 * I loved you ere I knew you; know you now,
 * Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton), Vanini

Love is much in winning, yet is more in leesing: Love is ever sick, and yet is never dying; Love is ever true, and yet is ever lying; Love does doat in liking, and is mad in loathing; Love indeed is anything, yet indeed is nothing.
 * Love is all in fire, and yet is ever freezing;
 * Thomas Middleton, Blurt, Master Constable (c. 1601), Act II, scene 2

Of any true affection but 'twas nipped.
 * I never heard
 * Thomas Middleton, Blurt, Master Constable (c. 1601), Act III, scene 2

The worst that can befall, Is happier thousandfold than one Who never loved at all.
 * He who for love hath undergone
 * Monckton Milnes, To Myrzha, On Returning

And not to love more painful still; But oh, it is the worst of pain, To love and not be lov'd again.
 * Yes, loving is a painful thrill,
 * Thomas Moore, Anacreontic, Ode 29

But as truly loves on to the close, As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets, The same look which she turn'd when he rose.
 * No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
 * Thomas Moore, Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms, Stanza 2

I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.
 * I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart,
 * Thomas Moore, Come, Rest in This Bosom, Stanza 2

To drift upon the moonless sea, A lute, whose leading chord is gone, A wounded bird, that hath but one Imperfect wing to soar upon, Are like what I am, without thee.
 * A boat at midnight sent alone
 * Thomas Moore, Loves of the Angels, Second Angel's Story

As love's young dream.
 * But there's nothing half so sweet in life
 * Thomas Moore, Love's Young Dream, Stanza 1

To drooping Age, who crost his way.— "It is a sunny hour of play; For which repentance dear doth pay; Repentance! Repentance! And this is Love, as wise men say."
 * "Tell me, what's Love;" said Youth, one day,
 * Thomas Moore, Youth and Age

I've bourne a weary lot; But in my wanderings far or near Ye never were forgot. The fount that first burst frae this heart Still travels on its way And channels deeper as it rins The luve o' life's young day.
 * I've wandered east, I've wandered west,
 * William Motherwell, Jeanie Morrison

But Love, the master goes in and out Of his goodly chambers with song and shout, Just as he please—just as he please.
 * Duty's a slave that keeps the keys,
 * Dinah Craik, Plighted


 * Res est soliciti plena timoris amor.
 * Love is a thing full of anxious fears.
 * Ovid, Heroides, I. 12

Regnat, et in dominos jus habet ille deos.''
 * ''Quicquid Amor jussit non est contemnere tutum.
 * It is not safe to despise what Love commands. He reigns supreme, and rules the mighty gods.
 * Ovid, Heroides, IV. 11


 * Hei mihi! quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis.
 * Ah me! love can not be cured by herbs.
 * Ovid, Metamorphoses, I. 523

Majestas et amor.''
 * ''Non bene conveniunt, nec in una sede morantur,
 * Majesty and love do not well agree, nor do they live together.
 * Ovid, Metamorphoses, II. 846


 * Credula res amor est.
 * Love is a credulous thing.
 * Ovid, Metamorphoses, VII. 826. Heroides, VI. 21

(Cedit amor rebus) res age; tutus eris.''
 * ''Qui finem quæris amoris,
 * If thou wishest to put an end to love, attend to business (love yields to employment); then thou wilt be safe.
 * Ovid, Remedia Amoris, CXLIII

Let those who always loved now love the more.
 * Let those love now who never lov'd before,
 * Thomas Parnell—Translation of the Pervigilium Veneris. Ancient poem. Author unknown. Ascribed to Catullus. See also Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Section II. Memb. 5. 5

And none knows whence or why they rise.
 * The moods of love are like the wind,
 * Coventry Patmore, The Angel in the House, Sarum Plain

It is a prick, it is a sting. It is a pretty, pretty thing; It is a fire, it is a coal, Whose flame creeps in at every hole!
 * What thing is love?—for (well I wot) love is a thing.
 * George Peele, Miscellaneous Poems, The Hunting of Cupid

Who lost my heart while I preserv'd my sheep.
 * Ah! what avails it me the flocks to keep,
 * Alexander Pope, Autumn, line 79

To bear too tender or too firm a heart, To act a lover's or a Roman's part? Is there no bright reversion in the sky For those who greatly think, or bravely die?
 * Is it, in Heav'n, a crime to love too well?
 * Alexander Pope, Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady

Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies.
 * Love, free as air, at sight of human ties,
 * Alexander Pope, Epistle to Eloisa, last line

And make two lovers happy.
 * Ye gods, annihilate but space and time,
 * Alexander Pope, Martinus Scriblerus on the Art of Sinking in Poetry, Chapter XI

And make my tongue victorious as her eyes.
 * O Love! for Sylvia let me gain the prize,
 * Alexander Pope, Spring, line 49

And can be bought with nothing but with self.
 * Divine is Love and scorneth worldly pelf,
 * Sir Walter Raleigh, Love the Only Price of Love

And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee, and be thy love.
 * If all the world and love were young,
 * Sir Walter Raleigh, The Nymph's Reply to the Passionate Shepherd

And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known, So I turn the leaves of Fancy, till in shadowy design I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.
 * As one who cons at evening o'er an album all alone,
 * James Whitcomb Riley, An Old Sweetheart of Mine

Are as a string of pearls to me; I count them over, every one apart, My rosary, my rosary.
 * The hours I spent with thee, dear heart,
 * Robert Cameron Rogers, My Rosary

None—none on earth above her! As pure in thought as angels are, To know her was to love her.
 * Oh! she was good as she was fair.
 * Samuel Rogers, Jacqueline, Part I, line 68

Trust thou thy love: if she be mute, is she not pure? Lay thou thy soul full in her hands, low at her feet— Fail, Sun and Breath!—yet, for thy peace, she shall endure.
 * Trust thou thy Love: if she be proud, is she not sweet?
 * John Ruskin, Trust Thou Thy Love

Bridge there was not to convey, Not a bark was near at hand, Yet true love soon found the way.
 * Ah, to that far distant strand
 * Friedrich Schiller, Hero and Leander. Bowring's translation

Die schöne Zeit der jungen Liebe.'' The beautiful time of youthful love.
 * ''O dass sie ewig grünen bliebe,
 * O that it might remain eternally green,
 * Friedrich Schiller, Lied von der Glocke

Ich habe gelebt und geliebt.'' I have lived and loved.
 * ''Ich habe genossen das irdische Glück,
 * I have enjoyed earthly happiness,
 * Friedrich Schiller, Piccolomini, III. 7. 9

Hope may succor and faith befriend, Yet happy your hearts if you can but know, Love awaits at the journey's end!
 * Mortals, while through the world you go,
 * Clinton Scollard, The Journey's End—Envoy

In war, he mounts the warrior's steed; In halls, in gay attire is seen; In hamlets, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above; For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
 * In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed;
 * Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), Canto III, Stanza 2

For lovers love the western star.
 * Her blue eyes sought the west afar,
 * Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), Canto III, Stanza 24

Whom the fates sever From his true maiden's breast, Parted for ever? Where, through groves deep and high, Sounds the far billow, Where early violets die, Under the willow.
 * Where shall the lover rest,
 * Walter Scott, Marmion (1808), Canto III, Stanza 10

Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.
 * Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
 * William Shakespeare, Sonnet CXVI

By just exchange, one for the other given; I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss, There never was a better bargain driven.
 * My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,
 * Sir Philip Sidney, My True Love Hath my Heart

I bow before thine altar, Love!
 * Thy fatal shafts unerring move;
 * Tobias Smollett, Roderick Random, Chapter XL, Stanza 1

Against young Cæsar strove, And Rome's whole world was set in arms, The cause was,—all for love.
 * And when my own Mark Antony
 * Robert Southey, All for Love, Part II, Stanza 26

With life all other passions fly, All others are but vanity, In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell, Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell.
 * They sin who tell us Love can die:
 * Robert Southey, Curse of Kehama. Mount Meru, Stanza 10

Is granted scarce to gods above.
 * To be wise and eke to love,
 * Edmund Spenser, Shepheard's Calendar, March

Be it dark or be it day; Dreary winter, fairy May, I shall know and greet you. For each day of grief or grace Brings you nearer my embrace; Love hath fashioned your dear face, I shall know you when I meet you.
 * Sweetheart, when you walk my way,
 * Frank L. Stanton, Greeting

Cherished other loves than you And kept hands with hoary policy in marriage-bed and pew; Now I know the false and true, For the earnest sun looks through, And my old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew.
 * I who all the Winter through,
 * Robert Louis Stevenson, poem written 1876

Bright and confident and true, And the old love comes to meet me, in the dawning and the dew.
 * And my heart springs up anew,
 * Robert Louis Stevenson, poem written 1876

Heavenly fragrance round it throws, Yet tears its dewy leaves disclose, And in the midst of briars it blows Just like Love.
 * Just like Love is yonder rose,
 * Viscount Strangford, Just like Love, Translation of Poems of Camoens

Prithee, why so pale? Will, when looking well can't move her, Looking ill prevail? Prithee, why so pale?
 * Why so pale and wan, fond lover,
 * Sir John Suckling, Song, Stanza 1

Thou grand Deluder, were it not for thee? So weak thou art that fools thy power despise; And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise.
 * In all I wish, how happy should I be,
 * Jonathan Swift, To Love

Comes as a butterfly tipped with gold, Flutters and flies in sunlit skies, Weaving round hearts that were one time cold.
 * Love, as is told by the seers of old,
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, Song

And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together In sad or singing weather.
 * If love were what the rose is,
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, A Match

That thou shouldst hunger so after my death? My heart is harmless as my life's first day: Seek out some false fair woman, and plague her Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed.
 * O Love, O great god Love, what have I done,
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Complaint of Lisa

On a thorny rose bed: And his eyes with tears were red, And pale his lips as the dead.
 * Love laid his sleepless head
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, Love Laid his Sleepless Head

Give you but love of you, sweet; He that hath more, let him give; He that hath wings, let him soar; Mine is the heart at your feet Here, that must love you to live.
 * I that have love and no more
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Oblation

And birds sit cowering on the spray, Along the flowery hedge I stray, To meet mine ain dear somebody.
 * When gloaming treads the heels of day
 * Robert Tannahill, Love's Fear

With a love that shall not die Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!
 * I love thee, I love but thee,
 * Bayard Taylor, Bedouin Song

And round her waist she felt it fold, And far across the hills they went In that new world which is the old.
 * And on her lover's arm she leant,
 * Alfred Tennyson, Day Dream, The Departure. I

And therefore my true love has been my death.
 * I loved you, and my love had no return,
 * Alfred Tennyson, Lancelot and Elaine, line 1,298

I am shamed through all my nature to have lov'd so slight a thing.
 * Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string?
 * Alfred Tennyson, Locksley Hall (1835, published 1842), Stanza 74

Love is made a vague regret.
 * Love is hurt with jar and fret;
 * Alfred Tennyson, The Miller's Daughter, Stanza 28

Such as words could never utter; Would you know how first he met her? She was cutting bread and butter.
 * Werther had a love for Charlotte,
 * William Makepeace Thackeray, The Sorrows of Werther

The cliff, Sweet, of your skyward-jetting soul,— Shook by all gusts that sweep it, overcome By all its clouds incumbent; O be true To your soul, dearest, as my life to you! For if that soil grow sterile, then the whole Of me must shrivel, from the topmost shoot Of climbing poesy, and my life, killed through, Dry down and perish to the foodless root.
 * Like to a wind-blown sapling grow I from
 * Francis Thompson, Manus Animam Pinxit

It aids the hero, bids ambition rise To nobler heights, inspires immortal deeds, Even softens brutes, and adds a grace to virtue.
 * Why should we kill the best of passions, love?
 * James Thomson, Sophonisba, Act V, scene 2

What are you looking for over the bridge?— A little straw hat with the streaming blue ribbons Is soon to come dancing over the bridge.
 * O, what are you waiting for here? young man!
 * James Thomson, Waiting

Irrita per terras et freta summa ferunt, Gratia magna Jovi; vetuit pater ipse valere, Jurasset cupide quicquid ineptus amor.''
 * ''Nec jurare time; Veneris perjuria venti
 * Fear not to swear; the winds carry the perjuries of lovers without effect over land and sea, thanks to Jupiter. The father of the gods himself has denied effect to what foolish lovers in their eagerness have sworn.
 * Tibullus, Carmina, I, 4, 21


 * Perjuria ridet amantium Jupiter et ventos irrita ferre jubet.
 * At lovers' perjuries Jove laughs and throws them idly to the winds.
 * Tibullus, Carmina, III, 6, 49

And then—she only loved the rose; And then—herself alone; and then— She knew not what, but now—she knows.
 * At first, she loved nought else but flowers,
 * Ridgely Torrence, House of a Hundred Lights

Fights in Love's name; The love that lures thee from that fight Lures thee to shame: That love which lifts the heart, yet leaves The spirit free,— That love, or none, is fit for one Man-shaped like thee.
 * The warrior for the True, the Right,
 * Aubrey Thomas de Vere, Miscellaneous Poems, Song

'Tis an essay, a taste of Heaven below!
 * To love is to believe, to hope, to know;
 * Edmund Waller, Divine Poems, Divine Love, Canto III, line 17

We should agree as angels do above.
 * Could we forbear dispute, and practise love,
 * Edmund Waller, Divine Poems, Divine Love, Canto III, line 25

The Pope with Saint Peter's key, Can never unlock the one little heart That is opened only to me. For I am the Lord of a Realm, And I am Pope of a See; Indeed I'm supreme in the kingdom That is sitting, just now, on my knee.
 * And the King with his golden sceptre,
 * C. H. Webb, The King and the Pope

And high and low mate ill; But love has never known a law Beyond its own sweet will!
 * O, rank is good, and gold is fair,
 * John Greenleaf Whittier, Amy Wentworth, Stanza 18

I hate to go above you, Because"—the brown eyes lower fell,— "Because, you see, I love you!"
 * "I'm sorry that I spell'd the word;
 * John Greenleaf Whittier, In School-Days, Stanza 4

Your vine is a nest for flies— Your milkmaid shocks the Graces, And simplicity talks of pies! You lie down to your shady slumber And wake with a bug in your ear, And your damsel that walks in the morning Is shod like a mountaineer.
 * Your love in a cottage is hungry,
 * Nathaniel Parker Willis, Low in a Cottage, Stanza 3

I would not have thee come too nigh. The sun's gold would not seem pure gold Unless the sun were in the sky: To take him thence and chain him near Would make his beauty disappear.
 * He loves not well whose love is bold!
 * William Winter, Love's Queen

Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway Of magic potent over sun and star, Is love, though oft to agony distrest, And though his favourite be feeble woman's breast.
 * For mightier far
 * William Wordsworth, Laodamia, Stanza 15


 * O dearer far than light and life are dear.
 * William Wordsworth, Poems Founded on the Affections, No. XIX. To. ——, VII. 114

With "sober certainties" of love is blest.
 * While all the future, for thy purer soul,
 * William Wordsworth, Poems Founded on the Affections, VII. 115. (Knight's ed.)


 * Farewell, Love, and all thy laws for ever.
 * Sir Thomas Wyatt, Songs and Sonnets, A Renouncing of Love.
 * With every act of love we move a little closer to immortality, whereas every act of hate brings us nearer to death. Recueil de Caprices

Anonymous

 * Bist du bei mir, geh ich mit Freuden zum Sterben und zu meiner Ruh. Ach, wie vergnügt wär so mein Ende, es drückten deine schönen Hände mir die getreuen Augen zu!
 * With you by my side I go with joy to death and to my rest. How delightful would be my end were your beautiful hands to shut my faithful eyes.
 * "Bist du bei Mir," aria of unknown origin transcribed in a notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach (1725), BWV508