How Do I Love Thee?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints -- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
Shakespeare
Sonnet XVIII
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet CXVI
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
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 proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
may i feel, said he
(i'll squeal, said she
just once,said he)
it's fun, said she
(may i touch, said he
how much, said she
a lot, said he)
why not, said she
(let's go, said he
not too far, said she
what's too far, said he
where you are, said she)
may i stay, said he
(which way, said she
like this, said he
if you kiss, said she
may i move, said he
is it love, said she)
if you're willing, said he
(but you're killing, said she
but it's life, said he
but your wife, said she
now, said he)
ow ,said she
(tiptop said, he
don't stop, said she
oh no, said he)
go slow, said she
cccome? said he
ummm, said she)
you're divine!, said he
(you are Mine, said she)
by:"ee cummings"
Is There Anything So Beautiful?
Michael Bartlett
Could there e'er be such a poem, for you I write,
that speaks of your beauty in all its sight;
that captures your heart that burns so bright.
Could such a poem, e'er there be?
Could there e'er be such a poem, so unique and free,
that moulds a woman as lovely as thee,
that paints a phenomenon so fantastically.
Could such a poem, e’er there be?
Could there e'er be such a poem, as alluring as your eyes,
that could sing the emotion of lovers' goodbyes.
That shines like a sunset or dreams like a sky.
Could such a poem e'er there be?
Could there e'er be such a poem, so captivating,
as delightful as your smile, and just as fascinating
so wonderful, so complete, so irresistible?
Compared to you, there can be nothing so beautiful.
My Heart's Feelings
Philip M. Cook
I will always love you
today
tomorrow
and forever.
When we cannot be together,
your image is embedded in my mind,
always there to recall when I am lonely
the taste of your lips on mine,
softer than a summer sky,
your fragrance as I hold you close,
to which no flower could compare,
your heart beating in time with mine,
your very essence
filling my heart with love.
One Perfect Rose
A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet-
One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;
"My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose."
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.
A Red, Red Rose
Robert Burns
O, my Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June.
O, my Luve's like a melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
As fair as thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run:
And fare thee well, my only luve!
And fare thee weel, a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it ware ten thousand mile.
The One I Love
"Michael Bartlett"
You are the day of many seasons;
the night of endless wonder.
With summer moors and shimmering shores
and cloudless skies of thunder.
You are the desire of many hearts
which lie cold and loveless bound.
With beautiful eyes like deep blue skies
you are their heaven found.
You are my childhood image of love,
where feelings stay true forever;
a utopia free from reality.
A dream nothing else can sever.
You are, in my eyes, the most beautiful girl;
you have made my heart beat again.
I yearn so much for your benevolent touch,
like the wastelands yearn for rain.
You took away my loneliness,
my faith you did repair
with one impassioned kiss, one storm of bliss.
You are beyond compare.
You are the girl that changed my life,
like an goddess from above.
You are everything that angels sing,
for you are the one I love.
Ode to Thee
"Michael Bartlett"
I’ve seen the comets in the skies
that thousands flocked at night to see;
and rainbows shining by their storms,
majestic in their striking forms.
But nothing next to thee.
I’ve stepped onto many a stage
to rapturous, applauding seas.
And shaken hands with priests and lords,
then basked before their schoolboy awe.
But am nothing without thee.
I’ve written verses in the night,
and known a poet’s misery.
It howls from deep within my soul,
as words do form all that’s unwhole
And paint the stars with thee!
SHE IS THE ONE
Michael Bartlett
Her smile is like the morning sun;
her eyes are like the stars;
her hair, it smells of heaven's fall
and brings it from afar.
Her touch is like an angel's kiss
in a dream, upon my brow;
for mortals were not meant to have
the love she gives me now.
Her soul is like a magic spell
that knows no end for me.
Its energy does lift me up
and drown me in her sea.
Her love is like a winter's storm;
it makes my world stand still,
and gives me moments all alone
that gouge me back my will.
Her smile is like the morning sun;
her eyes are like the stars.
My heart, it dances in this fall
for I know that she's the one.
you being in love
will tell who softly asks in love,
am i separated from your body smile brain hands merely
to become the jumping puppets of a dream? oh i mean:
entirely having in my careful how
careful arms created this at length
inexcusable, this inexplicable pleasure--you go from several
persons: believe me that strangers arrive
when i have kissed you into a memory
slowly, oh seriously
--that since and if you disappear
solemnly
myselves
ask "life, the question how do i drink dream smile
and how do i prefer this face to another and
why do i weep eat sleep--what does the whole intend"
they wonder. oh and they cry "to be, being, that i am alive
this absurd fraction in its lowest terms
with everything cancelled
but shadows
--what does it all come down to? love? Love
if you like and i like,for the reason that i
hate people and lean out of this window is love,love
and the reason that i laugh and breathe is oh love and the reason
that i do not fall into this street is love."
"e.e. cummings"
i carry your heart with me
"e.e. cummings"
I carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
To His Love
Come away, come, sweet love,
The golden morning breaks,
All the earth, all the air
Of love and pleasure speaks,
Teach thine arms then to embrace,
And sweet rosy lips to kiss,
And mix our souls in mutual bliss.
Eyes were made for beauty's grace,
Viewing, rueing love's long pain,
Procur'd by beauty's rude disdain.
Come away, come, sweet love,
The golden morning wastes,
While the sun from his sphere
His fiery arrows casts:
Making all the shadows fly,
Playing, staying in the grove,
To entertain the stealth of love,
Thither, sweet love, let us hie,
Flying, dying, in desire,
Wing'd with sweet hopes and heav'nly fire.
Come away, come, sweet love,
Do not in vain adorn
Beauty's grace that should rise
Like to the naked morn:
Lilies on the river's side,
And fair Cyprian flowers new blown,
Desire no beauties but their own,
Ornament is nurse of pride,
Pleasure, measure, love's delight,
Haste then, sweet love, our wished flight.
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