These verses – addressed to both men and women – speak of heart-stopping moments when eyes meet, fencing foils clash and smartphones glow. The extravagant thrill of new love floods poems by Jenny Joseph, Astrid Hjertenaes Andersen and – in one of the best-loved and most famous poems ever written – Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Women have written especially beautifully about what can rise from the embers of passion: long-lasting love, tender and content, and there are fine examples here from Amy Lowell and Louise Bogan. But there are also poems here about love’s difficulties – the need for reconciliation and forgiveness, the frustration of familiarity and the sting of betrayal – as well as words that will comfort anyone who has loved and lost.
Phosphorescence
Record this you say and I’m left
in the shallows, holding your phone.
And I capture it all – the moon
low and lush as a forbidden fruit,
you, striking light after light
as you cross the bay, the way
your face, as you turn to wave,
is star-varnished like that of a god.
Before you upload, before the flurry
of likes for this phenomenon,
there’s a moment when your world
is gleaming in my hands. Tonight
I would gulp down this blooming ocean
for a taste of your skin.
Victoria Gatehouse
Practice
As a teenager, fencing was the closest thing
I knew to desire, all the girls swapping one
uniform for another before practice, their white
dresses replaced by breeches. I thought we were
princes in a fairy tale with a twist, since
there were no princesses to be taken, wed.
As knights, we were told to aim for an imaginary
spot just above our opponent’s left breast. Often,
I left a bruise: the blade’s tip ricocheting off chest-
guards on to flesh. Just as often, I would feel yellow
blooms of ache where the girl I thought was beautiful
had pierced my heart. Hours later, I would transform.
I would head back home with a deepening
sense of dread, my bruises fading to quiet.
Mary Jean Chan
A Pride of Ladies
They wore light dresses and their arms were bare,
paddling backwater seasons, moonstruck, coy,
who cooled their necks with pale green spicy scents
and spread skirts stiff in petals as they sat
dazzled, waiting becalmed; and one might lift
hair bright as buglings on the wind.
All princesses.
And someone came, or would come soon enough
whose common words were stranger than the spell;
whose quick and faintly furry hand might not
fit those curved palms; would have been glad to stay
stretched flat, count polished pebbles, wait, and sun
a young brown back, pretending to be earth.
And not a prince. His breath was dark and sour.
He was not tall. But he was chosen. Chose,
and so must come, perhaps in the new moon.
Awkward himself, and shy, would learn to be
Mariner, Swineherd, King,
and set one free.
Anne Halley
Siren Song
This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:
the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls
the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember.
Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?
I don’t enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical
with these two feathery maniacs,
I don’t enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.
I will tell the secret
to you, to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song
is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique
at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.
Margaret Atwood
Valentine
Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.
I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or a kissogram.
I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.
Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.
Carol Ann Duffy
A Moment
The clouds had made a crimson crown
Above the mountains high.
The stormy sun was going down
In a stormy sky.
Why did you let your eyes so rest on me,
And hold your breath between?
In all the ages this can never be
As if it had not been.
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
In an Artist’s Studio
One face looks out from all his canvases,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
A saint, an angel – every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more nor less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.
Christina Rossetti
The Lust of the Eyes
I care not for my Lady’s soul,
Though I worship before her smile:
I care not where be my Lady’s goal
When her beauty shall lose its wile.
Low sit I down at my Lady’s feet,
Gazing through her wild eyes,
Smiling to think how my love will fleet
When their starlike beauty dies.
I care not if my Lady pray
To our Father which is in Heaven;
But for joy my heart’s quick pulses play,
For to me her love is given.
Then who shall close my Lady’s eyes,
And who shall fold her hands?
Will any hearken if she cries
Up to the unknown lands?
Elizabeth Siddal
The Guitarist Tunes Up
With what attentive courtesy he bent
Over his instrument;
Not as a lordly conqueror who could
Command both wire and wood,
But as a man with a loved woman might,
Inquiring with delight
What slight essential things she had to say
Before they started, he and she, to play.
Frances Cornford
Before the sun goes down
Before the sun goes down
I’ll lay my wildflower hand
in your hand’s white wicker basket
and bold – tender – shy I’ll encircle you
as day and night would encircle
the trees of the day and night
and my kisses will live like birds on your shoulder
Astrid Hjertenaes Andersen
Translated by Nadia Christensen
Sonnet 43
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
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
A Birthday
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickest fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves, and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves, and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
Christina Rossetti
The Sun Has Burst the Sky
The sun has burst the sky
Because I love you
And the river its banks.
The sea laps the great rocks
Because I love you
And takes no heed of the moon dragging it away
And saying coldly ‘Constancy is not for you’.
The blackbird fills the air
Because I love you
With spring and lawns and shadows falling on lawns.
The people walk in the street and laugh
I love you
And far down the river ships sound their hooters
Crazy with joy because I love you.
Jenny Joseph
The house was just twinkling in the moon light
The house was just twinkling in the moon light,
And inside it twinkling with delight,
Is my baby bright.
Twinkling with delight in the house twinkling
with the moonlight,
Bless my baby bless my baby bright,
Bless my baby twinkling with delight,
In the house twinkling in the moon light,
Her hubby dear loves to cheer when he thinks
and he always thinks when he knows and he always
knows that his blessed baby wifey is all here and he
is all hers, and sticks to her like burrs, blessed baby
Gertrude Stein
Reconciliation
Into my lap, a great star will fall . . .
we would keep watch at night,
praying in languages
carved like harps,
We would make our peace with the night –
so much of God flows through it.
Our hearts are like children,
wanting sleepsweet rest.
And our lips want to kiss,
so what makes you hold back?
Does my heart not border on yours,
your blood not redden my cheek?
We would make our peace with the night,
and if we embrace, we will not die.
Into my lap, a great star will fall.
Else Lasker-Schüler
Translated by James Sheard
Camomile Tea
Outside the sky is light with stars;
There’s a hollow roaring from the sea.
And, alas! for the little almond flowers,
The wind is shaking the almond tree.
How little I thought, a year ago,
In the horrible cottage upon the Lee,
That he and I should be sitting so
And sipping a cup of camomile tea.
Light as feathers the witches fly,
The horn of the moon is plain to see;
By a firefly under a jonquil flower
A goblin toasts a bumble-bee.
We might be fifty, we might be five,
So snug, so compact, so wise are we!
Under the kitchen-table leg
My knee is pressing against his knee.
Katherine Mansfield
To my Dear and Loving Husband
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more we may live ever.
Anne Bradstreet
A Decade
When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.
Amy Lowell
Wedding
From time to time our love is like a sail
and when the sail begins to alternate
from tack to tack, it’s like a swallowtail
and when the swallow flies it’s like a coat;
and if the coat is yours, it has a tear
like a wide mouth and when the mouth begins
to draw the wind, it’s like a trumpeter
and when the trumpet blows, it blows like millions . . .
and this, my love, when millions come and go
beyond the need of us, is like a trick;
and when the trick begins, it’s like a toe
tiptoeing on a rope, which is like luck;
and when the luck begins, it’s like a wedding,
which is like love, which is like everything.
Alice Oswald
Anniversary
Suppose I took out a slender ketch from
under the spokes of Palace pier tonight to
catch a sea going fish for you
or dressed in antique goggles and wings and
flew down through sycamore leaves into the park
or luminescent through some planetary strike
put one delicate flamingo leg over the sill of your lab
Could I surprise you? or would you insist on
keeping a pattern to link every transfiguration?
Listen, I shall have to whisper it
into your heart directly: we are all
supernatural / every day
we rise new creatures / cannot be predicted
Elaine Feinstein
Song for the Last Act
Now that I ha
ve your face by heart, I look
Less at its features than its darkening frame
Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame,
Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd’s crook.
Beyond, a garden. There, in insolent ease
The lead and marble figures watch the show
Of yet another summer loath to go
Although the scythes hang in the apple trees.
Now that I have your face by heart, I look.
Now that I have your voice by heart, I read
In the black chords upon a dulling page
Music that is not meant for music’s cage,
Whose emblems mix with words that shake and bleed.
The staves are shuttled over with a stark
Unprinted silence. In a double dream
I must spell out the storm, the running stream.
The beat’s too swift. The notes shift in the dark.
Now that I have your voice by heart, I read.
Now that I have your heart by heart, I see
The wharves with their great ships and architraves;
The rigging and the cargo and the slaves
On a strange beach under a broken sky.
O not departure, but a voyage done!
The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps
Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps
Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun.
Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.
Louise Bogan