I lie here thinking of you:—
the stain of love
is upon the world!
Yellow, yellow, yellow
it eats into the leaves,
smears with saffron
the horned branches that lean
heavily
against a smooth purple sky!
There is no light
only a honey-thick stain
that drips from leaf to leaf
and limb to limb
spoiling the colors
of the whole world—
you far off there under
the wine-red selvage of the west!
Wild Nights!
Emily Dickinson
This deceptively simple verse captures the ambiguity of Emily Dickinson’s passions. The dual passions that ruled the poet’s life— the physical and the spiritual—are often difficult to distinguish in her writing.
Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile the winds
To a heart in port—
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.
Rowing in Eden!
Ah! The sea!
Might I but moor
Tonight in thee!
She Comes Not When Noon Is on the Roses
Herbert Trench
This love is not for everyday use. Trench depicts a love too delicate, too ethereal to occupy the material world. The object of his love appears as a dream and thus remains exquisitely pure.
She comes not when Noon is on the roses—
. . . Too bright is Day.
She comes not to the Soul till it reposes
. . . From work and play.
But when Night is on the hills, and the great Voices
. . . Roll in from Sea,
By starlight and by candlelight and dreamlight
. . . She comes to me.
Between Your Sheets
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Lady Mary was a woman ahead of her time (the eighteenth century), especially in her advanced views on a woman’s proper role in society. This poem exhibits a sexual frankness and sensuality that seems quite contemporary, despite its period style.
Between your sheets you soundly sleep
Nor dream of vigils that we lovers keep
While all the night, I waking sigh your name,
The tender sound does every nerve inflame.
Imagination shows me all your charms,
The plenteous silken hair, and waxen arms,
And all the beauties that supinely rest
. . . between your sheets.
Ah Lindamira, could you see my heart,
How fond, how true, how free from fraudful art,
The warmest glances poorly do explain
The eager wish, the melting throbbing pain
Which through my very blood and soul I feel,
Which you cannot believe nor I reveal,
Which every metaphor must render less
And yet (methinks) which I could well express
. . . between your sheets.
The Jewels
Charles Baudelaire
The explicit sensual power of this poem is such that a reader might feel the need of a cold shower after reading it. The translation is by Roy Campbell.
My well-beloved was stripped. Knowing my whim,
She wore her tinkling gems, but naught besides:
And showed such pride as, while her luck betides,
A sultan’s favored slave may show to him.
When it lets off its lively, crackling sound,
This blazing blend of metal crossed with stone,
Gives me an ecstasy I’ve only known
Where league of sound and luster can be found.
She let herself be loved: then, drowsy-eyed,
Smiled down from her high couch in languid ease.
My love was deep and gentle as the seas
And rose to her as to a cliff the tide.
My own approval of each dreamy pose,
Like a tamed tiger, cunningly she sighted:
And candour, with lubricity united,
Gave piquancy to every one she chose.
Her limbs and hips, burnished with changing lusters,
Before my eyes clairvoyant and serene,
Swanned themselves, undulating in their sheen;
Her breasts and belly, of my vine the clusters,
Like evil angels rose, my fancy twitting,
To kill the peace which over me she’d thrown,
And to disturb her from the crystal throne
Where, calm and solitary, she was sitting.
So swerved her pelvis that, in one design,
Antiope’s white rump it seemed to graft
To a boy’s torso, merging fore and aft.
The talc on her brown tan seemed half-divine.
The lamp resigned its dying flame. Within,
The hearth alone lit up the darkened air,
And every time it sighed a crimson flare
It drowned in blood that amber-colored skin.
Song 5 to Lesbia
Catullus (Gaius Valerius Catullus)
In his brief life Catullus built a reputation for expressing passionate feelings with wit and lyricism that continues to this day. This translation is by the seventeenth-century English poet Richard Crashaw.
Come and let us live my Deare,
Let us love and never feare,
What the sourest Fathers say:
Brightest Sol that dyes to day
Lives againe as blith to morrow,
But if we darke sons of sorrow
Set; O then, how long a Night
Shuts the Eyes of our short light!
Then let amorous kisses dwell
On our lips, begin and tell
A Thousand, and a Hundred score
An Hundred, and a Thousand more,
Till another Thousand smother
That, and that wipe off another.
Thus at last when we have numbered
Many a Thousand, many a Hundred;
We’ll confound the reckoning quite,
And lose our selves in wild delight:
While our joyes so multiply,
As shall mock the envious eye.
The Vine
James Thomson
Thomson led a rather unhappy life—he was depressive, alcoholic, and generally pessimistic about the world at large. And yet this poem is a ringing, joyful salute to the power of Love, drunk with its own vitality and passion.
The wine of Love is music,
. . . And the feast of Love is song:
And when Love sits down to the banquet,
. . . Love sits long:
Sits long and arises drunken,
. . . But not with the feast and the wine;
He reeleth with his own heart,
. . . That great, rich Vine.
From The Song of Songs
Anonymous (attributed to King Solomon)
This excerpt from the classic love song, studded with memorable lines and images, is from the second chapter of the biblical work. Whether interpreted as an allegorical adoration of God or a frank expression of human love, the passionate lyricism of these verses is undeniable.
I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.
As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.
As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.
Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.
His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.
I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor a
wake my love, till he please.
The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.
My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice.
My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land :
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
Confession
Frantisek Halas
Some people are ambivalent about love—it demands so much of us, and leaves us so vulnerable. This poem conveys some of the twists and turns on the path to trust.
Touched by all that love is
I draw closer toward you
Saddened by all that love is I run from you
Surprised by all that love is
I remain alert in stillness
Hurt by all that love is
I yearn for tenderness
Defeated by all that love is
At the truthful mouth of the night
Forsaken by all that love is
I will grow toward you.
I Loved You
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
It’s a cruel fact that love is never quite as easy to fall out of as it is to fall in—feelings linger long after we’ve said goodbye. Pushkin is known as Russia’s greatest poet. At the age of thirty-eight he was tragically killed in a duel with a man reputed to be his wife’s lover.
I loved you, and I probably still do,
And for a while the feeling may remain . . .
But let my love no longer trouble you,
I do not wish to cause you any pain.
I loved you; and the hopelessness I knew,
The jealousy, the shyness—though in vain—
Made up a love so tender and so true
As may God grant you to be loved again.
From
Merciless Beauty
Geoffrey Chaucer
Chaucer is generally regarded as the greatest English poet before Shakespeare. The rhythmic alternation and repetition of the beginning and ending lines emphasizes the narrator’s sense of helplessness before his lover’s beauty.
Your eyen two will slay me suddenly;
I may the beauty of them not sustain,
So woundeth it throughout my hearte keen.
And but your word will healen hastily
My hearte’s wounde, while that it is green,
Your eyen two will slay me suddenly;
I may the beauty of them not sustain.
Upon my truth I say you faithfully
That ye bin of my life and death the queen;
For with my death the truthe shall be seen.
Your eyen two will slay me suddenly;
I may the beauty of them not sustain,
So woundeth it throughout my hearte keen.
He Is More than a Hero
Sappho
Only fragments remain of the lyrical work of this legendary poet, many of them poems of friendship and love of other women. Despite its title, this is one such poem.
He is a god in my eyes—
the man who is allowed
to sit beside you—he
who listens intimately
to the sweet murmur of
your voice, the enticing
laughter that makes my own
heart beat fast. If I meet
you suddenly, I can’t
speak—my tongue is broken;
a thin flame runs under
my skin; seeing nothing,
hearing only my own ears
drumming, I drip with sweat;
trembling shakes my body
and I turn paler than
dry grass. At such times
death isn’t far from me.
To His Mistress
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
Well known as a rakish wit in the Court of King Charles II, Rochester here deftly plays word games with comparisons of the sun’s light and his love, the light of his life.
Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why
Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny
The sunshine of the Sun’s enlivening eye?
Without thy light what light remains in me?
Thou art my life; my way, my light’s in thee;
I live, I move, and by thy beams I see.
Thou art my life—if thou but turn away
My life’s a thousand deaths. Thou art my way—
Without thee, Love, I travel not but stray.
My light thou art—without thy glorious sight
My eyes are darken’d with eternal night.
My Love, thou art my way, my life, my light.
To Little or No Purpose
Sir George Etherege
Etherege was famous in his own day (the seventeenth century) as a dramatist, for such romantic comedies as Love in a Tub and The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter. Today these plays are largely forgotten, but his charming, lyrical love poems are still prized. Here he writes in the voice of a lovesick young woman, not sure how long her fever will last, not willing to be free of it.
To little or no purpose I spent many days
In ranging the park, the Exchange and the plays,
For ne’er in my rambles till now did I prove
So lucky to meet with the man I could love.
Oh, how I am pleased when I think on this man
That I find I must love, let me do what I can.
Than, had I a fever, when I should be well.
My passion shall kill me before I will show it,
And yet I would give all the world he did know it.
But oh! how I sigh when I think should he woo me
I cannot deny what I know would undo me.
Touch
Octavio Paz
In “Touch,” Paz presents a world in which a moment of passion can transcend the two people involved. So absorbed in their senses is this couple that they achieve a state of intensity in which they are no longer themselves but something far greater.
My hands
Open the curtains of your being
Clothe you in a further nudity
Uncover the bodies of your body
My hands
Invent another body for your body
Lady Love
Samuel Beckett
This poem, adapted from a work by the French surrealist poet Paul Eluard, is a rhapsodic song of praise to a lover whose presence virtually turns the narrator inside out with happiness.
She is standing on my lids
And her hair is in my hair
She has the colour of my eye
She has the body of my hand
In my shade she is engulfed
As a stone against the sky
She will never close her eyes
And she does not let me sleep
And her dreams in the bright day
Make the suns evaporate
And me laugh cry and laugh
Speak when I have nothing to say
Love Poem
Gregory Orr
Inspired by the French Surrealists, Orr here creates a powerful scene that seems to have been taken from a dream. In this poem love causes physical and emotional disorder, which resolves itself in a harmonious simplicity. Love, like a dream, is not logical and has its reasons, which reason does not know.
A black biplane crashes through the window
of the luncheonette. The pilot climbs down,
removing his leather hood.
He hands me my grandmother’s jade ring.
No, it is two robin’s eggs and
a telephone number: yours.
I Want to Breathe
James Laughlin
Aside from his career as a notable poet, James Laughlin founded the publishing company New Directions, which over the years has published a distinguished list of authors, including William Carlos Williams, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ezra Pound, and many others. Laughlin’s own poetry is characterized by an understated grace that has been considered distinctly American in the simplicity of its form.
I want to breathe
you in I’m not talking about
perfume or even the sweet odour
of your skin but of the
air itself I want to share
your air inhaling what you
exhale I’d like to be that
close two of us breathing
each other as one as that.
A Statue of Eros
Zenodotos
This poetic epigram (or epigrammatic poem) is an ironic commentary on the all-consuming power of passion. The translation is by Peter Jay.
Who carved Love
and placed him by
this fountain,
thinking he could control
such fire
with water?
Come Quickly
Izumi Shikibu
Love now, for life is fleeting, is the implicit message of this gem-like verse. The evanescence of existence is an essential component of Japanese esthetics, influenced by the tenets of Buddhism.
Come quickly—as soon as
these blossoms open,
they fall.
The world exists
As a sheen of dew on flowers
Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds
William Shakespeare
Shakespeare states that true love is unfaltering, sincere, and can overcome any obstacle. As much as a star is constant and guides wandering ships through rough waters, love does not vanish in the face of difficulty.
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;