find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.
William Shakespeare, 1594
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Campion
Advice to a Girl
Never love unless you can
Bear with all the faults of man!
Men sometimes will jealous be
Though but little cause they see,
And hang the head as discontent,
And speak what straight they will repent.
Men, that but one Saint adore,
Make a show of love to more;
Beauty must be scorned in none,
Though but truly served in one:
For what is courtship but disguise?
True hearts may have dissembling eyes.
Men, when their affairs require,
Must awhile themselves retire;
Sometimes hunt, and sometimes hawk,
And not ever sit and talk:
If these and such-like you can bear,
Then like, and love, and never fear!
Thomas Campion, 1617
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Sandburg
Joy
Let a joy keep you.
Reach out your hands
And take it when it runs by,
As the Apache dancer
Clutches his woman.
I have seen them
Live long and laugh loud,
Sent on singing, singing,
Smashed to the heart
Under the ribs
With a terrible love.
Joy always,
Joy everywhere—
Let joy kill you!
Keep away from the little deaths.
Carl Sandburg, 1916
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Herrick
To the Virgins, To Make Much
of Time
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
Robert Herrick, 1640
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Walker
Love Is Not Concerned
love is not concerned
with whom you pray
or where you slept
the night you ran away
from home
love is concerned
that the beating of your heart
should kill no one.
Alice Walker, 1983
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Drayton
To His Coy Love
I pray thee, leave, love me no more,
Call home the heart you gave me!
I but in vain that saint adore
That can but will not save me.
These poor half-kisses kill me quite—
Was ever man thus servèd?
Amidst an ocean of delight
For pleasure to be starvèd?
Show me no more those snowy breasts
With azure riverets branchèd,
Where, whilst mine eye with plenty feasts,
Yet is my thirst not stanchèd;
O Tantalus, thy pains ne'er tell!
By me thou art prevented:
'Tis nothing to be plagued in Hell,
But thus in Heaven tormented.
Clip me no more in those dear arms,
Nor thy life's comfort call me,
O these are but too powerful charms,
And do but more enthrall me!
But see how patient I am grown
In all this coil about thee:
Come, nice thing, let my heart alone,
I cannot live without thee!
Michael Drayton, 1619
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Marvell
To His Coy Mistress
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honor turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life;
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Andrew Marvell, 1651
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Browning R
Meeting at Night
The gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!
Robert Browning, 1845
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Browning R
Parting at Morning
Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim:
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.
Robert Browning, 1845
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Sexton
That Day
This is the desk I sit at
and this is the desk where I love you too much
&n
bsp; and this is the typewriter that sits before me
where yesterday only your body sat before me
with its shoulders gathered in like a Greek chorus,
with its tongue like a king making up rules
as he goes,
with its tongue quite openly like a cat lapping
milk,
with its tongue—both of us coiled in its
slippery life.
That was yesterday, that day.
That was the day of your tongue,
your tongue that came from your lips,
two openers, half animals, half birds
caught in the doorway of your heart.
That was the day I followed the king's rules,
passing by your red veins and your blue veins,
my hands down the backbone, down quick
like a firepole,
hands between legs where you display your
inner knowledge,
where diamond mines are buried and come
forth to bury,
come forth more sudden than some
reconstructed city.
It is complete within seconds, that monument.
The blood runs underground yet brings
forth a tower.
A multitude should gather for such an edifice.
For a miracle one stands in line and throws
confetti.
Surely The Press is here looking for headlines.
Surely someone should carry a banner on the
sidewalk.
If a bridge is constructed doesn't the mayor
cut a ribbon?
If a phenomenon arrives shouldn't the Magi
come bearing gifts?
Yesterday was the day I bore gifts for your gift
and came from the valley to meet you on the
pavement.
That was yesterday, that day.
That was the day of your face,
your face after love, close to the pillow, a lullaby.
Half asleep beside me letting the old fashioned
rocker stop,
our breath became one, became a child-breath
together,
while my fingers drew little o's on your shut eyes,
while my fingers drew little smiles on your
mouth,
while I drew I LOVE YOU on your chest and
its drummer
and whispered, 'Wake up!' and you mumbled
in your sleep,
'Sh. We're driving to Cape Cod. We're heading for
the Bourne
Bridge. We're circling around the Bourne Circle.'
Bourne!
Then I knew you in your dream and prayed
of our time
that I would be pierced and you would take
root in me
and that I might bring forth your born, might bear
the you or the ghost of you in my little household.
Yesterday I did not want to be borrowed
but this is the typewriter that sits before me
and love is where yesterday is at.
Anne Sexton, 1969
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Swenson
Staying at Ed's Place
I like being in your apartment, and not
disturbing anything.
As in the woods I wouldn't want to move a tree,
or change the play of sun and shadow
on the ground.
The yellow kitchen stool belongs right there
against white plaster. I haven't used your
purple towel
because I like the accidental cleft of shade
you left in it.
At your small six-sided table, covered with
mysterious
dents in the wood like a dartboard, I drink
my coffee
from your brown mug. I look into the
clearing
of your high front room, where sunlight slopes
through bare window squares. Your
Afghanistan hammock,
a man-sized cocoon
slung from wall to wall, your narrow desk
and typewriter
are the only furniture. Each morning your light
from the east
douses me where, with folded legs, I sit in your
meadow,
a casual spread of brilliant carpets. Like a cat
or dog
I take a roll, then, stretched out flat
in the center of color and pattern, I listen
to the remote growl of trucks over cobbles on
Bethune Street below.
When I open my eyes I discover the
peaceful blank
of the ceiling. Its old paint-layered surface
is moonwhite
and trackless, like the Sea—of Tranquility.
May Swenson, 1974
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Synge
In May
In a nook
That opened south,
You and I
Lay mouth to mouth.
A snowy gull
And sooty daw
Came and looked
With many a caw;
"Such," I said,
"Are I and you,
When you've kissed me
Black and blue!"
John Millington Synge, 1908
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Hall
Gold
Pale gold of the walls, gold
of the centers of daisies, yellow roses
pressing from a clear bowl. All day
we lay on the huge bed, my hand
stroking the deep
gold of your things and your back.
We slept and woke
lay down in it breathing
quickly, then
slowly again,
caressing and dozing, your hand sleepily
touching my hair now.
We made in those days
tiny identical rooms inside our bodies
which the men who uncover our graves
will find in a thousand years
shining and whole.
Donald Hall, 1971
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Whitman
A Woman Waits for Me
A woman waits for me, she contains all,
nothing is lacking,
Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking,
or if the moisture of the right man
were lacking.
Sex contains all, bodies, souls,
Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies,
results, promulgations,
Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal
mystery, the seminal milk,
All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the
passions, loves, beauties, delights of
the earth,
All the governments, judges, gods, followed
persons of the earth,
These are contained in sex as parts of itself
and justifications of itself.
Without shame the man I like knows and
avows the deliciousness of his sex,
Without shame the woman I like knows
and avows hers.
Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women,
I will go stay with her who waits for me,
and with those women that are
warm-blooded and sufficient for me,
I see that they understand me and do not
deny me,
I see that they are worthy of me, I will be the
robust husband of those women.
They are not one jot less than I am,
They are tanned in the face by shining suns
and blowing winds,
Their flesh has the old divine suppleness
and strength,
They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle,
shoot, run, strike, retreat, advance,
resist,
defend themselves,
They are ultimate in their own right—they are
calm, clear, well-possessed of themselves.
I draw you close to me, you women,
I cannot let you go, I would do you good,
I am for you, and you are for me, not only for
our own sake, but for others' sakes,
Enveloped in you sleep greater heroes and bards,
They refuse to awake at the touch of any man
but me.
It is I, you women, I make my way,
I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable,
but I love you,
I do not hurt you any more than is necessary
for you,
I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters
fit for these States,
I press with slow rude muscle,
I brace myself effectually, I listen to no entreaties,
I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long
accumulated within me.
Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself,
In you I wrap a thousand onward years,
On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of
me and America,
The drops I distill upon you shall grow fierce and
athletic girls, new artists, musicians,
and singers,
The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes
in their turn,
I shall demand perfect men and women out of
my love-spendings,
I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others,
as I and you interpenetrate now,
I shall count on the fruits of the gushing
showers of them,
as I count on the fruits of the gushing showers
I give now,
I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life,
death, immortality,
I plant so lovingly now.
Walt Whitman, 1860
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Williams C
It Is This Way with Men
They are pounded into the earth
like nails; move an inch,
they are driven down again.
The earth is sore with them.
It is a spiny fruit
that has lost hope
of being raised and eaten.