To find the arms of my true love
Round me once again! . . .
A shadow flits before me,
Not thou, but like to thee:
Ah, Christ! that it were possible
For one short hour to see
The souls we loved, that they might tell us
What and where they be!
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1855
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Teasdale
Sleepless
If I could have your arms tonight—
But half the world and the broken sea
Lie between you and me.
The autumn rain reverberates in the courtyard,
Beating all night against the barren stone,
The sound of useless rain in the desolate
courtyard
Makes me more alone.
If you were here, if you were only here—
My blood cries out to you all night in vain
As sleepless as the rain.
Sara Teasdale, 1919
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Levine
Belle Isle, 1949
We stripped in the first warm spring night
and ran down into the Detroit River
to baptize ourselves in the brine
of car parts, dead fish, stolen bicycles,
melted snow. I remember going under
hand in hand with a Polish highschool girl
I'd never seen before, and the cries
our breath made caught at the same time
on the cold, and rising through the layers
of darkness into the final moonless atmosphere
that was this world, the girl breaking
the surface after me and swimming out
on the starless waters towards the lights
of Jefferson Ave. and the stacks
of the old stove factory unwinking.
Turning at last to see no island at all
but a perfect calm dark as far
as there was sight, and then a light
and another riding low out ahead
to bring us home, ore boats maybe, or smokers
walking alone. Back panting
to the gray coarse beach we didn't dare
fall on, the damp piles of clothes,
and dressing side by side in silence
to go back where we came from.
Philip Levine, 1974
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Evans
If There Be Sorrow
If there be sorrow
let it be
for things undone
undreamed
unrealized
unattained
to these add one:
Love withheld
. . . restrained
Mari Evans, 1970
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Evans
Where Have You Gone
Where have you gone
with your confident
walk with
your crooked smile
why did you leave
me
when you took your
laughter
and departed
are you aware that
with you
went the sun
all light
and what few stars
there were?
where have you gone
with your confident
walk your
crooked smile the
rent money
in one pocket and
my heart
in another . . .
Mari Evans, 1970
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Dickinson
The heart asks pleasure first
The heart asks pleasure first,
And then excuse from pain;
And then those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;
And then to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The privilege to die.
Emily Dickinson, 1862
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Keats
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
O what can ail thee, Knight at arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the Lake
And no birds sing!
O what can ail thee, Knight at arms,
So haggard and so woe begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.
I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
"I met a Lady in the Meads,
Full beautiful, a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
"I made a Garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant Zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
"I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend and sing
A faery's song.
"She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said,
"I love thee true!"
"She took me to her elfin grot
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
With kisses four.
"And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dreamed, Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dreamed
On the cold hill side.
"I saw pale Kings, and Princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried, 'La belle dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!'
"I saw their starved lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here
On the cold hill's side.
"And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering;
Though the sedge is withered from the Lake
And no birds sing."
John Keats, 1819
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Yeats
Down by the salley gardens
Down by the salley gardens my love
and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little
snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves
grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her
would not agree.
In a field by the river my love
and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid
her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass
grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now
am full of tears.
William Butler Yeats, 1889
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Brooke
The Hill
Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,
Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
You said, "Through glory and ecstasy we pass;
Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still,
When we are old, are old. . ." "And when we die
All's over that is ours; and life burns on
Through other lovers, other lips," said I,
—"Heart of my heart, our heaven is now,
is won!"
"We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.
Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said;
"We shall go down with unreluctant tread
Rose-crowned into the darkness!" . . . Proud
we were,
And laughed, that had such brave true things
to say.
—And then you suddenly cried, and
turned away.
Rupert Brooke, 1911
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Housman
Because I liked you better
Because I liked you better
Than suits a man to say,
It irked you, and I promised
To throw the thought away.
To put the world between us
We parted, stiff and dry;
"Good-bye," said you, "forget me."
"I will, no fear," said I.
If here, where clover whitens
The dead man's knoll, you pass,
And no tall flower to meet you
Starts in the trefoiled grass,
Halt by the headstone naming
The heart no longer stirred,
And say the lad that loved you
Was one that kept his word.
A. E. Housman, 1936
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Bishop
One Art
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Elizabeth Bishop, 1969
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Cutts
Only tell her that I love
Only tell her that I love:
Leave the rest to her and Fate:
Some kind planet from above
May perhaps her pity move:
Lovers on their stars must wait—
Only tell her that I love!
John, Lord Cutts, 1707
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Turner
Love
I have known what it is to love:
to walk among the midday mob,
and share the friendship of the faceless throng;
to laugh with children on the paths,
and chatter at a bright-eyed squirrel.
I have known what it is to love:
afraid to speak,
fearing it would be thought a lie;
afraid to breathe a smoke-ring dream
and watch it fade,
or see it ground beneath a careless toe.
I have known what it is to love
and hear a sigh—
soft as worn string that parts—
and not to know it as my own.
I have known what it is to love:
to walk the tower-shadowed streets
and seek one face;
to shudder at cacophony of horns and brakes,
and listen for one voice.
I have known what it is to love:
to seek to hide the thought
in Lethal wine and laughing eyes
and kisses from a dozen pairs
of painted lips.
I have known what it is to love,
and tongue the alum of
a lonely heart.
Darwin T. Turner, 1964
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Merwin
Separation
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
W. S. Merwin, 1963
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Millay
What lips my lips have kissed
What lips my lips have kissed, and where,
and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1923
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Millay
I Shall Go Back
And build a little shanty on the sand,
In such a way that the extremest band
Of brittle seaweed will escape my door
But by a yard or two; and nevermore
Shall I return to take you by the hand;
I shall be gone to what I understand,
And happier than I ever was before.
The love that stood a moment in your eyes,
The words that lay a moment on your tongue,
Are one with all that in a moment dies,
A little under-said and over-sung.
But I shall find the sullen rocks and skies
Unchanged from what they were when
I was young.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1923
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Housman
Oh, when I was in love with you
Oh, when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.
And now the fancy passes by,
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they'll say that I
Am quite myself again.
A. E. Housman, 1896
Next | TOC> If Ever Two Were One> Bradstreet
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 persevere,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
Anne Bradstreet, 1678
Next | TOC> If Ever Two Were One> Browning E
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 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, 1846
Next | TOC> If Ever Two Were One> Millay
Modern Declaration
I, having loved ever since I was a child a few
things, never having wavered
In these affections; never through shyness in
the houses of the rich or in the presence of
clergymen having denied these loves;
Never when worked upon by cynics like
chiropractors having grunted or clicked a
vertebra to the discredit of these loves;
Never when anxious to land a job having
diminished them by a conniving smile;
or when befuddled by drink
Jeered at them through heartache or lazily
fondled the fingers of their alert enemies;
declare
That I shall love you always.
No matter what party is in power;
No matter what temporarily expedient
combination of allied interests
wins the war;
Shall love you always.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1939
Next | TOC> If Ever Two Were One> Millay
Love is not all
Love is not all: it is not meat or drink
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 cannot 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.
It may well be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It may well be. I do not think I would.