BEST LOVED POEMS Read online

  And let us hope the future,

  As the past has been will be:

  I will share with thee my sorrows,

  And thou thy joys with me.

  CHARLES JEFFERYS

  TO CELIA Drink to me only with thine eyes,

  And I will pledge with mine;

  Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

  And I’ll not look for wine.

  The thirst that from the soul doth rise

  Doth ask a drink divine;

  But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,

  I would not change for thine.

  I sent thee late a rosy wreath,

  Not so much honoring thee

  As giving it a hope that there

  It could not wither’d be;

  But thou thereon didst only breathe

  And sent’st it back to me;

  Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,

  Not of itself, but thee!

  BEN JONSON

  THE BLUE BOWL Reward

  All day I did the little things,

  The little tilings that do not show;

  I brought the kindling for the fire

  I set the candles in a row,

  I filled a bowl with marigolds,

  The shallow bowl you love the best—

  And made the house a pleasant place

  Where weariness might take its rest.

  The hours sped on, my eager feet

  Could not keep pace with my desire.

  So much to do, so little time!

  I could not let my body tire;

  Yet, when the coming of the night

  Blotted the garden from my sight,

  And on the narrow, graveled walks

  Between the guarding flower stalks

  I heard your step: I was not through

  With services I meant for you.

  You came into the quiet room

  That glowed enchanted with the bloom

  Of yellow flame. I saw your face,

  Illumined by the firelit space,

  Slowly grow still and comforted—

  “It’s good to be at home,” you said.

  BLANCHE BANE KUDER

  HER LIPS Often I have heard it said

  That her lips are ruby red.

  Little heed I what they say,

  I have seen as red as they.

  Ere she smiled on other men,

  Real rubies were they then.

  When she kissed me once in play,

  Rubies were less bright than they,

  And less bright were those that shone

  In the palace of the Sun.

  Will they be as bright again?

  Not if kissed by other men.

  WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

  EVENING SONG Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands,

  And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea,

  How long they kiss in sight of all the lands,

  Ah! longer, longer, we.

  Now in the sea’s red vintage melts the sun,

  As Egypt’s pearl dissolved in rosy wine,

  And Cleopatra night drinks all. “’Tis done,

  Love, lay thine hand in mine.

  Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven’s heart;

  Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands.

  O night! divorce our sun and sky apart,

  Never our lips, our hands.

  SIDNEY LANIER

  SERENADE Stars of the summer night!

  Far in yon azure deeps,

  Hide, hide your golden light!

  She sleeps!

  My lady sleeps!

  Sleeps!

  Moon of the summer night!

  Far down yon western steeps,

  Sink, sink in silver light!

  She sleeps!

  My lady sleeps!

  Sleeps!

  Wind of the summer night!

  Where yonder woodbine creeps,

  Fold, fold thy pinions light!

  She sleeps!

  My lady sleeps!

  Sleeps!

  Dreams of the summer night!

  Tell her, her lover keeps

  Watch! while in slumbers light

  She sleeps!

  My lady sleeps!

  Sleeps!

  HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

  TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON When love with unconfined wings

  Hovers within my gates,

  And my divine Althea brings

  To whisper at my grates;

  When I lie tangled in her hair

  And fettered with her eye,

  The birds that wanton in the air

  Know no such liberty.

  When flowing cups pass swiftly round

  With no allaying Thames,

  Our careless heads with roses crowned,

  Our hearts with loyal flames;

  When thirsty grief in wine we steep,

  When healths and draughts go free,

  Fishes that tipple in the deep

  Know no such liberty,

  When, linnet-like confined,

  With shriller throat shall sing

  The mercy, sweetness, majesty

  And glories of my King;

  When I shall voice aloud how good

  He is, how great should be,

  The enlarged winds, that curl the flood,

  Know no such liberty.

  Stone walls do not a prison make,

  Nor iron bars a cage;

  Minds innocent and quiet take

  That for an hermitage;

  If I have freedom in my love,

  And in my soul am free,

  Angels alone, that soar above,

  Enjoy such liberty.

  RICHARD LOVELACE

  TO LUCASTA, ON

  GOING TO THE WARS Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind,

  That from the nunnery

  Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,

  To war and arms I fly.

  True, a new mistress now I chase,

  The first foe in the field;

  And with a stronger faith embrace

  A sword, a horse, a shield.

  Yet this inconstancy is such

  As you too shall adore;

  I could not love thee, dear, so much,

  Loved I not honor more.

  RICHARD LOVELACE

  APELLES’ SONG Cupid and my Campaspe played

  At cards for kisses—Cupid paid.

  He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,

  His mother’s doves, and team of sparrows;

  Loses them too; then down he throws

  The coral of his lip, the rose

  Growing on’s cheek (but none knows how);

  With these, the crystal of his brow,

  And then the dimple of his chin;

  All these did my Campaspe win.

  At last he set her both his eyes;

  She won, and Cupid blind did rise.

  O Love! has she done this to thee?

  What shall, alas, become of me?

  JOHN LYLY

  SWEET PERIL Alas, how easily things go wrong!

  A sigh too much, or a kiss too long,

  And there follows a mist and a weeping rain,

  And life is never the same again.

  Alas, how hardly things go right!

  ’Tis hard to watch in a summer night,

  For the sigh will come, and the kiss will stay,

  And the summer night is a wintry day.

  And yet how easily things go right,

  If the sigh and a kiss of a summer’s night

  Come deep from the soul in the stronger ray

  That is born in the light of the winter’s day.

  And things can never go badly wrong

  If the heart be true and the love be strong,

  For the mist, if it comes, and the weeping rain

  Will be changed by the love into sunshine again.

  GEORGE MACDONALD

  I LOVE MY LOVE What is the meaning of the song

 
That rings so clear and loud,

  Thou nightingale amid the copse,

  Thou lark above the cloud?

  What says thy song, thou joyous thrush,

  Up in the walnut tree?

  “I love my Love, because I know

  My Love loves me.”

  What is the meaning of thy thought,

  O maiden fair and young?

  There is such pleasure in thine eyes,

  Such music on thy tongue;

  There is such glory on thy face,

  What can the meaning be?

  “I love my Love, because I know

  My Love loves me.”

  Oh happy words! at Beauty’s feet

  We sing them ere our prime,

  And when the early summers pass,

  And Care comes on with Time,

  Still be it ours, in Care’s despite,

  To join in the chorus free:

  “I love my Love, because I know

  My Love loves me.”

  CHARLES MACKAY

  FAUSTUS TO HELEN Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,

  And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

  Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.—

  Her lips suck forth my soul; see, where it flies!

  Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.

  Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,

  And all is dross that is not Helena.

  I will be Paris, and for love of thee,

  Instead of Troy, shall Wertenberg be sacked;

  And I will combat with weak Menelaus,

  And wear thy colors on my plumed crest;

  Yes, I will wound Achilles in the heel,

  And then return to Helen for a kiss.

  O, thou art fairer than the evening air

  Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;

  Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter

  When he appeared to hapless Semele;

  More lovely than the monarch of the sky

  In wanton Arethusa’s azured arms;

  And none but thou shall be my paramour!

  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

  THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD

  TO HIS LOVE Come live with me and be my love,

  And we will all the pleasures prove

  That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

  Woods, or sleepy mountain yields.

  And we will sit upon the rocks,

  Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,

  By shallow rivers to whose falls

  Melodious birds sing madrigals.

  And I will make thee beds of roses

  And a thousand fragrant posies,

  A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

  Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

  A gown made of the finest wool

  Which from our pretty lambs we pull;

  Fail lined slippers for the cold,

  With buckles of the purest gold;

  A belt of straw and ivy buds,

  With coral clasps and amber studs:

  And if these pleasures may thee move,

  Come live with me, and be my love.

  The shepherds’ swains shall dance and sing

  For thy delight each May morning:

  If these delights thy mind may move,

  Then live with me and be my love.

  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

  BELIEVE ME, IF ALL THOSE ENDEARING

  YOUNG CHARMS Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,

  Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,

  Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,

  Like fairy-gifts fading away,

  Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art,

  Let thy loveliness fade as it will,

  And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart

  Would entwine itself verdantly still.

  It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,

  And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear,

  That the fervor and faith of a soul may be known,

  To which time will but make thee more dear!

  No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,

  But as truly loves on to the close,

  As the sunflower turns to her god when he sets

  The same look which she turned when he rose!

  THOMAS MOORE

  A TEMPLE TO FRIENDSHIP “A temple to Friendship,” cried Laura, enchanted,

  “I’ll build in this garden; the thought is divine.”

  So the temple was built, and she now only wanted

  An image of Friendship, to place on the shrine.

  So she flew to the sculptor, who sat down before her

  An image, the fairest his art could invent;

  But so cold, and so dull, that the youthful adorer

  Saw plainly this was not the Friendship she meant.

  “O, never,” said she, “could I think of enshrining

  An image whose looks are so joyless and dim;

  But yon little god upon roses reclining,

  We’ll make, if you please, sir, a Friendship of him.”

  So the bargain was struck; with the little god laden,

  She joyfully flew to her home in the grove.

  “Farewell,” said the sculptor, “you’re not the first maiden

  Who came but for Friendship, and took away Love!”

  THOMAS MOORE

  KATE KEARNEY Oh! did you ne’er hear of Kate Kearney?

  She lives on the banks of Killarney:

  From the glance of her eye, shun danger and fly,

  For fatal’s the glance of Kate Kearney.

  For that eye is so modestly beaming,

  You ne’er think of mischief she’s dreaming:

  Yet, oh! I can tell, how fatal’s the spell,

  That lurks in the eye of Kate Kearney.

  O should you e’er meet this Kate Kearney,

  Who lives on the banks of Killarney,

  Beware of her smile, for many a wile

  Lies hid in the smile of Kate Kearney.

  Though she looks so bewitchingly simple,

  Yet there’s mischief in every dimple,

  And who dares inhale her sigh’s spicy gale,

  Must die by the breath of Kate Kearney.

  LADY MORGAN

  LOVE IS ENOUGH Love is enough: though the world be a-waning,

  And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,

  Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover

  The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder.

  Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,

  And this day draw a veil over all deeds pass’d, over,

  Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;

  The wind shall not weary, the fear shall not alter

  These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.

  WILLIAM MORRIS

  FORGET THEE? “Forget thee?” If to dream by night and muse on thee by day,

  If all the worship deep and wild a poet’s heart can pay,

  If prayers in absence breathed for thee to Heaven’s protecting power,

  If winged thoughts that flit to thee—a thousand in an hour—

  If busy fancy blending thee with all my future lot—

  If this thou call’st “forgetting,” thou, indeed, shalt be forgot!

  “Forget thee?” Bid the forest-birds forget their sweetest tune;

  “Forget thee?” Bid the sea forget to swell beneath the moon;

  Bid the thirsty flowers forget to drink the eve’s refreshing dew;

  Thyself forget thine own “dear land,” and its “mountains wild and blue.”

  Forget each old familiar face, each long-remember’d spot—

  When these things are forgot by thee, then thou shall be forgot!

  Keep, if thou wilt, thy maiden peace, still cairn and fancy-free,

  For God forbid thy gladsome heart should grow less gl
ad for me;

  Yet, while that heart is still unwon, oh! bid not mine to rove,

  But let it nurse its humble faith and uncomplaining love;

  If these, preserved for patient years, at last avail me not,

  Forget me then; but ne’er believe that thou canst be forgot!

  JOHN MOULTRIE

  THE ENCHANTMENT I did but look and love awhile,

  ’Twas but for one half-hour;

  Then to resist I had no will,

  And now I have no power.

  To sigh and wish is all my ease;

  Sighs which do heat impart

  Enough to melt the coldest ice,

  Yet cannot warm your heart.

  O would your pity give my heart

  One corner of your breast,

  ‘Twould learn of yours the winning art,

  And quickly steal the rest.

  THOMAS OTWAY

  NEW FRIENDS AND OLD FRIENDS Make new friends, but keep the old;

  Those are silver, these are gold.

  New-made friendships, like new wine,

  Age will mellow and refine.

  Friendships that have stood the test—

  Time and change—are surely best;

  Brow may wrinkle, hair grow gray,

  Friendship never knows decay.

  For ’mid old friends, tried and true,

  Once more we our youth renew.

  But old friends, alas! may die.

  New friends must their place supply.

  Cherish friendship in your breast—

  New is good, but old is best;

  Make new friends, but keep the old;

  Those are silver, these are gold.

  JOSEPH PARRY

  TO HELEN Helen, thy beauty is to me

  Like those Nicaean barks of yore,

  That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,

  The weary, wayworn wanderer bore

  To his own native shore.