10 posts tagged “traditional”
But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain;
But, with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power,
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye;
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd:
Love's feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender horns of cockl'd snails;
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste:
For valour, is not Love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair:
And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
Never durst poet touch a pen to write
Until his ink were temper'd with Love's sighs;
O, then his lines would ravish savage ears
And plant in tyrants mild humility.
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain and nourish all the world:
Else none at all in ought proves excellent.
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion.
Nothing in the world is single
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle
Why not I with thine?
See the mountain's kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another,
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdain'd its brother:
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea -
What are all these kissing worth
If thou kiss not me?
O my luve's like a red red rose
That's newly sprung in June
O my luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune
As fair as thou art, my bonnie lass
So deep in luve am I
And I will luve thee still, me dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
Till a the seas gang dry, my dear
And the rocks melt wi' the sun.
I will luve thee still, my dear
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel a while
And I will come again my luve,
Tho it were ten thousand miles
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 candlelight.
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.
If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
‘I love her for her smile...her look...
her way of speaking gently -for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine and certes bought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day.'
For these things in themselves, beloved, may be changed,
or changed for thee - and love so wrought may be unwrought so.
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought by golden and silver light;
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and the light and the half-light,
I would spread those cloths under your feet.
But I, being poor, have only my dreams.
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
If there is righteousness in the heart,
there will be beauty in the character.
If there is beauty in the character,
there will be harmony in the home.
If there is harmony in the home,
there will be order in the nation.
If there is order in the nation,
there will be peace in the world.
So let it be.
If questioning would make us wise
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.
Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.
For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?
Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why"
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give.
Never marry but for love; but see that thou lovest what is lovely.
He that minds a body and not a soul has not the better part
of that relationship, and will consequently lack the noblest
comfort of a married life.
Between a man and his wife nothing ought to rule but love. As
love ought to bring them together, so it is the best way to
keep them well together.
A husband and wife that love one another show their children
that they should do so too. Others visibly lose their authority
in their families by their contempt of one another, and teach
their children to be unnatural by their own examples.
Let not enjoyment lessen, but augment, affection; it being the
basest of passions to like when we have not, what we slight
when we possess.
Here it is we ought to search out our pleasure, where the field
is large and full of variety, and of an enduring nature; sickness,
poverty or disgrace being not able to shake it because it is
not under the moving influences of worldly contingencies.
Nothing can be more entire and without reserve; nothing more
zealous, affectionate and sincere; nothing more contented than
such a couple, nor greater temporal felicity than to be one
of them.
