What poets say about love
Part 4
Love has no thought of self!
Love buys not with the ruthless usurer’s gold
The loathsome prostitution of a hand
Without a heart! Love sacrifices all things
To bless the thing it loves!
Bulwer-Lytton—The Lady of Lyons. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 23. 32
Love thou, and if thy love be deep as mine,
Thou wilt not laugh at poets.
Bulwer-Lytton—Richelieu. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 177. 33
No matter what you do, if your heart is ever true,
And his heart was true to Poll.
F. C. Burnand—His Heart was true to Poll. 34
To see her is to love her,
And love but her forever;
For nature made her what she is,
And never made anither!
Burns—Bonny Lesley. 35
The wisest man the warl’ e’er saw,
He dearly loved the lasses, O.
Burns—Green Grow the Rashes. 36
The golden hours on angel wings
Flew o’er me and my dearie,
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary.
Burns—Highland Mary. 37
Oh my luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June;
Oh my luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.
Burns—Red, Red Rose. 38
What is life, when wanting love?
Night without a morning;
Love’s the cloudless summer sun,
Nature young adorning.
Burns—Thine am I, my Faithful Fair. 39
And this is that Homer’s golden chain, which reacheth down from heaven to earth, by which every creature is annexed, and depends on his Creator.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. III. Sec. 1. Memb. 1. Subsec. 7. 40
No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. III. Sec. 2. Memb. 1. Subsec. 2. 41
The falling out of lovers is the renewing of love.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. III. Sec. 2. Terence—Andria. III. 23. 42
Love in your hearts as idly burns
As fire in antique Roman urns.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. II. Canto I. 43
Love is a boy by poets styl’d:
Then spare the rod and spoil the child.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. II. Canto I. L. 843. 44
What mad lover ever dy’d,
To gain a soft and gentle bride?
Or for a lady tender-hearted,
In purling streams or hemp departed?
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. III. Canto I. 45
When things were as fine as could possibly be
I thought ’twas the spring; but alas it was she.
John Byrom—A Pastoral. 46
Oh Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band,
Let sage or cynic prattle as he will,
These hours, and only these, redeem Life’s years of ill.
Byron—Childe Harold. Canto II. St. 81. 47
Who loves, raves—’tis youth’s frenzy—but the cure
Is bitterer still.
Byron—Childe Harold. Canto IV. St. 123. 48
O! that the Desert were my dwelling place,
With one fair Spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race,
And, hating no one, love but only her!
Byron—Childe Harold. Canto IV. St. 177. 49
Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart,
’Tis woman’s whole existence: man may range
The court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart,
Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange
Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart,
And few there are whom these cannot estrange;
Men have all these resources, we but one,
To love again, and be again undone.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto I. St. 194. 50
Other Links:
Life is …
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Sweeney among the Nightingales
