What poets say about love

part 23

If love were what the rose is,

And I were like the leaf,

Our lives would grow together

In sad or singing weather.

        Swinburne””A Match.      411

O Love, O great god Love, what have I done,

That thou shouldst hunger so after my death?

My heart is harmless as my life’s first day:

Seek out some false fair woman, and plague her

Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed.

        Swinburne””The Complaint of Lisa.        412

Love laid his sleepless head

On a thorny rose bed:

And his eyes with tears were red,

And pale his lips as the dead.

        Swinburne””Love Laid his Sleepless Head.        413

I that have love and no more

  Give you but love of you, sweet;

    He that hath more, let him give;

He that hath wings, let him soar;

  Mine is the heart at your feet

    Here, that must love you to live.

        Swinburne””The Oblation.           414

Cogas amantem irasci, amare si velis.

  You must make a lover angry if you wish him to love.

        Syrus””Maxims.   415

  Tum, ut adsolet in amore et ira, jurgia, preces, exprobrutio, satisfactio.

  Then there is the usual scene when lovers are excited with each other, quarrels, entreaties, reproaches, and then fondling reconcilement.

        Tacitus””Annales. XIII. 44.         416

When gloaming treads the heels of day

And birds sit cowering on the spray,

Along the flowery hedge I stray,

To meet mine ain dear somebody.

        Robert Tannahill””Love’s Fear.   417

I love thee, I love but thee,

With a love that shall not die

    Till the sun grows cold,

    And the stars are old,

And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!

        Bayard Taylor””Bedouin Song.   418

Love better is than Fame.

        Bayard Taylor””Christmas Sonnets. Lyrics. To J. L. G.              419

Love’s history, as Life’s, is ended not

By marriage.

        Bayard Taylor””Lars. Bk. III.      420

For love’s humility is Love’s true pride.

        Bayard Taylor””Poet’s Journal. Third Evening. The Mother.      421

And on her lover’s arm she leant,

  And round her waist she felt it fold,

And far across the hills they went

  In that new world which is the old.

        Tennyson””Day Dream. The Departure. I.           422

Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths.

        Tennyson””Lover’s Tale. L. 466.             423

Where love could walk with banish’d Hope no more.

        Tennyson””Lover’s Tale. L. 813.             424

Love’s arms were wreathed about the neck of Hope,

And Hope kiss’d Love, and Love drew in her breath

In that close kiss and drank her whisper’d tales.

They said that Love would die when Hope was gone.

And Love mourn’d long, and sorrow’d after Hope;

At last she sought out Memory, and they trod

The same old paths where Love had walked with Hope,

And Memory fed the soul of Love with tears.

        Tennyson””Lover’s Tale. L. 815.             425

’Tis better to have loved and lost,

Than never to have loved at all.

        Tennyson””In Memoriam. Pt. XXVII. St. 4.       426

For love reflects the thing beloved.

        Tennyson””In Memoriam. Pt. LII.           427

Love’s too precious to be lost,

A little grain shall not be spilt.

        Tennyson””In Memoriam. Pt. LXV.        428

I loved you, and my love had no return,

And therefore my true love has been my death.

        Tennyson””Lancelot and Elaine. L. 1,298.          429

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder’d string?

I am shamed through all my nature to have lov’d so slight a thing.

        Tennyson””Locksley Hall. St. 74.            430

There has fallen a splendid tear

  From the passion-flower at the gate.

She is coming, my dove, my dear;

  She is coming, my life, my fate;

The red rose cries, “She is near, she is near;”‌

  And the white rose weeps, “She is late;”‌

The larkspur listens, “I hear; I hear;”‌

  And the lily whispers, “I wait.”‌