I will love you always and forever
Till all these vows break and cease to hold,
I will love you in pain and morbid clime,
When all sorrows of life mark you at most,
I will love you till all bards cease to rhyme
And the nightingale stop her mellowed boast,
I will love you to the end of my time,
When the sacred air leaves Her mortal host.
LaNcELoT
1862
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;
My heart is like an apple tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset-fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
A poem by Christina Rossetti
1899
I bring you with reverent hands
The books of my numberless dreams;
White woman that passion has worn
As the tide wears the dove-gray sands,
And with heart more old than the horn
That is brimmed from pale fire of time!
White woman with numberless dreams
I bring you my passionate rhyme.
A poem by William Butler Yeats
1819
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the Ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?
See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower could be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea!
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?
A poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
1678
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 recompetence.
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 persever
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
A poem by Anne Bradstreet
1850
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 life! -and, if God choose
I shall but love thee better after death.
A poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
So it is the 14th of February again, lovers day as they call it! It is only fair then, that I should share with you some of the most famous lines in romantic poetry. And here is a 1794 piece by Robert Burns.
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 art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till all the seas gang dry.
Till all the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt with the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear
While the sands of life shall run.
And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!
And fare-thee-weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ ’twere ten thousand mile!
A poem by Robert Burns
I dreamt of the night we would meet,
Beneath the stars and the moon sweet,
And started then my rolling tears,
When I thought of those pleasant years.
O alas! By noble chance we meet,
Arm in arm we do lock and greet;
But my eyes do tremble as I stare,
For what more thing could sparkle this fair?
I shall declare my love this night,
And say things which make thee delight;
I shall sing thee sonnets and more,
And love thee as I did before.
A poem by Lancelot
I remember when we did kiss and part,
Where I bade farewell and tore us apart,
That I ceased and caressed thy withered brow,
Then seemed a dark night too wicked and slow.
One decade has gone since the faultful night,
And I wonder who has spotted thee bright,
For I hear of thee fettered, and in woe,
With the former light burning down and low.
Then do I think of the most empty vase;
A forgotten smile, a woebegone face,
And those yesterdays I called thee sweet rose,
When lay thee embowered in love’s sweet prose.
Had thee but seen how hidden kept my fears,
When thought I in secret, of looming tears,
And one shortcoming of letting thee weep
For love foiled, and sorrowful nights to keep!
A poem by Lancelot
LET us forget our yesterdays and part,
To set these two false-living hearts apart,
And delete those thoughts of old and move on,
For what can love be when the spark is gone?
Let us forget our yesterdays and part,
To set these two false-living hearts apart,
And delete all tears and sorrows amassed,
And walk away to dest’nations contrast.
Nevermore shall we dwell on pleasant day,
But let us then cast our pleasures astray!
So this silence be our sweetest escort,
When I hold a hand to kiss thee and part.
Heaven knows if I shall ever meet thee,
But should we not meet, let the parting be!
A poem by Lancelot
