A Small Sample from The Lovebase



"Where be you going, you Devon maid?" by John Keats

Where be you going, you Devon maid?
And what have ye there in the basket?
Ye tight little fairy, just fresh from the dairy,
Will ye give me some cream if I ask for it?

I love your hills and I love your dales,
And I love your flocks a-bleating;
But oh, on the heather to lie together,
With both our hearts a-beating!

I'll put your basket all safe in a nook;
Your shawl I'll hang on a willow;
And we will sigh in the daisy's eye,
And kiss on a grass-green pillow.


"Even so came love" by J.R. Hervey

Treading unknown ways and lovely beyond
All lonely dreams, 'tis Love herself I see -
'Tis Love herself who pledges sanctuary
In bosom quiet as a twilight pond.

Out of the unguessed deep the song is blown,
And all earth's voices die. What shall compare
With that by which all other things are fair.
Who shall contend with Love's unravaged throne?

As comes the moon into surrendered skies,
Even so came Love to whom I yield me now,
Deliberate hand and heart and dreaming brow,
And song sweet lips and beauty-haunted eyes.


from "Silent Noon" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, -
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms;
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:-
So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! Clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.


"Physics of love" by Charles Brasch

The mutual magnetism of love
Nullifies every other force
That acts upon two infected bodies.
Even gravity is weakened as
They leap obstacles, ride
On their commonest occasions
Six inches above the unbelieving ground.


from "The Kiss" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I was a child beneath her touch, - a man
When breast to breast we clung, even I and she, -
A spirit when her spirit looked through me, -
A god when all our life-breath met to fan
Our life-blood, till love's emulous ardours ran,
Fire within fire, desire in deity.


"Summum Bonum" by Robert Browning

All the breath and the bloom of the year
in the bag of one bee:
All the wonder and wealth of the mine
in the heart of one gem:
in the core of one pearl all the shade and
the shine of the sea:
Breath and bloom, shade and shine, -
wonder, wealth, and - how far above them -
Truth, that's brighter than a gem,
Trust, that's purer than a pearl, -
Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe -
all were for me
in the kiss of one girl.


"The Sleeper" by Dan Rowden

As the eagle dreams of gentle winds,
And autumn leaves, the restful earth;
As the lover dreams of moonlit nights,
And empty pages, the poet's loving hand:
Thus, I dream of you.

As a father weeps over the newborn child,
And a girl, her first sweet kiss;
As the thinker yearns for the key to life,
And weary days, the night's calm bliss:
Thus I think of you.


"Night Quest" by Dan Rowden

Though a tear have I shed
For every star that cuts through
The ebon void of fathomless night:
Still I love you,
And forever will I search this velvet host,
For the sparkle of your eyes.


by Petrarch

Gloomy and thoughtful,
I make my way alone
With slow and dragging steps
Through the most empty places,
With my eyes alert to flee
The least sign of human presence.

No other screen can I find
To shield me from the prying eyes of men;
For in my outward semblance,
Devoid of joy,
Can be read with ease
How fiercely I burn inside.

So that I believe, in truth,
That only the mountains, plains, rivers and woods
Can know this life of mine
Which is concealed from all others.

Yet I cannot find a path so rough and wild
But love comes always conversing with me, and I with him.


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