Love Poems

But be contented when that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away.
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
The very part was consecrate to thee.
The earth can have but earth, which is his due;
My spirit is thine, the better part of me.
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead,
The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,
Too base of thee to be remembered.
The worth of that is that which it contains,
And that is this, and this with thee remains.

When differences go unresolved and a break-up is final, the love in one’s heart turns against its host and practically chokes one to death with undiluted emotion, but is never kind enough to grant death.

We could start things all over from scratch
and put it all behind us, move it outside and close the blinders
but it doesn’t work that way, you can’t erase an emotion
placing a notion like that might seem hard life facing an ocean
of cold facts, keep tripping over your own tracks
when you feel like a derailed train hit with a poll tax…

From The Wonderful World of Longmire; Re-Written Romance Novel covers. Here is a collection of the ones that made me blow pepsi through my nose.

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others, deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni spins a complex web of human relationships. Her forte is giving words to human emotions – affection, sorrow, guilt, romance, passion, lust, compassion, jealousy – and making you a part of the character’s life in the process. She draws vibrant images with her sensual words.

Lately, though, Mr. Havens has been contemplating steps that would take him away from Brown and campus ministry. After a chaste romance - "I didn't kiss her until I asked her to marry me," he said - he recently became engaged to a missionary colleague, Liz Chalmers. He has been thinking about how to support the children they hope to have.

Regular readers of this blog know that my wife and I have a pretty simple philosophy when it comes to our teenage daughter, Faith, dating: No. (See here and here.) Therefore you might be surprised to hear that Faith went to the prom last Saturday night. And yes, there was a boy involved from an unrelated gene pool. How did this happen? One word: conspiracy.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
'Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.'
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
'The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.'
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

When lovely woman stoops to folly,
  And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
  What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover,
  To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
  And wring his bosom - is to die.

Found Magazine is dedicated to the collection of found objects submitted by its readership; love letters, photos, shopping lists and personal cards. It’s fascinating and voyeristic, revealing, perplexing and often hilarious. It is like going through someone’s private draw. Compelling.

Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come, 
And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom 
    Ye learn your song: 
Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there, 
  Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air 
    Bloom the year long! 

Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams: 
Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams, 
    A throe of the heart, 
Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound, 
  No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound, 
    For all our art. 

Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men 
We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then, 
    As night is withdrawn 
From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May, 
  Dream, while the innumerable choir of day 
    Welcome the dawn.

Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.

Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, beloved,
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.

For it was in my heart that you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes;
And in my heart they will remember always, -
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.

One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it;
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it;
One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother;
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love:
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the heavens reject not,
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?

I haven't been posting much lately. Mostly, because I've been trying to meet people (i.e. girls) and I've been writing a lot of poems. I'm trying to put together a book of the love poems I've been writing, "Love Poems on Bar Napkins." I intend to send it to a book contest, maybe, though there's no chance with them. A better bet might be a small publisher in the fall or winter. I went to see Okkervil River after the poetry reading Sunday at Iota, and I enjoyed it.

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

'A guest,' I answer'd, 'worthy to be here:'
Love said, 'You shall be he.'
'I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.'
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
'Who made the eyes but I?'

'Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.'
'And know you not,' says Love, 'Who bore the blame?'
'My dear, then I will serve.'
'You must sit down,' says Love, 'and taste my meat.'
So I did sit and eat.

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O! if, -I say you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements. ... Stretch!!

Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,
For still temptation follows where thou art.
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd;
And when a woman woos, what woman's son
Will sourly leave her till he have prevail'd?
Ay me! but yet thou might'st my seat forbear,
And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,
Who lead thee in their riot even there
Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:
Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine by thy beauty being false to me.

In the age of the Internet, who writes love letters anymore? The romantic epistolary tradition has gone high-tech; online love is all about the Instant Message (IM) window, with its unique language of shorthand endearments: BRB (be right back), IMHO (in my humble opinion) and the ultimate phrase representing devotion and commitment potential, the coveted LOL (laughing out loud). But at the end of an e-communication, can we trust our memory of what happened? Absent of intonation and physical cues, how do we discern if a sentiment is mutual? And how...

This is old news but.... I heard that Keanu Reeves and Diane Keaton are now dating. In the film Something's Gotta Give, Reeves played a young man who falls hard for a more mature woman, played by Keaton.

So what are the basic rules of behavior that one should observe when dating or chatting on line?

Online dating services get you past and even bypass some of the difficulties that come with meeting people in clubs, parties and pubs. What you need and want is all spelled out in your profile.

Of course, Jennifer Wilbanks will eventually serve whatever sentence comes her way, even if it's merely global public ridicule. Then, missing the media fishbowl, she'll plunge back in by marrying Michael Jackson while having an affair with Gary Condit. Somehow she'll also find time to send steamy love letters to Scott Peterson on death row and grab a guest gig on "Desperate Housewives."

I went to baggage claim where Brad and I had agreed to meet, and he was looking for me in the wrong direction so I got to completely sneak up on him, which was fun. While we were hugging, I noticed that he was standing really close to someone else’s luggage, not a suitcase, but some kind of instrument case, which is when I finally saw the man with the trumpet, who proceeded to play a trumpet fanfare in my honor! Brad and I have an old, good joke between us, which is that when he’s working and I come into the room, I’d like a flourish...

If you have some talent with words, why not take a few moments and try your hand at writing a poem for your lover? Just sit down and list all the reasons why you think they're special. Then put them into some kind of free verse format: a wide column of lines, roughly the same length, which may rhyme but don't need to.