“She Walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
“Roads Go Ever Ever On” By J.R.R Tolkien
Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.
Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.
“To Be One With Each Other” by George Eliot
What greater thing is there for two human souls
than to feel that they are joined together to strengthen
each other in all labor, to minister to each other in all sorrow,
to share with each other in all gladness,
to be one with each other in the
silent unspoken memories?
“A White Rose” by JB O’Reilly
The red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
O, the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.
But I send you a cream-white rosebud
With a flush on its petal tips;
For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on the lips
“To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov'd 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 recompense.
Thy love is such I can in no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold I pray.
Then while we live, in love lets so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
“Love Is A Great Thing” by Thomas à Kempis
Love is a great thing, yea, a great and thorough good. By itself it makes that is heavy light; and it bears evenly all that is uneven.
It carries a burden which is no burden; it will not be kept back by anything low and mean; it desires to be free from all wordly affections, and not to be entangled by any outward prosperity, or by any adversity subdued.
Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no excuse of impossibility. It is therefore able to undertake all things, and it completes many things, and warrants them to take effect, where he who does not love would faint and lie down.
Though weary, it is not tired; though pressed it is not straitened; though alarmed, it is not confounded; but as a living flame it forces itself upwards and securely passes through all.
Love is active and sincere, courageous, patient, faithful, prudent and manly.
“Hope is the Thing with Feathers” by Emily Dickenson
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chilliest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity
It asked a crumb of me.
An excerpt from "The Prophet" by Kahil Gabran
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
Another excerpt from "The Prophet" by Kahil Gibran
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise on your lips.
"My Luve" by Robert Burns
O my luve is like a red, red rose,
That`s newly sprung in June:
O my luve is like the melodie,
That`s sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a` the seas gang dry.
Till a` the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi` the sun;
And I will luve thee still my dear,
While the sands o` life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho` it were ten thousand mile
From the "Song of Solomon", King James Bible version
My beloved spake, and said unto me,
Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over, and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth, the time of the
singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle
is heard in the land.
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the
vines with the tender grape give a good smell.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away
"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" by Christopher Marlowe
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle,
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.
A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs,
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.
The shepherds’ swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning;
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.
"Wedding Prayer" by Robert Lewis Stevenson
Lord, behold our family here assembled.
We thank you for this place in which we dwell,
for the love that unites us,
for the peace accorded us this day,
for the hope with which we expect the morrow,
for the health, the work, the food,
and the bright skies that make our lives delightful;
for our friends in all parts of the earth.
Amen
"Hope Is The Thing With
Feathers" by Emily Dickinson
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chilliest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity
It asked a crumb of me.
"The Good-Morrow" by John Donne
I wonder by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved ? were we not weaned
till then ?
But sucked on country pleasures,
childishly ?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den
?
'Twas so ; but this, all pleasures
fancies be;
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a
dream of thee.
And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love all love of other sights
controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have
gone;
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have
shown;
Let us possess one world ; each hath
one, and is one.
My face in thine eye, thine in mine
appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces
rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres
Without sharp north, without declining
west ?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or thou and I
Love so alike that none can slacken,
none can die
An excerpt from
The Master Speed by Robert Frost
Two such as you with such a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed
That life is only life forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.
Two Fragments by Sappho
Love holds me captive again
and I tremble with bittersweet longing
As a gale on the mountainside bends the
oak tree
I am rocked by my love
"He Wishes For Cloths of Heaven" by W
B Yeats
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your
feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my
dreams.
"To a Stranger" by Walt Whitman
Passing stranger! you do not know how
longingly I look upon you;
You must be he I was seeking, or she I
was seeking (it comes to me, as of a
dream).
I have somewhere surely lived a life of
joy with you.
All is recalled as we flit by each
other, fluid, affectionate, chaste,
matured;
You grew up with me, were a boy with me,
or a girl with me;
I ate with you, and slept with you--your
body has become not yours only, nor left
my body mine only;
You give me the pleasure of your eyes,
face, flesh, as we pass--you take of my
beard, breast, hands in return;
I am not to speak to you--I am to think
of you when I sit alone, or wake at
night alone;
I am to wait--I do not doubt I am to
meet you again;
I am to see to it that I do not lose
you.
From "Maud" by Lord Alfred Tennyson
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."
She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead,
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.
Shakespeare:
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
admit impediments. Love is not love
which alters when it alteration finds,
or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh, no! It is an ever-fixed mark.
That looks on tempests and is never
shaken;
it is the star to every wandering bark,
whose worth's unknown, although his
height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips
and cheeks
within his bending sickle's compass
come;
love alters not with his brief hours and
weeks,
but bears it out even to the edge of
doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of
May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a
date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven
shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime
declines,
By chance or nature's changing course
untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou
owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in
his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou
growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can
see,
So long lives this and this gives life
to thee.
An excerpt from "Love's Labours Lost"
But love, first learned in a lady's
eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain;
But, with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every
power,
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye;
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover's ear will hear the lowest
sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is
stopp'd:
Love's feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender horns of cockl'd
snails;
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus
gross in taste:
For valour, is not Love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his
hair:
And when Love speaks, the voice of all
the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
Never durst poet touch a pen to write
Until his ink were temper'd with Love's
sighs;
O, then his lines would ravish savage
ears
And plant in tyrants mild humility.
From women's eyes this doctrine I
derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean
fire;
They are the books, the arts, the
academes,
That show, contain and nourish all the
world:
Else none at all in ought proves
excellent.
"Sonnet 29"
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's
eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless
cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in
hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends
possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's
scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost
despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my
state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at
heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such
wealth brings
From "Hamlet"
Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
From "The
Velveteen Rabbit" by Margery Williams
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one
day, when they were lying side by side
near the nursery fender, before Nana
came to tidy the room. "Does it mean
having things that buzz inside you and a
stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the
Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens
to you. When a child loves you for a
long, long time, not just to play with,
but REALLY loves you, then you become
Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he
was always truthful. "When you are Real
you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being
wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said
the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a
long time. That's why it doesn't happen
often to people who break easily, or
have sharp edges, or who have to be
carefully kept. Generally, by the time
you are Real, most of your hair has been
loved off, and your eyes drop out and
you get loose in the joints and very
shabby. But these things don't matter at
all, because once you are Real you can't
be ugly, except to people who don't
understand."
From "The Irrational Season" by
Madeleine L'Engle
But ultimately there comes a moment when
a decision must be made. Ultimately two
people who love each other must ask
themselves how much they hope for as
their love grows and deepens, and how
much risk they are willing to take…It is
indeed a fearful gamble…Because it is
the nature of love to create, a marriage
itself is something which has to be
created, so that, together we become a
new creature.
To marry is the biggest risk in human
relations that a person can take…If we
commit ourselves to one person for life
this is not, as many people think, a
rejection of freedom; rather it demands
the courage to move into all the risks
of freedom, and the risk of love which
is permanent; into that love which is
not possession, but participation…It
takes a lifetime to learn another
person…When love is not possession, but
participation, then it is part of that
co-creation which is our human calling,
and which implies such risk that it is
often rejected.
From "Gift From The Sea" by Anne
Morrow Lindbergh
When you love someone, you do not love
them all the time, in exactly the same
way, from moment to moment. It is an
impossibility. It is even a lie to
pretend to. And yet this is exactly what
most of us demand. We have so little
faith in the ebb and flow of life, of
love, of relationships. We leap at the
flow of the tide and resist in terror
its ebb. We are afraid it will never
return. We insist on permanency, on
duration, on continuity; when the only
continuity possible, in life as in love,
is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom,
in the sense that the dancers are free,
barely touching as they pass, but
partners in the same pattern.
The only real security is not in owning
or possessing, not in demanding or
expecting, not in hoping, even. Security
in a relationship lies neither in
looking back to what was in nostalgia,
nor forward to what it might be in dread
or anticipation, but living in the
present relationship and accepting it as
it is now. Relationships must be like
islands, one must accept them for what
they are here and now, within their
limits - islands, surrounded and
interrupted by the sea, and continually
visited and abandoned by the tides.
An excerpt
from " The Two Towers : Being the Second
Part of The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R.
Tolkien
ENT: When Spring unfolds the beechen
leaf, and sap is in the bough;
When light is on the wild-wood stream,
and wind is on the brow;
When stride is long, and breath is deep,
and keen the mountain-air,
Come back to me! Come back to me, and
say my land is fair!
ENTWIFE.: When Spring is come to garth
and field, and corn is in the blade;
When blossom like a shining snow is on
the orchard laid;
When shower and Sun upon the Earth with
fragrance fill the air,
I*ll linger here, and will not come,
because my land is fair.
ENT.: When Summer lies upon the world,
and in a noon of gold
Beneath the roof of sleeping leaves the
dreams of trees unfold;
When woodland halls are green and cool,
and wind is in the West,
Come back to me! Come back to me, and
say my land is best!
ENTWIFE. : When Summer warms the hanging
fruit and burns the berry brown;
When straw is gold, and ear is white,
and harvest comes to town;
When honey spills, and apple swells,
though wind be in the West,
I*ll linger here beneath the Sun,
because my land is best!
ENT.: When Winter comes, the winter wild
that hill and wood shall slay;
When trees shall fall and starless night
devour the sunless day;
When wind is in the deadly East, then in
the bitter rain
I*ll look for thee, and call to thee; I*ll
come to thee again!
ENTWIFE : When Winter comes, and singing
ends; when darkness falls at last;
When broken is the barren bough, and
light and labour past;
I*ll look for thee, and wait for thee,
until we meet again:
Together we will tkae the road beneath
the bitter rain!
BOTH : Together we will take the road
that leads into the West,
And far away will find a land where both
our hearts may rest.
From Plato's Symposium
Humans have never understood the power
of Love, for if they had they would
surely have built noble temples and
altars and offered solemn sacrifices;
but this is not done, and most certainly
ought to be done, since Love is our best
friend, our helper, and the healer of
the ills which prevent us from being
happy.
To understand the power of Love, we must
understand that our original human
nature was not like it is now, but
different. Human beings each had two
sets of arms, two sets of legs, and two
faces looking in opposite directions.
There were three sexes then: one
comprised of two men called the children
of the Sun, one made of two women called
the children of the Earth, and a third
made of a man and a woman, called the
children of the Moon. Due to the power
and might of these original humans, the
Gods began to fear that their reign
might be threatened. They sought for a
way to end the humans’ insolence without
destroying them.
It was at this point that Zeus divided
the humans in half. After the division
the two parts of each desiring their
other half, came together, and throwing
their arms about one another, entwined
in mutual embraces, longing to grow into
one. So ancient is the desire of one
another which is implanted in us,
reuniting our original nature, making
one of two, and healing the state of
humankind.
Each of us when separated, having one
side only, is but the indenture of a
person, and we are always looking for
our other half. Those whose original
nature lies with the children of the Sun
are men who are drawn to other men,
those from the children of the Earth are
women who love other women, and those
from the children of the Moon are men
and women drawn to one another. And when
one of us meets our other half, we are
lost in an amazement of love and
friendship and intimacy, and would not
be out of the other’s sight even for a
moment. We pass our whole lives
together, desiring that we should be
melted into one, to spend our lives as
one person instead of two, and so that
after our death there will be one
departed soul instead of two; this is
the very expression of our ancient need.
And the reason is that human nature was
originally one and we were a whole, and
the desire and pursuit of the whole is
called Love.