Midnightisclose's Favorite Links from Diigo

Greatest Poems

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:48:41 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Anne Bradstreet

To My Dear and Loving Husband

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 then 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 recompence.
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 persevere,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Tags: anne bradstret love poetry

Posted by: midnightisclose

Greatest Poems

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:46:49 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sonnets from the Portuguese, 43

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 everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
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 my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Tags: barrett browning elizabeth love poetry

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Greatest Poems

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:36:27 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

William Shakespeare

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 dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Tags: love poetry shakespeare william

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Greatest Poems

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:35:58 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

William Shakespeare

Sonnet 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Tags: love poetry shakespeare william

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Greatest Poems

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:29:40 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

William Browne

Song

For her gait if she be walking,
  Be she sitting I desire her
  For her state's sake, and admire her
For her wit if she be talking:
  Gait and state and wit approve her;
  For which all and each I love her.

Be she sullen, I commend her
  For a modest; be she merry,
  For a kind one her prefer I.
Briefly, everything doth lend her
  So much grace and so approve her
  That for everything I love her.

Tags: browne love poetry william

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Greatest Poems

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:28:38 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

George Gordon, Lord Byron

She Walks in Beauty

1
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.
2
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.
3
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!

Tags: byron george gordon lord love

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Greatest Poems

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:27:31 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

George Herbert

Love (3)

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 lacked anything.

"A guest," I answered, "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 marred 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.

Tags: george herbert love poetry

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Greatest Poems

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:25:50 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Amy Lowell

Madonna of the Evening Flowers

All day long I have been working,
Now I am tired.
I call: “Where are you?”
But there is only the oak tree rustling in the wind.
The house is very quiet,
The sun shines in on your books,
On your scissors and thimble just put down,
But you are not there.
Suddenly I am lonely:
Where are you?
I go about searching.

Then I see you,
Standing under a spire of pale blue larkspur,
With a basket of roses on your arm.
You are cool, like silver,
And you smile.
I think the Canterbury bells are playing little tunes.

You tell me that the peonies need spraying,
That the columbines have overrun all bounds,
That the pyrus japonica should be cut back and rounded.
You tell me these things.
But I look at you, heart of silver,
White heart-flame of polished silver,
Burning beneath the blue steeples of the larkspur,
And I long to kneel instantly at your feet,
While all about us peal the loud, sweet Te Deums of the Canterbury bells.

Tags: amy love lowell poetry

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Greatest Poems

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:21:00 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Ben Jonson

Her Triumph

See the chariot at hand here of Love,
    Wherein my lady rideth!
Each that draws is a swan or a dove,
    And well the car Love guideth.
As she goes, all hearts do duty
      Unto her beauty;
And enamour'd, do wish, so they might
      But enjoy such a sight,
That they still were to run by her side,
Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.

Do but look on her eyes, they do light
    All that Love's world compriseth!
Do but look on her hair, it is bright
    As Love's star when it riseth!
Do but mark, her forehead's smoother
      Than words that soothe her;
And from her arched brows, such a grace
      Sheds itself through the face
As alone there triumphs to the life
All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife.

Have you seen but a bright lily grow,
    Before rude hands have touch'd it?
Ha' you mark'd but the fall o' the snow
    Before the soil hath smutch'd it?
Ha' you felt the wool o' the beaver?
      Or swan's down ever?
Or have smelt o' the bud o' the briar?
      Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
Oh so white! Oh so soft! Oh so sweet is she!

Tags: ben jonson love poetry

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Greatest Poems

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:16:46 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Stephen Foster

Beautiful Dreamer

Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;
Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,
Lull'd by the moonlight have all pass'd away!

Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,
List while I woo thee with soft melody;
Gone are the cares of life's busy throng.

Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!

Beautiful dreamer, out on the sea,
Mermaids are chaunting the wild lorelie;
Over the streamlet vapors are borne,
Waiting to fade at the bright coming morn.

Beautiful dreamer, beam on my heart,
E'en as the morn on the streamlet and sea;
Then will all clouds of sorrow depart,

Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!

Tags: foster love poetry stephen

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Greatest Poems

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:15:44 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Eugene Field

A Valentine to My Wife

Accept, dear girl, this little token,
   And if between the lines you seek,
You'll find the love I've often spoken—
   The love my dying lips shall speak.

Our little ones are making merry
   O'er am'rous ditties rhymed in jest,
But in these words (though awkward—very)
   The genuine article's expressed.

You are as fair and sweet and tender,
   Dear brown-eyed little sweetheart mine,
As when, a callow youth and slender,
   I asked to be your Valentine.

What though these years of ours be fleeting?
   What though the years of youth be flown?
I'll mock old Tempus with repeating,
   "I love my love and her alone!"

And when I fall before his reaping,
   And when my stuttering speech is dumb,
Think not my love is dead or sleeping,
   But that it waits for you to come.

So take, dear love, this little token,
   And if there speaks in any line
The sentiment I'd fain have spoken,
   Say, will you kiss your Valentine?

Tags: eugene field love poetry

Posted by: midnightisclose

Greatest Poems

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:14:24 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Elizabeth Akers Allen

At Last

At last, when all the summer shine
   That warmed life's early hours is past,
Your loving fingers seek for mine
   And hold them close—at last—at last!
Not oft the robin comes to build
   Its nest upon the leafless bough
By autumn robbed, by winter chilled,—
   But you, dear heart, you love me now.

Though there are shadows on my brow
   And furrows on my cheek, in truth,—
The marks where Time's remorseless plough
   Broke up the blooming sward of Youth,—
Though fled is every girlish grace
   Might win or hold a lover's vow,
Despite my sad and faded face,
   And darkened heart, you love me now!

I count no more my wasted tears;
   They left no echo of their fall;
I mourn no more my lonesome years;
   This blessed hour atones for all.
I fear not all that Time or Fate
   May bring to burden heart or brow,—
Strong in the love that came so late,
   Our souls shall keep it always now!

Tags: akers allen elizabeth love poetry

Posted by: midnightisclose