Wednesday Love Poetry, Just Because

Lots going on. Exam tomorrow to advance to candidacy. Paper writing. Other stuff.

So I'm reading poetry instead of doing work. And then I'm going to go for a long run and eat some ice cream. Yes, I think that this is productive and a good plan for the day.


"I loved you first: but afterwards your love"

by Christina Rossetti

Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda. – Dante
Ogni altra cosa, ogni pensier va fore,
E sol ivi con voi rimansi amore. – Petrarca

I loved you first: but afterwards your love

Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song

As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.

Which owes the other most? my love was long,

And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;

I loved and guessed at you, you construed me

And loved me for what might or might not be –

Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.

For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’

With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,

For one is both and both are one in love:

Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’

Both have the strength and both the length thereof,

Both of us, of the love which makes us one.

Sometimes with One I Love

by Walt Whitman

Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unreturn’d love,

But now I think there is no unreturn’d love, the pay is certain one way or another

(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return’d,

Yet out of that I have written these songs).


I Love to Do My Homework

by Anonymous

I love to do my homework,

It makes me feel so good.

I love to do exactly

As my teacher says I should.

I love to do my homework,

I never miss a day.

I even love the men in white

Who are taking me away.

Juan’s Song

by Louise Bogan

When beauty breaks and falls asunder

I feel no grief for it, but wonder.

When love, like a frail shell, lies broken,

I keep no chip of it for token.

I never had a man for friend

Who did not know that love must end.

I never had a girl for lover

Who could discern when love was over.

What the wise doubt, the fool believes—

Who is it, then, that love deceives?

Unromantic Love

by J. V. Cunningham

There is no stillness in this wood.

The quiet of this clearing

Is the denial of my hearing

The sounds I should.

There is no vision in this glade.

This tower of sun revealing

The timbered scaffoldage is stealing

Essence from shade.

Only my love is love’s ideal.

The love I could discover

In these recesses knows no lover,

Is the unreal,

The undefined, unanalysed,

Unabsolute many;

It is antithesis of any,

In none comprised.


Mediocrity in Love Rejected

by Thomas Carew

Give me more love or more disdain;

The torrid, or the frozen zone,

Bring equal ease unto my pain;

The temperate affords me none;

Either extreme, of love, or hate,

Is sweeter than a calm estate.

Give me a storm; if it be love,

Like Danae in that golden show'r

I swim in pleasure; if it prove

Disdain, that torrent will devour

My vulture-hopes; and he's possess'd

Of heaven, that's but from hell releas'd.

Then crown my joys, or cure my pain;

Give me more love, or more disdain.

Love's Growth

by John Donne

I scarce believe my love to be so pure

As I had thought it was,

Because it doth endure

Vicissitude, and season, as the grass;

Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore

My love was infinite, if spring make’ it more.

But if medicine, love, which cures all sorrow

With more, not only be no quintessence,

But mixed of all stuffs paining soul or sense,

And of the sun his working vigor borrow,

Love’s not so pure, and abstract, as they use

To say, which have no mistress but their muse,

But as all else, being elemented too,

Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.

And yet no greater, but more eminent,

Love by the spring is grown;

As, in the firmament,

Stars by the sun are not enlarged, but shown,

Gentle love deeds, as blossoms on a bough,

From love’s awakened root do bud out now.

If, as water stirred more circles be

Produced by one, love such additions take,

Those, like so many spheres, but one heaven make,

For they are all concentric unto thee;

And though each spring do add to love new heat,

As princes do in time of action get

New taxes, and remit them not in peace,

No winter shall abate the spring’s increase.

Leave-Taking

by Louise Bogan

I do not know where either of us can turn

Just at first, waking from the sleep of each other.

I do not know how we can bear

The river struck by the gold plummet of the moon,

Or many trees shaken together in the darkness.

We shall wish not to be alone

And that love were not dispersed and set free—

Though you defeat me,

And I be heavy upon you.

But like earth heaped over the heart

Is love grown perfect.

Like a shell over the beat of life

Is love perfect to the last.

So let it be the same

Whether we turn to the dark or to the kiss of another;

Let us know this for leavetaking,

That I may not be heavy upon you,

That you may blind me no more.