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Love Poem Collection - 34
Amabel by Thomas Hardy
I marked her ruined hues,
Her custom-straitened views,
And asked, 'Can there indwell
My Amabel?'
I looked upon her gown,
Once rose, now earthen brown;
The change was like the knell
Of Amabel.
Her step's mechanic ways
Had lost the life of May's;
Her laugh, once sweet in swell,
Spoilt Amabel.
I mused: 'Who sings the strain
I sang ere warmth did wane?
Who thinks its numbers spell
His Amabel?'--
Knowing that, though Love cease,
Love's race shows undecrease;
All find in dorp or dell
An Amabel.
--I felt that I could creep
To some housetop, and weep,
That Time the tyrant fell
Ruled Amabel!
I said (the while I sighed
That love like ours had died),
'Fond things I'll no more tell
To Amabel,
'But leave her to her fate,
And fling across the gate,
'Till the Last Trump, farewell,
O Amabel!'
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to Hasten him into the Country by Thomas Randolph
Come, spur away!
I have no patience for a longer stay;
But must go down,
And leave the chargeable noise of this great town.
I will the country see,
Where old simplicity,
Though hid in gray,
Doth look more gay
Than foppery in plush and scarlet clad.
Farewell, you city-wits that are
Almost at civil war;
'Tis time that I grow wise, when all the world grows mad.
More of my days
I will not spend to gain an idiot's praise;
Or to make sport
For some slight puny of the Inns of Court.
Then, worthy Stafford, say,
How shall we spend the day?
With what delights
Shorten the nights?
When from this tumult we are got secure,
Where mirth with all her freedom goes,
Yet shall no finger lose;
Where every word is thought, and every thought is pure.
There from the tree
We'll cherries pluck; and pick the strawberry;
And every day
Go see the wholesome country girls make hay,
Whose brown hath lovelier grace
Than any painted face
That I do know
Hyde Park can show.
Where I had rather gain a kiss, than meet
(Though some of them in greater state
Might court my love with plate)
The beauties of the Cheap, and wives of Lombard Street.
But think upon
Some other pleasures; these to me are none.
Why do I prate
Of women, that are things against my fate?
I never mean to wed,
That torture to my bed:
My Muse is she
My Love shall be.
Let clowns get wealth, and heirs; when I am gone,
And the great bugbear, grisly Death,
Shall take this idle breath,
If I a poem leave, that poem is my son.
Of this, no more;
We'll rather taste the bright Pomona's store.
No fruit shall 'scape
Our palates, from the damson to the grape.
Then, full, we'll seek a shade,
And hear what music's made:
How Philomel
Her tale doth tell;
And how the other birds do fill the quire;
The thrush and blackbird lend their throats,
Warbling melodious notes;
We will all sports enjoy, which others but desire.
Ours is the sky,
Where at what fowl we please our hawk shall fly;
Nor will we spare
To hunt the crafty fox, or timorous hare;
But let our hounds run loose
In any ground they'll choose;
The buck shall fall,
The stag, and all.
Our pleasures must from their own warrants be,
For to my Muse, if not to me,
I'm sure all game is free;
Heaven, earth, are all but parts of her great royalty.
And when we mean
To taste of Bacchus' blessings now and then,
And drink by stealth
A cup or two to noble Berkeley's health:
I'll take my pipe and try
The Phrygian melody,
Which he that hears,
Lets through his ears
A madness to distemper all the brain.
Then I another pipe will take
And Doric music make,
To civilize with graver notes our wits again.
= = = = = = = = = =
There was an old person of Dover by Edward Lear
There was an old person of Dover,
Who rushed through a field of blue Clover;
But some very large bees,
Stung his nose and his knees,
So he very soon went back to Dover.
= = = = = = = = = =
Ovid's Elegia 5: Corinnae concubitus by Christopher Marlowe
In summers heate and mid-time of the day
To rest my limbes upon a bed I lay,
One window shut, the other open stood,
Which gave such light as twinkles in a wood,
Like twilight glimpse at setting of the Sunne,
Or night being past, and yet not day begunne.
Such light to shamefast maidens must be showne,
Where they may sport, and seeme to be unknowne.
Then came Corinna in a long loose gowne,
Her white neck hid with tresses hanging downe,
Resembling fayre Semiramis going to bed,
Or Layis of a thousand lovers sped.
I snatcht her gowne: being thin, the harme was small,
Yet strived she to be covered therewithall.
And striving thus as one that would be cast,
Betrayde her selfe, and yeelded at the last.
Starke naked as she stood before mine eye,
Not one wen in her body could I spie.
What armes and shoulders did I touch and see,
How apt her breasts were to be prest by me.
How smooth a belly under her wast saw I,
How large a legge, and what a lustie thigh?
To leave the rest, all liked me passing well,
I clinged her naked body, downe she fell,
Judge you the rest, being tirde she bad me kisse;
Jove send me more such after-noones as this.
= = = = = = = = = =
Changed by Charles Stuart Calverley
I know not why my soul is rack'd:
Why I ne'er smile as was my wont:
I only know that, as a fact,
I don't.
I used to roam o'er glen and glade
Buoyant and blithe as other folk:
And not unfrequently I made
A joke.
A minstrel's fire within me burn'd.
I'd sing, as one whose heart must break,
Lay upon lay: I nearly learn'd
To shake.
All day I sang; of love, of fame,
Of fights our fathers fought of yore,
Until the thing almost became
A bore.
I cannot sing the old songs now!
It is not that I deem then low;
'Tis that I can't remember how
They go.
I could not range the hills till high
Above me stood the summer moon:
And as to dancing, I could fly
As soon.
The sports, to which with boyish glee
I sprang erewhile, attract no more;
Although I am but sixty-three
Or four.
Nay, worse than that, I've seem'd of late
To shrink from happy boyhood -- boys
Have grown so noisy, and I hate
A noise.
They fright me, when the beech is green,
By swarming up its stem for eggs:
They drive their horrid hoops between
My legs: --
It's idle to repine, I know;
I'll tell you what I'll do instead:
I'll drink my arrowroot, and go
To bed.
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