Longing

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again.
For then the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me.

Or, as thou never cam’st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth.
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say My love! why sufferest thou?

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again.
For then the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

 

by Matthew Arnold (1822 1888)

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To A Stranger

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 a dream)

I have somewhere surely
Lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d 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.

Walt Whitman

n

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Indian Seranade

I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me -who knows how?
To thy chamber-window, Sweet!

The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream -
The champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale’s complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
O beloved as thou art!

Oh lift me from the grass!
I die! I faint! I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast;
Oh press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last!

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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My True Love Hath My Heart and I Have His

My true love hath my heart and I have his,

By just exchange one for the other given;

I hold his dear and mine he cannot miss;

There never was a better bargain driven.

My true love hath my heart and I have his.

His heart in me keeps him and me in one;

His heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;

He loves my heart for once it was his own;

I cherish his because in me it bides.

My true love hath my heart and I have his.

Philip Sidney

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I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,
Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that
recedes;

I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me,
I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soul
as it leads.

Sara Teasdale

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I Am Not Yours

I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love, put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.

Sara Teasdale

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Love has no desire but to fulfill itself.  To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.  To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.  ~Kahlil Gibran

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Somewhere I Have Never Traveled

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
e.e. cummings

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A Birthday

• Y heart is like a singing bird

  Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;

  My heart is like an apple-tree

  Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;

  My heart is like a rainbow shell

  That paddles in a halcyon sea;

  My heart is gladder than all these,

  Because my love is come to me.

  Raise me a daïs of silk and down;

  Hang it with vair and purple dyes;

  Carve it in doves and pomegranates,

  And peacocks with a hundred eyes;

  Work it in gold and silver grapes,

  In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;

  Because the birthday of my life

  Is come, my love is come to me.

  Christina Rossetti

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The Earth Grows Fragrant

The earth grows fragrant in the evening shadows –  
So sweet the flowers' breath is and so light, 
And from the dreamland of a bygone springtime 
You come again to visit me tonight.

An anxious thought once more disturbs my spirit, 
A blissful joy is glowing in my eyes. 
Words fade away, only a distant echo 
Repeats your name, the name my heart still cries.

With my whole being I can sense your presence, 
To earth you bring the fragrance of a dream, 
You are a lambent light whose rays of wonder
Tonight into my sombre bosom stream.

Though far away you are, at this great distance 
You are as ever my longed-for delight 
Emerging like a fairy queen of dreamland 
Amid the fragrant shadows of the night.

Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas

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