Poems and Quotes


These are some of my favorite poems and quotes. (I did NOT write these!)


The Lover by Coventry Patmore
He meets, by heavenly chance express,
The destined maid; some hidden hand
Unveils to him that loveliness
Which others cannot understand.
His merits in her presence grow,
To match the promise in her eyes,
And round her happy footsteps blow
The authentic airs of paradise.
For joy of her he cannot sleep;
Her beauty haunts him all the night;
It melts his heart, it makes him weep
For wonder, worship, and delight.
Oh, paradox of love, he longs,
Most humble when he most aspires,
To suffer scorn and cruel wrongs
From her he honors and desires.
Her graces make him rich, and ask
No guerdon; this imperial style
Affronts him; he disdains to bask
The pensioner of her priceless smile.
He prays for some hard thing to do,
Some work of fame and labor immense,
To stretch the languid bulk and thew
Of love`s fresh-born magnipotence.
No smallest boon were bought too dear,
Though bartered for his love-sick life;
Yet trusts he, with unbdoubted cheer,
To vanquish heaven, and call her wife.
He notes how queens of sweetness still
Neglect their crowns, and stoop to mate;
How, self-consigned with lavish will,
They ask but love proportionate;
How swift pursuit by small degree,
Love`s tactic, works like miracle;
How valor, clothed in courtesies,
Brings down the haughtiest citadel;
And therefore, though he merits not
To kiss the braid upon her skirt,
His hope, discouraged ne`er a jot,
Out-soars all possible desert.



Carpe Diem by William Shakespeare
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear! your true-love`s coming
That can sing both high and low;
Trip no further, pretty sweeting,
Journey`s end in lovers` meeting--
Every wise man`s son doth know.

What is love? `tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What`s to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty,--
Then come kiss me, Sweet and twenty,
Youth`s a stuff will not endure.



Gray Eyes by Sara Teasdale

It was April when you came
The first time to me,
And my first look in your eyes
Was like my first look at the sea.

We have been together
Four Aprils now
Watching for the green
On the swaying willow bough;

Yet whenever I turn
To your gray eyes over me,
It is as though I looked
For the first time at the sea.



Petals by Amy Lowell

Life is a stream
On which we strew
Petal by petal the flower of our heart;
The end lost in dream,
They float past our view,
We only watch their glad, early start.

Freighted with hope,
Crimsoned with joy,
We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;
Their widening scope,
Their distant employ,
We never shall know. And the stream as it flows
Sweeps them away,
Each one is gone
Ever beyond into infinite ways.
We alone stay
While years hurry on,
The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.



Alone by Sara Teasdale

I am alone, in spite of love,
In spite of all I take and give --
In spite of all your tenderness,
Sometimes I am not glad to live.

I am alone, as though I stood
On the highest peak of the tired gray world,
About me only swirling snow,
Above me, endless space unfurled;

With earth hidden and heaven hidden,
And only my own spirit`s pride
To keep me from the peace of those
Who are not lonely, having died.



Shall I Compare Thee? -by William Shakespeare

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:
Sometimes 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 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 gives life to thee.



DISCONTENT by Elizabeth Barrett Browning


LIGHT human nature is too lightly tost
And ruffled without cause, complaining on--
Restless with rest, until, being overthrown,
It learneth to lie quiet. Let a frost
Or a small wasp have crept to the inner-most
Of our ripe peach, or let the wilful sun
Shine westward of our window,--straight we run
A furlong`s sigh as if the world were lost.
But what time through the heart and through the brain
God hath transfixed us,--we, so moved before,
Attain to a calm. Ay, shouldering weights of pain,
We anchor in deep waters, safe from shore,
And hear submissive o`er the stormy main
God`s chartered judgments walk for evermore.



Solitude -By Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh , it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound in joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life`s gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Suceed and give, and it helps you to live,
But no man can help you die.
There is a room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must file on
Through th e narrow aisles of pain.



Here's some of my favorite Quotes...


"Unable are the loved to die for love is immortality." --Emily Dickinson


"You must love yourself before you love another. By accepting yourself and fully being what you are, your simple presence can make others happy." --Jane Roberts


"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." --Mother Teresa


"Prejudices are what fools use for reason." --Voltaire


"Dream as if you will live forever and live as if you will die today." --James Dean


"Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead." --Ben Franklin


"The greatest pain in life is not to die, but to simply be ignored by the people you love most." --unknown


That's it for now...I might put more up later..
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