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She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing we did make).
Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved).
Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
What's freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways).
Theodore Roethke, 1954
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Kennedy
Nude Descending a Staircase
Toe upon toe, a snowing flesh,
A gold of lemon, root and rind,
She sifts in sunlight down the stairs
With nothing on. Nor on her mind.
We spy beneath the banister
A constant thresh of thigh on thigh
Her lips imprint the swinging air
That parts to let her parts go by.
One-woman waterfall, she wears
Her slow descent like a long cape
And pausing, on the final stair
Collects her motions into shape.
X. J. Kennedy, 1960
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Wilbur
Piazza di Spagna, Early Morning
I can't forget
How she stood at the top of that long
marble stair
Amazed, and then with a sleepy pirouette
Went dancing slowly down to the
fountain-quieted square;
Nothing upon her face
But some impersonal loneliness,—not then a girl,
But as it were a reverie of the place,
A called-for falling glide and whirl;
As when a leaf, petal, or thin chip
Is drawn to the falls of a pool and, circling
a moment above it,
Rides on over the lip—
Perfectly beautiful, perfectly ignorant of it.
Richard Wilbur, 1956
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Masefield
Her Heart
Her heart is always doing lovely things,
Filling my wintry mind with simple flowers;
Playing sweet tunes on my untunèd strings,
Delighting all my undelightful hours,
She plays me like a lute, what tune she will,
No string in me but trembles at her touch,
Shakes into sacred music, or is still,
Trembles or stops, or swells, her skill is such.
And in the dusty taverns of my soul
Where filthy lusts drink witches' brew
for wine,
Her gentle hand still keeps me from the bowl,
Still keeps me man, saves me from
being swine.
All grace in me, all sweetness in my verse,
Is hers, is my dear girl's, and only hers.
John Masefield, 1915
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Pope
On a Certain Lady at Court
I know the thing that's most uncommon
(Envy be silent, and attend!)
I know a reasonable woman,
Handsome and witty, yet a friend.
Not warped by passion, awed by rumor,
Not grave through pride, or gay through folly,
An equal mixture of good humor
And sensible soft melancholy.
"Has she no faults, then (Envy says), sir?"
Yes, she has one, I must aver:
When all the world conspires to praise her,
The woman's deaf, and does not hear.
Alexander Pope, 1732
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Herrick
Delight in Disorder
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness.
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthralls the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly:
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoestring, in whose tie
I see a wild civility;
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.
Robert Herrick, 1640
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Hughes
Preference
I likes a woman
six or eight and ten years older'n myself.
I don't fool with these young girls.
Young girl'll say,
Daddy, I want so-and-so.
I needs this, that, and the other.
But a old woman'll say,
Honey, what does YOU need?
I just drawed my money tonight
and it's all your'n.
That's why I likes a older woman
who can appreciate me:
When she conversations you
it ain't forever, Gimme!
Langston Hughes, 1951
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Hodgson
The Gypsy Girl
"Come, try your skill, kind gentlemen,
A penny for three tries!"
Some threw and lost, some threw and won
A ten-a-penny prize.
She was a tawny gypsy girl,
A girl of twenty years,
I liked her for the lumps of gold
That jingled from her ears;
I liked the flaring yellow scarf
Bound loose about her throat,
I liked her showy purple gown
And flashy velvet coat.
A man came up, too loose of tongue,
And said no good to her;
She did not blush as Saxons do,
Or turn upon the cur;
She fawned and whined "Sweet gentleman,
A penny for three tries!"
—But, oh, the den of wild things in
The darkness of her eyes!
Ralph Hodgson, 1911
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Cuney
No Images
She does not know
Her beauty,
She thinks her brown body
Has no glory.
If she could dance
Naked,
Under palm trees
And see her image in the river
She would know.
But there are no palm trees
On the street,
And dish water gives back no images.
Waring Cuney, 1931
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> McKay
The Harlem Dancer
Applauding youths laughed with young
prostitutes
And watched her perfect, half-clothed
body sway;
Her voice was like the sound of blended
flutes
Blown by black players upon a picnic day.
She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,
The light gauze hanging loose about her form;
To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm
Grown lovelier for passing through a storm.
Upon her swarthy neck black, shiny curls
Profusely fell; and tossing coins in praise,
The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even
the girls,
Devoured her with their eager, passionate
gaze;
But looking at her falsely-smiling face,
I knew her self
was not in that strange place.
Claude McKay, 1922
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Randall
Blackberry Sweet
Black girl black girl
lips as curved as cherries
full as grape bunches
sweet as blackberries
Black girl black girl
when you walk you are
magic as a rising bird
or a falling star
Black girl black girl
what's your spell to make
the heart in my breast
jumpstopshake
Dudley Randall, 1969
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Bennett
To a Dark Girl
I love you for your brownness
And the rounded darkness of your breast.
I love you for the breaking sadness
in your voice
And shadows where your wayward eyelids rest.
Something of old forgotten queens
Lurks in the lithe abandon of your walk,
And something of the shackled slave
Sobs in the rhythm of your talk.
Oh, little brown girl, born for sorrow's mate,
Keep all you have of queenliness,
Forgetting that you once were slave,
And let your full lips laugh at Fate!
Gwendolyn Bennett, 1931
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Herrick
Night Piece, to Julia
Her eyes the glowworm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee,
And the elves also,
Whose little eyes glow
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.
No will-o'-the-wisp mislight thee;
Nor snake or slow worm bite thee;
But on, on thy way,
Not making a stay,
Since ghost there's none to affright thee.
Let not the dark thee cumber;
What though the moon does slumber?
The stars of the night
Will lend thee their light,
Like tapers clear without number.
Then Julia, let me woo thee,
Thus, thus to come unto me;
And when I shall meet
Thy silvery feet,
My soul I'll pour into thee.
Robert Herrick, 1648
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Jonson
To Celia
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honoring thee
As giving it a hope that there
It could not withered be;
But thou thereon did'st only breathe,
And sent'st it back to me;
Since when it grows and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.
Ben Jonson, 1616
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Poe
To Helen
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in yon brilliant window niche
How statuelike I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy-Land!
Edgar Allan Poe, 1823
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Marlowe
The Passionate Shepherd
to His Love
Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Or woods or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair-linèd slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.
A belt of straw and ivy buds
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my Love.
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning;
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love.
Christopher Marlowe, 1599
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Raleigh
The Nymph's Reply to the
Shepherd
If all the world and love were young
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy Love.
Time drives the flocks from field to fold
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complain of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward Winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.
Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither—soon forgotten,
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.
Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs—
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy Love.
But could youth last and love still breed,
Had joys no date nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy Love.
Sir Walter Raleigh, 1600
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Wilbur
A Simile for Her Smile
Your smiling, or the hope, the thought of it,
Makes in my mind such pause and abrupt ease
As when the highway bridgegates fall,
Balking the hasty traffic, which must sit
On each side massed and staring, while
Deliberately the drawbridge starts to rise:
Then horns are hushed, the oilsmoke rarefies,
Above the idling motors one can tell
The packet's smooth approach, the slip,
Slip of the silken river past the sides,
The ringing of clear bells, the dip
And slow cascading of the paddle wheel.
Richard Wilbur, 1950
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Burns
A Red, Red Rose
O my love is like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June.
O my love is like the melody
That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I,
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
; And fare thee well, my only love,
And fare thee well awhile!
And I will come again, my love,
Though it were ten thousand mile!
Robert Burns, 1795
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Shakespeare
That time of year
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds
sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the West,
Which by-and-by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love
more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere
long.
William Shakespeare, 1594
Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Cummings
if i have made,my lady
if i have made,my lady,intricate
imperfect various things chiefly which wrong
your eyes(frailer than most deep dreams are frail)
songs less firm than your body's whitest song
upon my mind—if i have failed to snare
the glance too shy—if through my singing slips
the very skillful strangeness of your smile
the keen primeval silence of your hair
—let the world say "his most wise music stole
nothing from death"—
you only will create