Penguin's Poems for Love

by Laura Barber

  Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure

  In the million perfectly-chiseled

  Cheeks alighting each moment to melt

  My cheek of basalt. They turned to tears,

  Angels weeping over dull natures,

  But didn’t convince me. Those tears froze.

  Each dead head had a visor of ice.

  And I slept on like a bent finger.

  The first thing I saw was sheer air

  And the locked drops rising in a dew

  Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay

  Dense and expressionless round about.

  I didn’t know what to make of it.

  I shone, mica-scaled, and unfolded

  To pour myself out like a fluid

  Among bird feet and the stems of plants.

  I wasn’t fooled. I knew you at once.

  Tree and stone glittered, without shadows.

  My finger-length grew lucent as glass.

  I started to bud like a March twig:

  An arm and a leg, an arm, a leg.

  From stone to cloud, so I ascended.

  Now I resemble a sort of god

  Floating through the air in my soul-shift

  Pure as a pane of ice. It’s a gift.

  SIR ARTHUR GORGES

  Her face Her tongue Her wit

  so fair so sweet so sharp

  first bent then drew then hit

  mine eye mine ear my heart

  Mine eye Mine ear My heart

  to like to learn to love

  her face her tongue her wit

  doth lead doth teach doth move

  Her face Her tongue Her wit

  with beams with sound with art

  doth blind doth charm doth knit

  mine eye mine ear my heart

  Mine eye Mine ear My heart

  with life with hope with skill

  her face her tongue her wit

  doth feed doth feast doth fill

  O face O tongue O wit

  with frowns with checks with smart

  wrong not vex not wound not

  mine eye mine ear my heart

  This eye This ear This heart

  shall joy shall yield shall swear

  her face her tongue her wit

  to serve to trust to fear.

  EMILY DICKINSON

  It was a quiet way –

  He asked if I was his –

  I made no answer of the Tongue

  But answer of the Eyes –

  And then He bore me on

  Before this mortal noise

  With swiftness, as of Chariots

  And distance, as of Wheels –

  This World did drop away

  As Acres from the feet

  Of one that leaneth from Balloon

  Opon an Ether street.

  The Gulf behind was not,

  The Continents were new –

  Eternity it was before

  Eternity was due –

  No Seasons were to us –

  It was not Night nor Morn –

  But Sunrise stopped opon the place

  And fastened it in Dawn –

  JOHN MILTON

  from Paradise Lost, Book IV

  That day I oft remember, when from sleep

  I first awaked, and found myself reposed

  Under a shade of flow’rs, much wond’ring where

  And what I was, whence thither brought, and how.

  Not distant far from thence a murmuring sound

  Of waters issued from a cave and spread

  Into a liquid plain, then stood unmoved

  Pure as th’ expanse of heav’n; I thither went

  With unexperienced thought, and laid me down

  On the green bank, to look into the clear

  Smooth lake, that to me seemed another sky.

  As I bent down to look, just opposite,

  A shape within the wat’ry gleam appeared

  Bending to look on me: I started back,

  It started back, but pleased I soon returned,

  Pleased it returned as soon with answering looks

  Of sympathy and love; there I had fixed

  Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire,

  Had not a voice thus warned me, What thou seest,

  What there thou seest fair creature is thyself,

  With thee it came and goes: but follow me,

  And I will bring thee where no shadow stays

  Thy coming, and thy soft embraces, he

  Whose image thou art, him thou shall enjoy

  Inseparably thine, to him shalt bear

  Multitudes like thyself, and thence be called

  Mother of human race: what could I do,

  But follow straight, invisibly thus led?

  Till I espied thee, fair indeed and tall,

  Under a platan, yet methought less fair,

  Less winning soft, less amiably mild,

  Than that smooth wat’ry image; back I turned,

  Thou following cried’st aloud, Return, fair Eve;

  Whom fli’st thou? Whom thou fli’st, of him thou art,

  His flesh, his bone; to give thee being I lent

  Out of my side to thee, nearest my heart

  Substantial life, to have thee by my side

  Henceforth an individual solace dear;

  Part of my soul I seek thee, and thee claim

  My other half: with that thy gentle hand

  Seized mine, I yielded.

  HART CRANE

  Episode of Hands

  The unexpected interest made him flush.

  Suddenly he seemed to forget the pain, –

  Consented, – and held out

  One finger from the others.

  The gash was bleeding, and a shaft of sun

  That glittered in and out among the wheels,

  Fell lightly, warmly, down into the wound.

  And as the fingers of the factory owner’s son,

  That knew a grip for books and tennis

  As well as one for iron and leather, –

  As his taut, spare fingers wound the gauze

  Around the thick bed of the wound,

  His own hands seemed to him

  Like wings of butterflies

  Flickering in sunlight over summer fields.

  The knots and notches, – many in the wide

  Deep hand that lay in his, – seemed beautiful.

  They were like the marks of wild ponies’ play, –

  Bunches of new green breaking a hard turf.

  And factory sounds and factory thoughts

  Were banished from him by that larger, quieter hand

  That lay in his with the sun upon it.

  And as the bandage knot was tightened

  The two men smiled into each other’s eyes.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  from Antony and Cleopatra, II, ii

  ENOBARBUS:

  When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his heart,

  upon the river of Cydnus.

  AGRIPPA:

  There she appeared indeed! Or my reporter devised well for her.

  ENOBARBUS:

  I will tell you.

  The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,

  Burned on the water. The poop was beaten gold;

  Purple the sails, and so perfumèd that

  The winds were lovesick with them. The oars were silver,

  Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke and made

  The water which they beat to follow faster,

  As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,

  It beggared all description. She did lie

  In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue,

  O’erpicturing that Venus where we see

  The fancy outwork nature. On each side her

  Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling cupids,

  With divers-coloured fans, whose wind did seem

  To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,


  And what they undid did.

  AGRIPPA: O, rare for Antony!

  ENOBARBUS:

  Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,

  So many mermaids, tended her i’th’ eyes,

  And made their bends adornings. At the helm

  A seeming mermaid steers. The silken tackle

  Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,

  That yarely frame the office. From the barge

  A strange invisible perfume hits the sense

  Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast

  Her people out upon her; and Antony,

  Enthroned i’th’ market-place, did sit alone,

  Whistling to th’air; which, but for vacancy,

  Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,

  And made a gap in nature.

  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

  from Hero and Leander, Sestiad I

  And in the midst a silver altar stood;

  There Hero sacrificing turtles’ blood,

  Veiled to the ground, veiling her eyelids close,

  And modestly they opened as she rose:

  Thence flew Love’s arrow with the golden head,

  And thus Leander was enamourèd.

  Stone still he stood, and evermore he gazèd,

  Till with the fire that from his count’nance blazèd

  Relenting Hero’s gentle heart was strook:

  Such force and virtue hath an amorous look.

  It lies not in our power to love or hate,

  For will in us is overruled by fate.

  When two are stripped, long ere the course begin

  We wish that one should lose, the other win;

  And one especially do we affect

  Of two gold ingots like in each respect.

  The reason no man knows: let it suffice,

  What we behold is censured by our eyes.

  Where both deliberate, the love is slight;

  Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

  He kneeled, but unto her devoutly prayed;

  Chaste Hero to herself thus softly said:

  ‘Were I the saint he worships, I would hear him,’

  And as she spake those words, came somewhat near him.

  He started up, she blushed as one ashamed;

  Wherewith Leander much more was inflamed.

  He touched her hand, in touching it she trembled:

  Love deeply grounded hardly is dissembled.

  These lovers parlèd by the touch of hands;

  True love is mute, and oft amazèd stands.

  ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

  from Sonnets from the Portuguese

  XXXVIII

  First time he kissed me, he but only kissed

  The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;

  And ever since, it grew more clean and white,…

  Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’

  When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst

  I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,

  Than that first kiss. The second passed in height

  The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,

  Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed!

  That was the chrism of love, which love’s own crown

  With sanctifying sweetness, did precede.

  The third upon my lips was folded down

  In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,

  I have been proud and said, ‘My love, my own.’

  WILLIAM BARNES

  With you first shown to me,

  With you first known to me,

  My life-time loom’d, in hope, a length of joy:

  Your voice so sweetly spoke,

  Your mind so meetly spoke,

  My hopes were all of bliss without alloy,

  As I, for your abode, sought out, with pride,

  This house with vines o’er-ranging all its side.

  I thought of years to come,

  All free of tears to come,

  When I might call you mine, and mine alone,

  With steps to fall for me,

  And day cares all for me,

  And hands for ever nigh to help my own;

  And then thank’d Him who had not cast my time

  Too early or too late for your sweet prime.

  Then bright was dawn, o’er dew,

  And day withdrawn, o’er dew,

  And mid-day glow’d on flow’rs along the ledge,

  And walls in sight, afar,

  Were shining white, afar,

  And brightly shone the stream beside the sedge.

  But still, the fairest light of those clear days

  Seem’d that which fell along your flow’ry ways.

  MAY THEIL GAARD WATTS

  Vision

  To-day there have been lovely things

  I never saw before;

  Sunlight through a jar of marmalade;

  A blue gate;

  A rainbow

  In soapsuds on dishwater;

  Candlelight on butter;

  The crinkled smile of a little girl

  Who had new shoes with tassels;

  A chickadee on a thorn-apple;

  Empurpled mud under a willow,

  Where white geese slept;

  White ruffled curtains sifting moonlight

  On the scrubbed kitchen floor;

  The under side of a white-oak leaf;

  Ruts in the road at sunset;

  An egg yolk in a blue bowl.

  My love kissed my eyes last night.

  JOHN DONNE

  The Good Morrow

  I wonder by my troth, what thou and I

  Did till we loved? Were we not weaned till then,

  But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

  Or snorted we in the seven sleepers’ den?

  ’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

  If ever any beauty I did see,

  Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

  And now good morrow to our waking souls,

  Which watch not one another out of fear;

  For love, all love of other sights controls,

  And makes one little room, an everywhere.

  Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

  Let maps to others, worlds on worlds have shown,

  Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

  My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

  And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

  Where can we find two better hemispheres

  Without sharp north, without declining west?

  Whatever dies was not mixed equally;

  If our two loves be one, both thou and I

  Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

  JENNY JOSEPH

  The sun has burst the sky

  The sun has burst the sky

  Because I love you

  And the river its banks.

  The sea laps the great rocks

  Because I love you

  And takes no heed of the moon dragging it away

  And saying coldly ‘Constancy is not for you’.

  The blackbird fills the air

  Because I love you

  With spring and lawns and shadows falling on lawns.

  The people walk in the street and laugh

  I love you

  And far down the river ships sound their hooters

  Crazy with joy because I love you.

  Secretly

  JOHN CLARE

  I hid my love when young till I

  Couldn’t bear the buzzing of a fly;

  I hid my love to my despite

  Till I could not bear to look at light:

  I dare not gaze upon her face

  But left her memory in each place;

  Where’er I saw a wild flower lie

  I kissed and bade my love goodbye.

  I met her in the greenest dells,

  Where dewdrops pearl the wood
bluebells;

  The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,

  The bee kissed and went singing by,

  A sunbeam found a passage there,

  A gold chain round her neck so fair;

  As secret as the wild bee’s song

  She lay there all the summer long.

  I hid my love in field and town

  Till e’en the breeze would knock me down;

  The bees seemed singing ballads o’er,

  The fly’s buzz turned a lion’s roar;

  And even silence found a tongue,

  To haunt me all the summer long;

  The riddle nature could not prove

  Was nothing else but secret love.

  ROBERT BROWNING

  Eyes, calm beside thee (Lady, couldst thou know!)

  May turn away thick with fast gathering tears:

  I glance not where all gaze: thrilling and low

  Their passionate praises reach thee – my cheek wears

  Alone no wonder when thou passest by;

  Thy tremulous lids, bent and suffused, reply

  To the irrepressible homage which doth glow

  On every lip but mine: if in thine ears

  Their accents linger – and thou dost recall

  Me as I stood, still, guarded, very pale,

  Beside each votarist whose lighted brow

  Wore worship like an aureole, ‘O’er them all

  My beauty,’ thou wilt murmur, ‘did prevail

  Save that one only:’ – Lady, couldst thou know!

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  from Twelfth Night, II, iv

  VIOLA:

  Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,

  Hath for your love as great a pang of heart

  As you have for Olivia. You cannot love her.

  You tell her so. Must she not then be answered?

  ORSINO:

  There is no woman’s sides

  Can bide the beating of so strong a passion

  As love doth give my heart; no woman’s heart