Penguin's Poems for Love

by Laura Barber

  With wares which would sink admiration,

  I saw I had love’s pinnace over-fraught:

  Ev’ry thy hair for love to work upon

  Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;

  For, nor in nothing, nor in things

  Extreme, and scatt’ring bright, can love inhere;

  Then, as an angel, face and wings

  Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,

  So thy love may be my love’s sphere;

  Just such disparity

  As is ’twixt air and angels’ purity,

  ’Twixt women’s love, and men’s will ever be.

  LOUIS MACNEICE

  Coda

  Maybe we knew each other better

  When the night was young and unrepeated

  And the moon stood still over Jericho.

  So much for the past; in the present

  There are moments caught between heart-beats

  When maybe we know each other better.

  But what is that clinking in the darkness?

  Maybe we shall know each other better

  When the tunnels meet beneath the mountain.

  CAROL ANN DUFFY

  Words, Wide Night

  Somewhere, on the other side of this wide night

  and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.

  The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

  This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say

  it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing

  an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

  La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine

  the dark hills I would have to cross

  to reach you. For I am in love with you and this

  is what it is like or what it is like in words.

  PHILIP LARKIN

  Broadcast

  Giant whispering and coughing from

  Vast Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces

  Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum,

  ‘The Queen’, and huge resettling. Then begins

  A snivel on the violins:

  I think of your face among all those faces,

  Beautiful and devout before

  Cascades of monumental slithering,

  One of your gloves unnoticed on the floor

  Beside those new, slightly-outmoded shoes.

  Here it goes quickly dark. I lose

  All but the outline of the still and withering

  Leaves on half-emptied trees. Behind

  The glowing wavebands, rabid storms of chording

  By being distant overpower my mind

  All the more shamelessly, their cut-off shout

  Leaving me desperate to pick out

  Your hands, tiny in all that air, applauding.

  AMY LOWELL

  The Letter

  Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper

  Like draggled fly’s legs,

  What can you tell of the flaring moon

  Through the oak leaves?

  Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor

  Spattered with moonlight?

  Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them

  Of blossoming hawthorns,

  And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness

  Beneath my hand.

  I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against

  The want of you;

  Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,

  And posting it.

  And I scald alone, here, under the fire

  Of the great moon.

  CHINUA ACHEBE

  Love Song (for Anna)

  Bear with me my love

  in the hour of my silence;

  the air is crisscrossed

  by loud omens and songbirds

  fearing reprisals of middle day

  have hidden away their notes

  wrapped up in leaves

  of cocoyam… What song shall I

  sing to you my love when

  a choir of squatting toads

  turns the stomach of day with

  goitrous adoration of an infested

  swamp and purple-headed

  vultures at home stand

  sentry on the rooftop?

  I will sing only in waiting

  silence your power to bear

  my dream for me in your quiet

  eyes and wrap the dust of our blistered

  feet in golden anklets ready

  for the return someday of our

  banished dance.

  GEORGE MACDONALD

  The Shortest and Sweetest of Songs

  Come

  Home.

  FRANCES CORNFORD

  The Avenue

  Who has not seen their lover

  Walking at ease,

  Walking like any other

  A pavement under trees,

  Not singular, apart,

  But footed, featured, dressed,

  Approaching like the rest

  In the same dapple of the summer caught;

  Who has not suddenly thought

  With swift surprise:

  There walks in cool disguise,

  There comes, my heart?

  With a vow

  With a vow

  ELIZABETH GARRETT

  Epithalamium

  Ask not, this night, how we shall love

  When we are three-year lovers;

  How clothes, as lapsing tides, as love,

  May slide, three summers over;

  Nor ask when the eye’s quick darknesses

  Throw shadows on our skin

  How we shall know our nakedness

  In the difference of things.

  Ask not whose salty hand turns back

  The sea’s sheet on the shore,

  Or how the spilt and broken moon rides

  Still each wave’s humped back –

  Ask not, for it is given as my pledge

  That night shall be our sole inquisitor,

  Day our respondent, and each parting as the bride

  And groom, an hour before their marriage.

  SIR EDWIN ARNOLD

  Destiny

  Somewhere there waiteth in this world of ours

  For one lone soul another lonely soul,

  Each choosing each through all the weary hours

  And meeting strangely at one sudden goal.

  Then blend they, like green leaves with golden flowers,

  Into one beautiful and perfect whole;

  And life’s long night is ended, and the way

  Lies open onward to eternal day.

  BRIAN PATTEN

  January Gladsong

  Seeing as yet nothing is really well enough arranged

  the dragonfly will not yet sing

  nor will the guests ever arrive

  quite as naked as the tulips intended.

  Still, because once again I am wholly glad of living,

  I will make all that is possible step out of time

  to a land of giant hurrays! where the happy monsters dance

  and stomp darkness down.

  Because joy and sorrow must finally unite and the small heart-

  beat of sparrow be heard above jet-roar, I will sing

  not of tomorrow’s impossible paradise

  but of what now radiates.

  Forever the wind is blowing the white clouds in someone’s pure direction.

  In all our time birdsong has teemed and couples known

  that darkness is not forever.

  In the glad boat we sail the gentle and invisible ocean

  where none have ever really drowned.

  W. H. AUDEN

  Carry her over the water,

  And set her down under the tree,

  Where the culvers white all day and all night,

  And the winds from every quarter,

  Sing agreeably, agreeably, agreeably of love.

  Put a gold ring on her fin
ger,

  And press her close to your heart,

  While the fish in the lake their snapshots take,

  And the frog, that sanguine singer,

  Sings agreeably, agreeably, agreeably of love.

  The streets shall all flock to your marriage,

  The houses turn round to look,

  The tables and chairs say suitable prayers,

  And the horses drawing your carriage

  Sing agreeably, agreeably, agreeably of love.

  FRANCIS QUARLES

  Even like two little bank-dividing brooks,

  That wash the pebbles with their wanton streams,

  And having ranged and searched a thousand nooks,

  Meet both at length in silver-breasted Thames

  Where in a greater current they conjoin:

  So I my Best-Beloved’s am, so he is mine.

  Even so we met; and after long pursuit

  Even so we joined; we both became entire;

  No need for either to renew a suit,

  For I was flax and he was flames of fire:

  Our firm united souls did more than twine,

  So I my Best-Beloved’s am, so he is mine.

  If all those glittering monarchs that command

  The servile quarters of this earthly ball

  Should tender in exchange their shares of land,

  I would not change my fortunes for them all:

  Their wealth is but a counter to my coin;

  The world’s but theirs, but my Beloved’s mine.

  Nay, more: if the fair Thespian ladies all

  Should heap together their diviner treasure,

  That treasure should be deemed a price too small

  To buy a minute’s lease of half my pleasure.

  ’Tis not the sacred wealth of all the Nine

  Can buy my heart from him, or his from being mine.

  Nor time, nor place, nor chance, nor death can bow

  My least desires unto the least remove;

  He’s firmly mine by oath, I his by vow;

  He’s mine by faith, and I am his by love;

  He’s mine by water, I am his by wine;

  Thus I my Best-Beloved’s am, thus he is mine.

  He is my altar, I his holy place;

  I am his guest, and he my living food;

  I’m his by penitence, he mine by grace;

  I’m his by purchase, he is mine by blood;

  He’s my supporting elm, and I his vine:

  Thus I my Best-Beloved’s am, thus he is mine.

  He gives me wealth, I give him all my vows;

  I give him songs, he gives me length of days;

  With wreaths of grace he crowns my conquering brows;

  And I his temples with a crown of praise,

  Which he accepts as an everlasting sign,

  That I my Best-Beloved’s am: that he is mine.

  ALICE OSWALD

  Wedding

  From time to time our love is like a sail

  and when the sail begins to alternate

  from tack to tack, it’s like a swallowtail

  and when the swallow flies it’s like a coat;

  and if the coat is yours, it has a tear

  like a wide mouth and when the mouth begins

  to draw the wind, it’s like a trumpeter

  and when the trumpet blows, it blows like millions…

  and this, my love, when millions come and go

  beyond the need of us, is like a trick;

  and when the trick begins, it’s like a toe

  tip-toeing on a rope, which is like luck;

  and when the luck begins, it’s like a wedding,

  which is like love, which is like everything.

  ANONYMOUS

  I will give my love an apple without e’er a core,

  I will give my love a house without e’er a door,

  I will give my love a palace wherein she may be,

  And she may unlock it without any key.

  My head is the apple without e’er a core,

  My mind is the house without e’er a door,

  My heart is the palace wherein she may be,

  And she may unlock it without any key.

  LEMN SISSAY

  Invisible Kisses

  If there was ever one

  Whom when you were sleeping

  Would wipe your tears

  When in dreams you were weeping;

  Who would offer you time

  When others demand;

  Whose love lay more infinite

  Than grains of sand.

  If there was ever one

  To whom you could cry;

  Who would gather each tear

  And blow it dry;

  Who would offer help

  On the mountains of time;

  Who would stop to let each sunset

  Soothe the jaded mind.

  If there was ever one

  To whom when you run

  Will push back the clouds

  So you are bathed in sun;

  Who would open arms

  If you would fall;

  Who would show you everything

  If you lost it all.

  If there was ever one

  Who when you achieve

  Was there before the dream

  And even then believed;

  Who would clear the air

  When it’s full of loss;

  Who would count love

  Before the cost.

  If there was ever one

  Who when you are cold

  Will summon warm air

  For your hands to hold;

  Who would make peace

  In pouring pain,

  Make laughter fall

  In falling rain.

  If there was ever one

  Who can offer you this and more;

  Who in keyless rooms

  Can open doors;

  Who in open doors

  Can see open fields

  And in open fields

  See harvests yield.

  Then see only my face

  In the reflection of these tides

  Through the clear water

  Beyond the river side.

  All I can send is love

  In all that this is

  A poem and a necklace

  Of invisible kisses.

  JAMES FENTON

  Hinterhof

  Stay near to me and I’ll stay near to you –

  As near as you are dear to me will do,

  Near as the rainbow to the rain,

  The west wind to the windowpane,

  As fire to the hearth, as dawn to dew.

  Stay true to me and I’ll stay true to you –

  As true as you are new to me will do,

  New as the rainbow in the spray,

  Utterly new in every way,

  New in the way that what you say is true.

  Stay near to me, stay true to me. I’ll stay

  As near, as true to you as heart could pray.

  Heart never hoped that one might be

  Half of the things you are to me –

  The dawn, the fire, the rainbow and the day.

  JOSHUA SYLVESTER

  Were I as base as is the lowly plain,

  And you, my Love, as high as heaven above,

  Yet should the thoughts of me your humble swain

  Ascend to heaven in honour of my Love.

  Were I as high as heaven above the plain,

  And you, my Love, as humble and as low

  As are the deepest bottoms of the main,

  Whereso’er you were, with you my love should go.

  Were you the earth, dear Love, and I the skies,

  My Love should shine on you like to the sun,

  And look upon you with ten thousand eyes,

  Till heaven waxed blind, and till the world were done.

  Whereso’er I am, below or else above you,

  Whereso’er you are, my heart shall truly love you.r />
  E. E. CUMMINGS

  i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

  my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

  i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

  by only me is your doing,my darling)

  i fearn no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

  no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

  and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

  and whatever a sun will always sing is you

  here is the deepest secret nobody knows

  (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

  and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

  higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

  and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

  i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

  GEORGE CHAPMAN

  from The Masque of the Middle Temple and Lincoln’s Inn

  Bridal Song

  Now, Sleep, bind fast the flood of air,

  Strike all things dumb and deaf,

  And to disturb our nuptial pair

  Let stir no aspen leaf.

  Send flocks of golden dreams

  That all true joys presage;

  Bring, in thy oily streams,

  The milk-and-honey age.

  Now close the world-round sphere of bliss,

  And fill it with a heavenly kiss.

  MICHAEL DONAGHY

  The Present

  For the present there is just one moon,