So big to hold so much, they lack retention.
Alas, their love may be called appetite,
No motion of the liver, but the palate,
That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt.
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much. Make no compare
Between that love a woman can bear me
And that I owe Olivia.
VIOLA: Ay, but I know –
ORSINO:
What dost thou know?
VIOLA:
Too well what love women to men may owe.
In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
My father had a daughter loved a man –
As it might be perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.
ORSINO: And what’s her history?
VIOLA:
A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i’the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
We men may say more, swear more, but indeed
Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love.
ORSINO:
But died thy sister of her love, my boy?
VIOLA:
I am all the daughters of my father’s house,
And all the brothers too; and yet, I know not…
Sir, shall I to this lady?
ORSINO: Ay, that’s the theme.
To her in haste; give her this jewel; say
My love can give no place, bide no denay.
CAROL ANN DUFFY
Warming Her Pearls
Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress bids
me wear them, warm them, until evening
when I’ll brush her hair. At six, I place them
round her cool white throat. All day I think of her,
resting in the Yellow Room, contemplating silk
or taffeta, which gown tonight? She fans herself
whilst I work willingly, my slow heat entering
each pearl. Slack on my neck, her rope.
She’s beautiful. I dream about her
in my attic bed; picture her dancing
with tall men, puzzled by my faint, persistent scent
beneath her French perfume, her milky stones.
I dust her shoulders with a rabbit’s foot,
watch the soft blush seep through her skin
like an indolent sigh. In her looking glass
my red lips part as though I want to speak.
Full moon. Her carriage brings her home. I see
her every movement in my head… Undressing,
taking off her jewels, her slim hand reaching
for the case. Slipping naked into bed, the way
she always does… And I lie here awake,
knowing the pearls are cooling even now
in the room where my mistress sleeps. All night
I feel their absence and I burn.
WILLIAM BLAKE
The Sick Rose
O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
WALLACE STEVENS
Gray Room
Although you sit in a room that is gray,
Except for the silver
Of the straw-paper,
And pick
At your pale white gown;
Or lift one of the green beads
Of your necklace,
To let it fall;
Or gaze at your green fan
Printed with the red branches of a red willow;
Or, with one finger,
Move the leaf in the bowl –
The leaf that has fallen from the branches of the
forsythia
Beside you…
What is all this?
I know how furiously your heart is beating.
WILFRED OWEN
Maundy Thursday
Between the brown hands of a server-lad
The silver cross was offered to be kissed.
The men came up, lugubrious, but not sad,
(And kissing, kissed the emblem of a creed.)
Then mourning women knelt; meek mouths they had,
(And kissed the Body of the Christ indeed.)
Young children came, with eager lips and glad.
(These kissed a silver doll, immensely bright.)
Then I, too, knelt before that acolyte.
Above the crucifix I bent my head:
The Christ was thin, and cold, and very dead:
And yet I bowed, yea, kissed – my lips did cling.
(I kissed the warm live hand that held the thing.)
SARAH FYGE EGERTON
A Song
How pleasant is love
When forbid or unknown;
Was my passion approved,
It would quickly be gone.
It adds to the charms
When we steal the delight;
Why should love be exposed
Since himself has no sight?
In some sylvan shade
Let me sigh for my swain,
Where none but an echo
Will speak on’t again.
Thus silent and soft
I’ll pass the time on,
And when I grow weary
I’ll make my love known.
Nearly
JEAN ‘BINTA’ BREEZE
Dubwise
‘cool an
deadly’
snake
lady
writhing
‘roun
de worlie’
wraps
her sinews
roun his
pulse
and grinds
his pleasure
and disgust
into a
one dance
stand
to equalise
he grins
cockwise
at his bredrin
and rides
a ‘horseman scabie’
or bubbles a
‘water
bumpie’
into action
the d.j.
eases a
spliff
from his lyrical
lips
and smilingly
orders
‘Cease’
JOHN DRYDEN
Song: from An Evening’s Love
Calm was the Even, and clear was the sky
And the new budding flowers did spring,
When all alone went Amyntas and I
To hear the sweet Nightingale sing;
I sat, and he laid him down by me;
But scarcely his breath he could draw;
For when with a fear he began to draw near,
He was dash’d with A ha ha ha ha!
He blush’d to himself, and lay still for a while,
And his modesty curb’d his desire;
But straight I convinc’d all his fear with a smile,
Which added new flames to his fire.
‘O Sylvia’, he said, ‘you are cruel,
To keep your poor Lover in awe’;
Then once more he pressed with his hand to my breast,
But was dash’d with A ha ha ha ha!
I knew ’twas his passion that caus’d all his fear;
And therefore I pitied his case:
I whisper’d him softly ‘There’s no body near’,
And laid my cheek close to his face:
But as he grew bolder and bolder,
A Shepherd came by us and saw;
And just as our bliss we began with a kiss,
He laughed out with A ha ha ha ha!
THOMAS HARDY
A Thunderstorm in Town
She wore a new ‘terra-cotta’ dress,
And we stayed, because of the pelting storm,
Within the hansom’s dry recess,
Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless
We sat on, snug and warm.
Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain,
And the glass that had screened our forms before
Flew up, and out she sprang to her door:
I should have kissed her if the rain
Had lasted a minute more.
CONNIE BENSLEY
A Friendship
He made restless forays
into the edge of our marriage.
One Christmas Eve he came late,
his dark hair crackling with frost,
and ate his carnation buttonhole
to amuse the baby.
When I had a second child
he came to the foot of my bed at dusk
bringing pineapples and champagne,
whispering ‘Are you awake?’ –
singing a snatch of opera.
The Nurse tapped him on the shoulder.
At the end, we took turns at his bedside.
I curled up in the chair; listened to each breath
postponing itself indefinitely.
He opened his eyes once and I leaned forward:
‘Is there anything you want?’
‘Now she asks,’ he murmured.
Tentatively
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
from Amours de Voyage, Canto II
X Claude to Eustace
I am in love, meantime, you think; no doubt you would think so.
I am in love, you say; with those letters, of course, you would say
so.
I am in love, you declare. I think not so; yet I grant you
It is a pleasure, indeed, to converse with this girl. Oh, rare gift,
Rare felicity, this! she can talk in a rational way, can
Speak upon subjects that really are matters of mind and of
thinking,
Yet in perfection retain her simplicity; never, one moment,
Never, however you urge it, however you tempt her, consents to
Step from ideas and fancies and loving sensations to those vain
Conscious understandings that vex the minds of man-kind.
No, though she talk, it is music; her fingers desert not the keys;
’tis
Song, though you hear in the song the articulate vocables
sounded,
Syllabled singly and sweetly the words of melodious meaning.
I am in love, you say; I do not think so exactly.
CAROLINE ELIZABETH SARAH NORTON
I do not love thee! – no! I do not love thee!
And yet when thou art absent I am sad;
And envy even the bright blue sky above thee,
Whose quiet stars may see thee and be glad.
I do not love thee! – yet, I know not why,
Whate’er thou dost seems still well done, to me:
And often in my solitude I sigh
That those I do love are not more like thee!
I do not love thee! – yet, when thou art gone,
I hate the sound (though those who speak be dear)
Which breaks the lingering echo of the tone
Thy voice of music leaves upon my ear.
I do not love thee! – yet thy speaking eyes,
With their deep, bright, and most expressive blue,
Between me and the midnight heaven arise,
Oftener than any eyes I ever knew.
I know I do not love thee! yet, alas!
Others will scarcely trust my candid heart;
And oft I catch them smiling as they pass,
Because they see me gazing where thou art.
BRIAN PATTEN
Forgetmeknot
She loves him, she loves him not, she is confused:
She picks a fist of soaking grass and fingers it:
She loves him not.
The message passing from her head to heart
Has in her stomach stopped,
She cannot quite believe the information is correct:
She loves him not.
She knows her needs and yet
There is no special place where they can rest.
To be loved alone is not enough,
She feels something has been lost.
She picks a fist of soaking grass.
Her world is blank, she thinks perhaps it’s
meaningless.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
from Astrophil and Stella
I
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That she (dear she) might take some pleasure of my pain;
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know;
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain;
Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting invention’s stay;
Invention, nature’s child, fled step-dame study’s blows;
And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,
‘Fool,’ said my muse to me; ‘look in thy heart and write.’
BERNARD O’DONOGHUE
Stealing Up
I’ve always hated gardening: the way
The earth gets under your nails
And in the chevrons of your shoes.
So I don’t plan it; I steal up on it,
Casually, until I find –
Hey presto! – the whole lawn’s cut
Or the sycamore’s wand suddenly
Sports an ungainly, foal-like leaf.
Similarly, I’d have written to you
Sooner, if I’d had the choice.
But morning after morning I woke up
To find the same clouds in the sky,
Disabling the heart. But tomorrow
Maybe I’ll get up to find an envelope,
Sealed, addressed to you, propped against
My cup, lit by a slanting sun.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
from Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
ROMEO:
But soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east and Juliet is the sun!
Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid since she is envious,
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off.
It is my lady, O it is my love!
O that she knew she were!
She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?
Her eye discourses, I will answer it.
I am too bold. ’Tis not to me she speaks.
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars
As daylight doth a lamp. Her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek.
JULIET:
Ay me.
ROMEO:
She speaks.
O speak again bright angel, for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.
JULIET:
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
ROMEO:
Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
THOM GUNN
Jamesian
Their relationship consisted
In discussing if it existed.
JACOB SAM-LA ROSE
Things That Could Happen
1.
She swoons, falls into his arms
and they live together happily ever after.
2.
She kisses him: the restaurant applauds.
3.
There’s a pin-drop silence. She turns
the knife in her hand, slowly.
4.
His heart bursts in his mouth before he can say the words.
It splatters the table, ruins her dress, and she never forgives him.
5.
He’s interrupted by a handsome man from another table
who asks if he can cut in. She accepts, of course,
and waltzes off to an orchestra of cutlery, side-plates,
strummed napkins and warm bread. He seethes, turns bald
and tells the story to every man he meets.
6.
She falls in love with the waiter.