Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Love
When love’s well-timed ’tis not a fault to love;
The strong, the brave, the virtuous, and the wise,
Sink in the soft captivity together.
Addison—Cato. Act III. Sc. 1.
When love once pleads admission to our hearts,
(In spite of all the virtue we can boast),
The woman that deliberates is lost.
Addison—Cato. Act IV. Sc. 1.
Mysterious love, uncertain treasure,
Hast thou more of pain or pleasure!
*****
Endless torments dwell about thee:
Yet who would live, and live without thee!
Addison—Rosamond. Act III. Sc. 2.
Che amar chi t’odia, ell’è impossibil cosa.
For ’tis impossible
Hate to return with love.
Alfieri—Polinice. II. 4.
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.
Edwin Arnold—Somewhere There Waiteth.
Ma vie a son secret, mon âme a son mystére:
Un amour éternel en un moment concu.
La mal est sans remède, aussi j’ai dû le taire,
Et elle qui l’a fait n’en a jamais rien su.
One sweet, sad secret holds my heart in thrall;
A mighty love within my breast has grown,
Unseen, unspoken, and of no one known;
And of my sweet, who gave it, least of all.
Felix Arvers—Sonnet. Trans. by Joseph Knight. In The Athenæum, Jan. 13, 1906. Arvers in Mes Heures Perdues, says that the sonnet was “mite de l’italien.”
Ask not of me, love, what is love?
Ask what is good of God above;
Ask of the great sun what is light;
Ask what is darkness of the night;
Ask sin of what may be forgiven;
Ask what is happiness of heaven;
Ask what is folly of the crowd;
Ask what is fashion of the shroud;
Ask what is sweetness of thy kiss;
Ask of thyself what beauty is.
Bailey—Festus. Sc. A Party and Entertainment.
Could I love less, I should be happier now.
Bailey—Festus. Sc. Garden and Bower by the Sea.
I cannot love as I have loved,
And yet I know not why;
It is the one great woe of life
To feel all feeling die.
Bailey—Festus. Sc. A Party and Entertainment.
Love spends his all, and still hath store.
Bailey—Festus. Sc. A Party and Entertainment.
The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love.
Bailey—Festus. Sc. Alcove and Garden.
How many times do I love, again?
Tell me how many beads there are
In a silver chain
Of evening rain
Unravelled from the trembling main
And threading the eye of a yellow star:—
So many times do I love again.
Thos. Lovell Beddoes—How Many Times.
Mein Herz ich will dich fragen,
Was ist denn Liebe, sag?
“Zwei Seelen und ein Gedanke,
Zwei Herzen und ein Schlag.”
My heart I fain would ask thee
What then is Love? say on.
“Two souls and one thought only
Two hearts that throb as one.”
Von Münch Bellinghausen (Friedrich Halm)—Der Sohn der Wildniss. Act II. Trans. by W. H. Charlton. (Commended by author.) Popular trans. of the play is by Marie Lovell—Ingomar the Barbarian. Two souls with but a single thought, / Two hearts that beat as one.
To Chloe’s breast young Cupid slily stole,
But he crept in at Myra’s pocket-hole.
William Blake—Couplets and Fragments. IV.
Love in a shower safe shelter took,
In a rosy bower beside a brook,
And winked and nodded with conscious pride
To his votaries drenched on the other side.
Come hither, sweet maids, there’s a bridge below,
The toll-keeper, Hymen, will let you through.
Come over the stream to me.
Bloomfield—Glee. St. 1.
Love is like fire.***Wounds of fire are hard to bear; harder still are those of love.
Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen—Gunnar. Ch. IV.
Le premier soupir de l’amour
Est le dernier de la sagesse.
The first sigh of love is the last of wisdom.
Antoine Bret—Ecole amoureuse. Sc. 7.
Much ado there was, God wot;
He woold love, and she woold not,
She sayd, “Never man was trewe;”
He sayes, “None was false to you.”
Nicholas Breton—Phillida and Corydon.
In your arms was still delight,
Quiet as a street at night;
And thoughts of you, I do remember,
Were green leaves in a darkened chamber,
Were dark clouds in a moonless sky.
Rupert Brooke—Retrospect.
There is musick, even in the beauty and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument.
Sir Thomas Browne—Religio Medici. Pt. II. Sec. IX.
Whoever lives true life, will love true love.
E. B. Browning—Aurora Leigh. Bk. I. L. 1,096.
I would not be a rose upon the wall
A queen might stop at, near the palace-door,
To say to a courtier, “Pluck that rose for me,
It’s prettier than the rest.” O Romney Leigh!
I’d rather far be trodden by his foot,
Than lie in a great queen’s bosom.
E. B. Browning—Aurora Leigh. Bk. IV.
But I love you, sir:
And when a woman says she loves a man,
The man must hear her, though he love her not.
E. B. Browning—Aurora Leigh. Bk. IX.
For none can express thee, though all should approve thee.
I love thee so, Dear, that I only can love thee.
E. B. Browning—Insufficiency.
Behold me! I am worthy
Of thy loving, for I love thee!
E. B. Browning—Lady Geraldine’s Courtship. St. 79.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
E. B. Browning—Sonnets from the Portuguese.
Who can fear
Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll—
Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?
Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll
The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear,
To love me also in silence, with thy soul.
E. B. Browning—Sonnets from the Portuguese. Sonnet XXI.
Unless you can feel when the song is done
No other is sweet in its rhythm;
Unless you can feel when left by one
That all men else go with him.
E. B. Browning—Unless.
I think, am sure, a brother’s love exceeds
All the world’s loves in its unworldliness.
Robert Browning—Blot on the ’Scutcheon. Act II. Sc. 1.
Never the time and the place
And the loved one all together.
Robert Browning—Never the Time and the Place.
God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures
Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with,
One to show a woman when he loves her.
Robert Browning—One Word More. St. XVII.
Love has no thought of self!
Love buys not with the ruthless usurer’s gold
The loathsome prostitution of a hand
Without a heart! Love sacrifices all things
To bless the thing it loves!
Bulwer-Lytton—The Lady of Lyons. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 23.
Love thou, and if thy love be deep as mine,
Thou wilt not laugh at poets.
Bulwer-Lytton—Richelieu. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 177.
No matter what you do, if your heart is ever true,
And his heart was true to Poll.
F. C. Burnand—His Heart was true to Poll.
To see her is to love her,
And love but her forever;
For nature made her what she is,
And never made anither!
Burns—Bonny Lesley.
The wisest man the warl’ e’er saw,
He dearly loved the lasses, O.
Burns—Green Grow the Rashes.
The golden hours on angel wings
Flew o’er me and my dearie,
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary.
Burns—Highland Mary.
Oh my luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June;
Oh my luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.
Burns—Red, Red Rose.
What is life, when wanting love?
Night without a morning;
Love’s the cloudless summer sun,
Nature gay adorning.
Burns—Thine am I, my Faithful Fair.
And this is that Homer’s golden chain, which reacheth down from heaven to earth, by which every creature is annexed, and depends on his Creator.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. III. Sec. 1. Memb. 1. Subsec. 7.
No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. III. Sec. 2. Memb. 1. Subsec. 2.
The falling out of lovers is the renewing of love.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. III. Sec. 2. Terence—Andria. III. 23.
Love in your hearts as idly burns
As fire in antique Roman urns.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. II. Canto I.
Love is a boy by poets styl’d:
Then spare the rod and spoil the child.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. II. Canto I. L. 843.
What mad lover ever dy’d,
To gain a soft and gentle bride?
Or for a lady tender-hearted,
In purling streams or hemp departed?
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. III. Canto I.
When things were as fine as could possibly be
I thought ’twas the spring; but alas it was she.
John Byrom—A Pastoral.
Oh Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band,
Let sage or cynic prattle as he will,
These hours, and only these, redeem Life’s years of ill.
Byron—Childe Harold. Canto II. St. 81.
Who loves, raves—’tis youth’s frenzy—but the cure
Is bitterer still.
Byron—Childe Harold. Canto IV. St. 123.
O! that the Desert were my dwelling place,
With one fair Spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race,
And, hating no one, love but only her!
Byron—Childe Harold. Canto IV. St. 177.
Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart,
’Tis woman’s whole existence: man may range
The court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart,
Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange
Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart,
And few there are whom these cannot estrange;
Men have all these resources, we but one,
To love again, and be again undone.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto I. St. 194.
Alas! the love of women! it is known
To be a lovely and a fearful thing.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto II. St. 199.
In her first passion woman loves her lover;
In all the others, all she loves is love.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto III. St. 3. La Rochefoucauld. Maxims. No. 497.
And to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him.
Byron—The Dream. St. 2.
She knew she was by him beloved,—she knew
For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart
Was darken’d with her shadow.
Byron—The Dream. St. 3.
The cold in clime are cold in blood,
Their love can scarce deserve the name.
Byron—The Giaour. L. 1,099.
Yes, Love indeed is light from heaven;
A spark of that immortal fire
With angels shared, by Allah given
To lift from earth our low desire.
Byron—The Giaour. L. 1,131.
Why did she love him? Curious fool!—be still—
Is human love the growth of human will?
Byron—Lara. Canto II. St. 22.
I’ll bid the hyacinth to blow,
I’ll teach my grotto green to be;
And sing my true love, all below
The holly bower and myrtle tree.
Campbell—Caroline. Pt. I.
My love lies bleeding.
Campbell—O’Connor’s Child. St. 5.
He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires,
As Old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.
Thos. Carew—Disdain Returned.
Then fly betimes, for only they
Conquer love, that run away.
Thos. Carew—Song. Conquest by Flight.
Of all the girls that are so smart
There’s none like pretty Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And lives in our alley.
Henry Carey—Sally in our Alley.
Let Time and Chance combine, combine!
Let Time and Chance combine!
The fairest love from heaven above,
That love of yours was mine,
My Dear!
That love of yours was mine.
Carlyle—Adieu.
Vivamus, mea Lesbia atque amemus.
My Lesbia, let us live and love.
Catullus—Carmina. V. 1.
Mulier cupido quod dicit amanti,
In vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua.
What woman says to fond lover should be written on air or the swift water.
Catullus—Carmina. LXX. 3.
Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem.
It is difficult at once to relinquish a long-cherished love.
Catullus—Carmina. LXXVI. 13.
Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio: sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.
I hate and I love. Why do I do so you perhaps ask.
I cannot say; but I feel it to be so, and I am tormented accordingly.
Catullus—Carmina. LXXXV.
There’s no love lost between us.
Cervantes—Don Quixote. Bk. IV. Ch. 13. Fielding—Grub Street. Act I. Sc. 4. Garrick—Correspondence. (1759). Goldsmith—She Stoops to Conquer. Act IV. Ben Jonson—Every Man Out of His Humour. Act II. Sc. 1. Le Sage—Gil Blas. Bk. IX. Ch. VII. As trans. by Smollett.
It’s love, it’s love that makes the world go round.
Popular French song in Chansons Nationales et Populaires de France. Vol. II. P. 180. (About 1821).
I tell thee Love is Nature’s second sun,
Causing a spring of virtues where he shines.
George Chapman—All Fools. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 98.
None ever loved, but at first sight they loved.
George Chapman—The Blind Beggar of Alexandria.
Banish that fear; my flame can never waste,
For love sincere refines upon the taste.
Colley Cibber—The Double Gallant. Act V. Sc. 1.
So mourn’d the dame of Ephesus her love.
Colley Cibber—Richard III. Act II. Altered from Shakespeare.
What have I done? What horrid crime committed?
To me the worst of crimes—outliv’d my liking.
Colley Cibber—Richard III. Act III. Sc. 2. Altered from Shakespeare.
Vivunt in venerem frondes omnisque vicissim
Felix arbor amat; mutant ad mutua palmæ
Fœdera.
The leaves live but to love, and in all the lofty grove the happy trees love each his neighbor.
Claudianus—De Nuptiis Honorii et Mariæ. LXV.
Her very frowns are fairer far
Than smiles of other maidens are.
Hartley Coleridge—Song. She is not Fair.
Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth,
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny, and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.
Coleridge—Christabel. Pt. II.
All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Coleridge—Love. St. 1.
I have heard of reasons manifold
Why love must needs be blind,
But this is the best of all I hold—
His eyes are in his mind.
Coleridge—To a Lady. St. 2.
He that can’t live upon love deserves to die in a ditch.
Congreve.
Say what you will, ’tis better to be left
Than never to have loved.
Congreve—Way of the World. Act II. Sc. 1.
If there’s delight in love, ’tis when I see
The heart, which others bleed for, bleed for me.
Congreve—Way of the World. Act III. Sc. 3.
I know not when the day shall be,
I know not when our eyes may meet;
What welcome you may give to me,
Or will your words be sad or sweet,
It may not be ’till years have passed,
’Till eyes are dim and tresses gray;
The world is wide, but, love, at last,
Our hands, our hearts, must meet some day.
Hugh Conway—Some Day.
How wise are they that are but fools in love!
How a man may choose a Good Wife. Act I. 1. Attributed to Joshua Cooke in Dict. of Nat. Biog.
A mighty pain to love it is,
And ’tis a pain that pain to miss;
But, of all pains, the greatest pain
Is to love, but love in vain.
Abraham Cowley—Trans. of Anacreontic Odes. VII. Gold. (Anacreon’s authorship doubted.)
Our love is principle, and has its root
In reason, is judicious, manly, free.
Cowper—The Task. Bk. V. L. 353.
Better to love amiss than nothing to have loved.
Crabbe—The Struggles of Conscience. Tale 14.
Heaven’s great artillery.
Crashaw—Flaming Heart. L. 56.
Love’s great artillery.
Crashaw—Prayer. L. 18.
Mighty Love’s artillery.
Crashaw—Wounds of the Lord Jesus. L. 2.
And I, what is my crime I cannot tell,
Vnless it be a crime to haue lou’d too well.
Crashaw—Alexias.
Poor love is lost in men’s capacious minds,
In ours, it fills up all the room it finds.
John Crowne—Thyestes.
Amor, ch’al cor gentil ratto s’apprende.
Love, that all gentle hearts so quickly know.
Dante—Inferno. V. 100.
Amor ch’ a nullo amato amar perdona.
Love, which insists that love shall mutual be.
Dante—Inferno. V. 103.
We are all born for love.***It is the principle of existence and its only end.
Benj. Disraeli—Sybil. Bk. V. Ch. IV.
He who, being bold
For life to come, is false to the past sweet
Of mortal life, hath killed the world above.
For why to live again if not to meet?
And why to meet if not to meet in love?
And why in love if not in that dear love of old?
Sydney Dobell—Sonnet. To a Friend in Bereavement.
Give, you gods,
Give to your boy, your Cæsar,
The rattle of a globe to play withal,
This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off;
I’ll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra.
Dryden—All for Love. Act II. Sc. 1.
Love taught him shame, and shame with love at strife
Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.
Dryden—Cymon and Iphigenia. L. 134.
How happy the lover,
How easy his chain,
How pleasing his pain,
How sweet to discover
He sighs not in vain.
Dryden—King Arthur. IV. 1. Song.
Fool, not to know that love endures no tie,
And Jove but laughs at lovers’ perjury.
Dryden—Palamon and Arcite. Bk. II. L. 75. Amphitron. Act I. Sc. 2.
Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.
Dryden—Tyrannic Love. Act IV. Sc. 1.
Two souls in one, two hearts into one heart.
Du Bartas—Divine Weekes and Workes. First Week. Pt. I. Sixth day. L. 1,057.
I’m sitting on the stile. Mary,
Where we sat side by side.
Lady Dufferin—Lament of the Irish Emigrant.
Oh, tell me whence Love cometh!
Love comes uncall’d, unsent.
Oh, tell me where Love goeth!
That was not Love that went.
Burden of a Woman. Found in J. W. Ebsworth’s Roxburghe Ballads.
The solid, solid universe
Is pervious to Love;
With bandaged eyes he never errs,
Around, below, above.
His blinding light
He flingeth white
On God’s and Satan’s brood,
And reconciles
By mystic wiles
The evil and the good.
Emerson—Cupido.
But is it what we love, or how we love,
That makes true good?
George Eliot—The Spanish Gypsy. Bk. I.
’Tis what I love determines how I love.
George Eliot—The Spanish Gypsy. Bk. I.
Women know no perfect love:
Loving the strong, they can forsake the strong;
Man clings because the being whom he loves
Is weak and needs him.
George Eliot—The Spanish Gypsy. Bk. III.
A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs;
The world uncertain comes and goes,
The lover rooted stays.
Emerson—Essays. First Series. Epigraph to Friendship.
Love, which is the essence of God, is not for levity, but for the total worth of man.
Emerson—Essays. Of Friendship.
All mankind love a lover.
Emerson—Essays. Of Love.
Venus, when her son was lost,
Cried him up and down the coast,
In hamlets, palaces, and parks,
And told the truant by his marks,—
Golden curls, and quiver, and bow.
Emerson—Initial, Demoniac, and Celestial Love. St. 1.
Mais on revient toujours
A ses premières amours.
But one always returns to one’s first loves.
Quoted by Étienne in Joconde. Act III. 1. Same idea in Pliny—Natural History. X. 63.
Venus, thy eternal sway
All the race of men obey.
Euripides—Iphigenia in Aulis.
He is not a lover who does not love for ever.
Euripides—Troades. 1,051.
Wedded love is founded on esteem.
Elijah Fenton—Mariamne.
Love is the tyrant of the heart; it darkens
Reason, confounds discretion; deaf to Counsel
It runs a headlong course to desperate madness.
John Ford—The Lover’s Melancholy. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 105.
If you would be loved, love and be lovable.
Benj. Franklin—Poor Richard. (1755).
Love, then, hath every bliss in store;
’Tis friendship, and ’tis something more.
Each other every wish they give;
Not to know love is not to live.
Gay—Plutus, Cupid and Time. L. 135.
I saw and loved.
Gibbon—Autobiographic Memoirs. P. 48.
I love her doubling and anguish;
I love the love she withholds,
I love my love that loveth her,
And anew her being moulds.
R. W. Gilder—The New Day. Pt. III. Song XV.
Love, Love, my Love.
The best things are the truest!
When the earth lies shadowy dark below
Oh, then the heavens are bluest!
R. W. Gilder—The New Day. Pt. IV. Song I.
Not from the whole wide world I chose thee,
Sweetheart, light of the land and the sea!
The wide, wide world could not inclose thee,
For thou art the whole wide world to me.
R. W. Gilder—Song.
I seek for one as fair and gay,
But find none to remind me,
How blest the hours pass’d away
With the girl I left behind me.
The Girl I Left Behind Me. (1759).
Es ist eine der grössten Himmelsgaben,
So ein lieb’ Ding im Arm zu haben.
It is one of Heaven’s best gifts to hold such a dear creature in one’s arms.
Goethe—Faust.
Und Lust und Liebe sind die Fittige zu grossen Thaten.
Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.
Goethe—Iphigenia auf Tauris. II. 1. 107.
In einem Augenblick gewährt die Liebe
Was Mühe kaum in langer Zeit erreicht.
Love grants in a moment
What toil can hardly achieve in an age.
Goethe—Torquato Tasso. II. 3. 76.
Man liebt an dem Mädchen was es ist,
Und an dem Jüngling was er ankündigt.
Girls we love for what they are;
Young men for what they promise to be.
Goethe—Die Wahrheit und Dichtung. III. 14.
Wenn ich dich lieb habe, was geht’s dich an?
If I love you, what business is that of yours?
Goethe—Wilhelm Meister. IV. 9.
The bashful virgin’s sidelong looks of love.
Goldsmith—The Deserted Village. L. 29.
Thus let me hold thee to my heart,
And every care resign:
And we shall never, never part,
My life—my all that’s mine!
Goldsmith—The Hermit. St. 39.
As for murmurs, mother, we grumble a little now and then, to be sure; but there’s no love lost between us.
Goldsmith—She Stoops to Conquer. Act IV. L. 255.
Whoe’er thou art, thy Lord and master see,
Thou wast my Slave, thou art, or thou shalt be.
George Granville (Lord Lansdowne)—Inscription for a Figure representing the God of Love. See Genuine Works. (1732) I. 129. Version of a Greek couplet from the Greek Anthology.
Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart.
Gray—The Bard. I. 3. L. 12.
O’er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move
The bloom of young Desire and purple light of love.
Gray—The Progress of Poesy. I. 3. L. 16.
Love is a lock that linketh noble minds,
Faith is the key that shuts the spring of love.
Robert Greene—Alcida. Verses Written under a Carving of Cupid Blowing Bladders in the Air.
Greensleeves was all my joy,
Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
And who but Lady Greensleeves?
A new Courtly Sonnet of the Lady Greensleeves, to the new tune of “Greensleeves.” From “A Handful of Pleasant Deities.” (1584).
Che mai
Non v’avere ò provate, ò possedute.
Far worse it is
To lose than never to have tasted bliss.
Guarini—Pastor Fido.
The chemist of love
Will this perishing mould,
Were it made out of mire,
Transmute into gold.
Hafiz—Divan.
Love understands love; it needs no talk.
F. R. Havergal—Royal Commandments. Loving Allegiance.
What a sweet reverence is that when a young man deems his mistress a little more than mortal and almost chides himself for longing to bring her close to his heart.
Hawthorne—The Marble Faun. Vol. II. Ch. XV.
Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.
Hebrews. XII. 6.
Du bist wie eine Blume, so hold, so schön und rein;
Ich shau’ dich an und Wehmut schleicht mir ins Herz hinein.
Oh fair, oh sweet and holy as dew at morning tide,
I gaze on thee, and yearnings, sad in my bosom hide.
Heine—Du bist wie eine Blume.
Es ist eine alte Geschichte,
Doch bleibt sie immer neu.
It is an ancient story
Yet is it ever new.
Heine—Lyrisches Intermezzo. 39.
And once again we plighted our troth,
And titter’d, caress’d, kiss’d so dearly.
Heine—Youthful Sorrows. No. 57. St. 2.
Alas! for love, if thou art all,
And nought beyond, O earth.
Felicia D. Hemans—The Graves of a Household.
Open your heart and take us in,
Love—love and me.
W. E. Henley—Rhymes and Rhythms. V.
Love your neighbor, yet pull not down your hedge.
Herbert—Jacula Prudentum.
No, not Jove
Himselfe, at one time, can be wise and love.
Herrick—Hesperides. To Silvia.
You say to me-wards your affection’s strong;
Pray love me little, so you love me long.
Herrick—Love me Little, Love me Long.
There is a lady sweet and kind,
Was never face so pleased my mind;
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I love her till I die.
Ascribed to Herrick in the Scottish Student’s Song-Book. Found on back of leaf 53 of Popish Kingdome or reigne of Antichrist, in Latin verse by Thomas Naogeorgus, and Englished by Barnabe Googe. Printed 1570. See Notes and Queries. S. IX. X. 427. Lines from Elizabethan Song-books. Bullen. P. 31. Reprinted from Thomas Ford’s Music of Sundry Kinds. (1607).
Bid me to live, and I will live
Thy Protestant to be:
Or bid me love, and I will give
A loving heart to thee,
A heart as soft, a heart as kind,
A heart as sound and free
As in the whole world thou canst find,
That heart I’ll give to thee.
Herrick—To Anthea, who may command him anything. No. 268.
They do not love that do not show their love.
Heywood—Proverbs. Pt. II. Ch. IX.
Let never man be bold enough to say,
Thus, and no farther shall my passion stray:
The first crime, past, compels us into more,
And guilt grows fate, that was but choice, before.
Aaron Hill—Athelwold. Act V. Sc. The Garden.
To love is to know the sacrifices which eternity exacts from life.
John Oliver Hobbes—School for Saints. Ch. XXV.
O, love, love, love!
Love is like a dizziness;
It winna let a poor body
Gang about his biziness!
Hogg—Love is like a Dizziness. L. 9.
Cupid “the little greatest enemy.”
Holmes—Professor at the Breakfast Table.
Soft is the breath of a maiden’s Yes:
Not the light gossamer stirs with less;
But never a cable that holds so fast
Through all the battles of wave and blast.
Holmes—Songs of Many Seasons. Dorothy. II. St. 7.
Who love too much, hate in the like extreme.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. XV. L. 79. Pope’s trans.
For love deceives the best of woman kind.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. XV. L. 463. Pope’s trans.
Si sine amore, jocisque
Nil est jucundum, vivas in amore jocisque.
If nothing is delightful without love and jokes, then live in love and jokes.
Horace—Epistles. I. 6. 65.
What’s our baggage? Only vows,
Happiness, and all our care,
And the flower that sweetly shows
Nestling lightly in your hair.
Victor Hugo—Eviradnus. XI.
If you become a Nun, dear,
The bishop Love will be;
The Cupids every one, dear!
Will chant—‘We trust in thee!’
Leigh Hunt—The Nun.
From henceforth thou shalt learn that there is love
To long for, pureness to desire, a mount
Of consecration it were good to scale.
Jean Ingelow—A Parson’s Letter to a Young Poet. Pt. II. L. 55.
That divine swoon.
Ingersoll—Orthodoxy. Works. Vol. II. P. 420.
But great loves, to the last, have pulses red;
All great loves that have ever died dropped dead.
Helen Hunt Jackson—Dropped Dead.
Love has a tide!
Helen Hunt Jackson—Tides.
When love is at its best, one loves
So much that he cannot forget.
Helen Hunt Jackson—Two Truths.
Love’s like the flies, and, drawing-room or garret, goes all over a house.
Douglas Jerrold—Jerrold’s Wit. Love.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
John. XV. 13.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.
I John. IV. 18.
Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
Is—Love, forgive us!—cinders, ashes, dust.
Keats—Lamia. Pt. II.
I wish you could invent some means to make me at all happy without you. Every hour I am more and more concentrated in you; everything else tastes like chaff in my mouth.
Keats—Letters. No. XXXVII.
When late I attempted your pity to move,
Why seemed you so deaf to my prayers?
Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love
But—why did you kick me downstairs?
J. P. Kemble—Panel. Act I. Sc. 1. Quoted from Asylum for Fugitive Pieces. Vol. I. P. 15. (1785) where it appeared anonymously. Kemble is credited with its authorship. The Panel is adapted from Bickerstaff’s ’Tis Well ’Tis No Worse, but these lines are not therein. It may also be found in Annual Register. Appendix. (1783) P. 201.
What’s this dull town to me?
Robin’s not near—
He whom I wished to see,
Wished for to hear;
Where’s all the joy and mirth
Made life a heaven on earth?
O! they’re all fled with thee,
Robin Adair.
Caroline Keppel—Robin Adair.
The heart of a man to the heart of a maid—
Light of my tents, be fleet—
Morning awaits at the end of the world,
And the world is all at our feet.
Kipling—Gypsy Trail.
The white moth to the closing vine,
The bee to the open clover,
And the Gypsy blood to the Gypsy blood
Ever the wide world over.
Kipling—Gypsy Trail.
The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky
The deer to the wholesome wold;
And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid,
As it was in the days of old.
Kipling—Gypsy Trail.
The hawk unto the open sky,
The red deer to the wold;
The Romany lass for the Romany lad,
As in the days of old.
Given in the N. Y. Times Review of Books as a previously written poem by F. C. Weatherby. Not found.
Sing, for faith and hope are high—
None so true as you and I—
Sing the Lovers’ Litany:
“Love like ours can never die!”
Kipling—Lovers Litany.
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ eastward to the sea,
There’s a Burma girl a-settin’, and I know she thinks o’ me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
“Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!”
Kipling—Mandalay.
If Love were jester at the court of Death,
And Death the king of all, still would I pray,
“For me the motley and the bauble, yea,
Though all be vanity, as the Preacher saith,
The mirth of love be mine for one brief breath!”
Frederic L. Knowles—If Love were Jester at the Court of Death.
Love begins with love.
La Bruyère—The Characters and Manners of the Present Age. Ch. IV.
Le commencement et le déclin de l’amour se font sentir par l’embarras où l’on est de se trouver seuls.
The beginning and the end of love are both marked by embarrassment when the two find themselves alone.
La Bruyère—Les Caractères. IV.
Amour! Amour! quand tu nous tiens
On peut bien dire, Adieu, prudence.
O tyrant love, when held by you,
We may to prudence bid adieu.
La Fontaine—Fables. IV. 1.
The pleasure of love is in loving. We are happier in the passion we feel than in what we excite.
La Rochefoucauld—Maxims. 78.
The more we love a mistress, the nearer we are to hating her.
La Rochefoucauld—Maxims. 114.
Ce qui fait que amants et les maitresses ne s’ennuient point d’être ensemble; c’est qu’ils parlent toujours d’eux mêmes.
The reason why lovers and their mistresses never tire of being together is that they are always talking of themselves.
La Rochefoucauld—Maximes. 312.
Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing
Ever made by the Hand above—
A woman’s heart, and a woman’s life,
And a woman’s wonderful love?
Mary T. Lathrop. A Woman’s Answer to a Man’s Question. Erroneously credited to Mrs. Browning.
I love a lassie, a bonnie, bonnie lassie,
She’s as pure as the lily in the dell.
She’s as sweet as the heather,
The bonnie, bloomin’ heather,
Mary, ma Scotch Blue-bell.
Harry Lauder and Gerald Grafton. I Love a Lassie.
Et c’est dans la première flamme
Qu’est tout le nectar du baiser.
And in that first flame
Is all the nectar of the kiss.
Lebrun—Mes Souvenirs, ou les Deux Rives de la Seine.
Love leads to present rapture,—then to pain;
But all through Love in time is healed again.
Leland—Sweet Marjoram.
A warrior so bold, and a virgin so bright,
Conversed as they sat on the green.
They gazed on each other with tender delight,
Alonzo the Brave was the name of the knight—
The maiden’s the Fair Imogene.
M. G. Lewis—Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogene. First appeared in his novel Ambrosio the Monk. Found in his Tales of Wonder. Vol. III. P. 63. Lewis’s copy of his poem is in the British Museum.
Ah, how skillful grows the hand
That obeyeth Love’s command!
It is the heart and not the brain
That to the highest doth attain,
And he who followeth Love’s behest
Far excelleth all the rest.
Longfellow—Building of the Ship.
Love contending with friendship, and self with each generous impulse.
To and fro in his breast his thoughts were heaving and dashing,
As in a foundering ship.
Longfellow—Courtship of Miles Standish. Pt. III. L. 7.
Like Dian’s kiss, unask’d, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought.
Longfellow—Endymion. St. 4.
Does not all the blood within me
Leap to meet thee, leap to meet thee,
As the springs to meet the sunshine.
Longfellow—Hiawatha. Wedding Feast. L. 153.
O, there is nothing holier, in this life of ours, than the first consciousness of love,—the first fluttering of its silken wings.
Longfellow—Hyperion. Bk. III. Ch. VI.
It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that it has begun.
Longfellow—Kavanagh. Ch. XXI.
I do not love thee less for what is done,
And cannot be undone. Thy very weakness
Hath brought thee nearer to me, and henceforth
My love will have a sense of pity in it,
Making it less a worship than before.
Longfellow—Masque of Pandora. Pt. VIII. In the Garden. L. 39.
That was the first sound in the song of love!
Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound.
Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings
Of that mysterious instrument, the soul,
And play the prelude of our fate. We hear
The voice prophetic, and are not alone.
Longfellow—Spanish Student. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 109.
I love thee, as the good love heaven.
Longfellow—Spanish Student. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 146.
Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak.
It serves for food and raiment.
Longfellow—Spanish Student. Act I. Sc. 5. L. 52.
How can I tell the signals and the signs
By which one heart another heart divines?
How can I tell the many thousand ways
By which it keeps the secret it betrays?
Longfellow—Tales of a Wayside Inn. Pt. III. Student’s Tale. Emma and Eginhard. L. 75.
So they grew, and they grew, to the church steeple tops
And they couldn’t grow up any higher;
So they twin’d themselves into a true lover’s knot,
For all lovers true to admire.
Lord Lovel. Old Ballad. History found in Professor Child’s English and Scottish Popular Ballads. II. 204. Also in The New Comic Minstrel. Pub. by John Cameron, Glasgow. The original version seems to be as given there.
Under floods that are deepest,
Which Neptune obey,
Over rocks that are steepest,
Love will find out the way.
Love will find out the way. Ballad in Percy’s Reliques.
Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms I fly.
. . . . . .
Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore:—
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more.
Lovelace—To Lucasta, on going to the Wars. Given erroneously to Montrose by Scott.
True love is but a humble, low born thing,
And hath its food served up in earthenware;
It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand,
Through the every-dayness of this workday world.
Lowell—Love. L. 1.
Not as all other women are
Is she that to my soul is dear;
Her glorious fancies come from far,
Beneath the silver evening star,
And yet her heart is ever near.
Lowell—My Love. St. 1.
Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib, und Gesang,
Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang.
He who loves not wine, woman, and song,
Remains a fool his whole life long.
Attributed to Luther by Uhland in Die Geisterkelter. Found in Luther’s Tischreden. Proverbs at end. Credited to J. H. Voss by Redlich, Die poetischen Beiträge zum Waudsbecker Bothen, Hamburg, 1871. P. 67.
As love knoweth no lawes, so it regardeth no conditions.
Lyly—Euphues. P. 84.
Cupid and my Campaspe play’d
At cards for kisses; Cupid paid;
He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows,
His mother’s doves, and team of sparrows;
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip,—the rose
Growing on ’s cheek (but none knows how)
With these, the crystal on his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin;
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes,
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! hath she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?
Lyly—Alexander and Campaspe. Act III. Sc. VI. Song.
It is better to poyson hir with the sweet bait of love.
Lyly—Euphues.
Nothing is more hateful than love.
Lyly—Euphues.
The lover in the husband may be lost.
Lord Lyttleton—Advice to a Lady. St. 13.
None without hope e’er lov’d the brightest fair:
But Love can hope where Reason would despair.
Lord Lyttleton—Epigram.
But thou, through good and evil, praise and blame,
Wilt not thou love me for myself alone?
Yes, thou wilt love me with exceeding love,
And I will tenfold all that love repay;
Still smiling, though the tender may reprove,
Still faithful, though the trusted may betray.
Macaulay—Lines Written July 30, 1847.
This lass so neat, with smile so sweet,
Has won my right good will,
I’d crowns resign to call her mine,
Sweet lass of Richmond Hill.
Ascribed to Leonard McNally, who married Miss I’Anson, one of the claimants for the “Lass,” by Sir Joseph Barrington in Sketches of His Own Times. Vol. II. P. 47. Also credited to William Upton. It appeared in Public Advertiser, Aug. 3, 1789. “Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill” erroneously said to have been a sweetheart of King George III.
When Madelon comes out to serve us drinks,
We always know she’s coming by her song.
And every man he tells his little tale,
And Madelon, she listens all day long.
Our Madelon is never too severe—
A kiss or two is nothing much to her—
She laughs us up to love and life and God—
Madelon, Madelon, Madelon.
Madelon—Song of the French Soldiers in the Great War.
Who ever lov’d, that lov’d not at first sight?
Marlowe—Hero and Leander. First Sestiad. L. 176. Quoted as a “dead shepherd’s saw.” Found in As You Like It.
Love me little, love me long.
Marlowe—The Jew of Malta. Act IV. Sc. 6.
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, or hills, or fields,
Or woods and steepy mountains, yield.
Marlowe—The Passionate Shepherd to his Love. St. 1.
Quand on n’a pas ce que l’on aime, il faut aimer ce que l’on a.
If one does not possess what one loves, one should love what one has.
Marmontel. Quoted by Moore in Irish Melodies. The Irish Peasant to His Mistress. Note.
Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
Hoc tantum posse dicere: non amo te.
I do not love thee, Sabidius, nor can I say why; I can only say this, “I do not love thee.”
Martial—Epigrams. I. 33. 1. (Name sometimes given “Savidi.”)
I do not love thee, Dr. Fell.
But why I cannot tell;
But this I know full well,
I do not love thee, Dr. Fell.
Paraphrase of Martial by Tom Brown, as given in his Works, ed. by Drake. (1760). Answer to Dean John Fell, of Oxford. IV. 100.
Je ne vous aime pas, Hylas;
Je n’en saurois dire la cause;
Je sais seulement une chose.
C’est que je ne vous aime pas.
Paraphrase of Martial by Robert Rabutin (De Bussy)—Epigram 32. Bk. I.
I love thee not, Nell
But why I can’t tell.
Paraphrase of Martial in Thos. Forde’s Virtus Rediviva.
I love him not, but show no reason wherefore, but this, I do not love the man.
Paraphrase of Martial by Rowland Watkyns—Antipathy.
Love is a flame to burn out human wills,
Love is a flame to set the will on fire,
Love is a flame to cheat men into mire.
Masefield—Widow in the Bye Street. Pt. II.
Great men,
Till they have gained their ends, are giants in
Their promises, but, those obtained, weak pigmies
In their performance. And it is a maxim
Allowed among them, so they may deceive,
They may swear anything; for the queen of love,
As they hold constantly, does never punish,
But smile, at lovers’ perjuries.
Massinger—Great Duke of Florence. Act II. Sc. 3.
’Tis well to be merry and wise,
’Tis well to be honest and true;
’Tis well to be off with the old love,
Before you are on with the new.
As used by Maturin, for the motto to “Bertram,” produced at Drury Lane, 1816.
It is good to be merry and wise,
It is good to be honest and true,
It is best to be off with the old love,
Before you are on with the new.
Published in “Songs of England and Scotland.” London, 1835. Vol. II. P. 73.
I loved you ere I knew you; know you now,
And having known you, love you better still.
Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton)—Vanini.
Love is all in fire, and yet is ever freezing;
Love is much in winning, yet is more in leesing:
Love is ever sick, and yet is never dying;
Love is ever true, and yet is ever lying;
Love does doat in liking, and is mad in loathing;
Love indeed is anything, yet indeed is nothing.
Thos. Middleton—Blurt, Master Constable. Act II. Sc. 2.
I never heard
Of any true affection but ’twas nipped.
Thos. Middleton—Blurt, Master Constable. Act III. Sc. 2.
He who for love hath undergone
The worst that can befall,
Is happier thousandfold than one
Who never loved at all.
Monckton Milnes—To Myrzha. On Returning.
Such sober certainty of waking bliss.
Milton—Comus. 263.
Imparadis’d in one another’s arms.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. IV. L. 50.
So dear I love him, that with him all deaths
I could endure, without him live no life.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. IX. L. 832.
It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit,
Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit,
That woman’s love can win, or long inherit;
But what it is, hard is to say,
Harder to hit.
Milton—Samson Agonistes. L. 1,010.
La fleur nominée héliotrope tourne sans cesse vers cet astre du jour, aussi mon cœur dorénavant tournera-t-il toujours vers les astres resplendissants de vos yeux adorables, ainsi que son pôle unique.
The flower called heliotrope turns without ceasing to that star of the day, so also my heart henceforth will turn itself always towards the resplendent stars of your adorable eyes, as towards its only pole.
Molière—Le Malade Imaginaire. Act II. Sc. 6.
L’amour est souvent un fruit de mariage.
Love is often a fruit of marriage.
Molière—Sganarelle. I. 1.
If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed than by making answer, Because it was he; because it was I. There is beyond all that I am able to say, I know not what inexplicable and fated power that brought on this union.
Montaigne—Essays. Bk. I. Ch. XXVII.
Celuy ayme peu qui ayme à la mesure.
He loves little who loves by rule.
Montaigne—Essays. Bk. I. Ch. XXVIII.
Yes, loving is a painful thrill,
And not to love more painful still;
But oh, it is the worst of pain,
To love and not be lov’d again.
Moore—Anacreontic. Ode 29.
No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turn’d when he rose.
Moore—Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms. St. 2.
I know not, I ask not, if guilt’s in that heart,
I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.
Moore—Come, Rest in This Bosom. St. 2.
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die!
Moore—Lalla Rookh. The Light of the Harem. L. 653.
A boat at midnight sent alone
To drift upon the moonless sea,
A lute, whose leading chord is gone,
A wounded bird, that hath but one
Imperfect wing to soar upon,
Are like what I am, without thee.
Moore—Loves of the Angels. Second Angel’s Story.
But there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As love’s young dream.
Moore—Love’s Young Dream. St. 1.
“Tell me, what’s Love;” said Youth, one day,
To drooping Age, who crost his way.—
“It is a sunny hour of play;
For which repentance dear doth pay;
Repentance! Repentance!
And this is Love, as wise men say.”
Moore—Youth and Age.
I’ve wandered east, I’ve wandered west,
I’ve bourne a weary lot;
But in my wanderings far or near
Ye never were forgot.
The fount that first burst frae this heart
Still travels on its way
And channels deeper as it rins
The luve o’ life’s young day.
Wm. Motherwell—Jeanie Morrison.
Duty’s a slave that keeps the keys,
But Love, the master goes in and out
Of his goodly chambers with song and shout,
Just as he please—just as he please.
D. M. Mulock—Plighted.
Ah, dearer than my soul…
Dearer than light, or life, or fame.
Oldham—Lament for Saul and Jonathan.
Militat omnis amans.
Every lover is a soldier. (Love is a warfare.)
Ovid—Amorum. I. 9. 1.
Qui non vult fieri desidiosus, amet.
Let the man who does not wish to be idle, fall in love.
Ovid—Amorum. I. 9. 46.
Sic ego nec sine te nec tecum vivere possum
Et videor voti nescius esse mei.
Thus I am not able to exist either with you or without you; and I seem not to know my own wishes.
Ovid—Amorum. Bk. III. 10. 39.
Jupiter ex alto perjuria ridet amantum.
Jupiter from on high laughs at the perjuries of lovers.
Ovid—Ars Amatoria. Bk. I. 633.
Res est soliciti plena timoris amor.
Love is a thing full of anxious fears.
Ovid—Heroides. I. 12.
Quicquid Amor jussit non est contemnere tutum.
Regnat, et in dominos jus habet ille deos.
It is not safe to despise what Love commands. He reigns supreme, and rules the mighty gods.
Ovid—Heroides. IV. 11.
Hei mihi! quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis.
Ah me! love can not be cured by herbs.
Ovid—Metamorphoses. I. 523.
Non bene conveniunt, nec in una sede morantur,
Majestas et amor.
Majesty and love do not well agree, nor do they live together.
Ovid—Metamorphoses. II. 846.
Credula res amor est.
Love is a credulous thing.
Ovid—Metamorphoses. VII. 826. Heroides. VI. 21.
Otia si tollas, periere cupidinis arcus.
If you give up your quiet life, the bow of Cupid will lose its power.
Ovid—Remedia Amoris. CXXXIX.
Qui finem quæris amoris,
(Cedit amor rebus) res age; tutus eris.
If thou wishest to put an end to love, attend to business (love yields to employment); then thou wilt be safe.
Ovid—Remedia Amoris. CXLIII.
Let those love now who never lov’d before,
Let those who always loved now love the more.
Thos. Parnell—Trans. of the Pervigilium Veneris. Ancient poem. Author unknown. Ascribed to Catullus. See also Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. III. Sec. II. Memb. 5. 5.
The moods of love are like the wind,
And none knows whence or why they rise.
Coventry Patmore—The Angel in the House. Sarum Plain.
My merry, merry, merry roundelay
Concludes with Cupid’s curse,
They that do change old love for new,
Pray gods, they change for worse!
George Peele—Cupid’s Curse; From the Arraignment of Paris.
What thing is love?—for (well I wot) love is a thing.
It is a prick, it is a sting.
It is a pretty, pretty thing;
It is a fire, it is a coal,
Whose flame creeps in at every hole!
George Peele—Miscellaneous Poems. The Hunting of Cupid.
Love will make men dare to die for their beloved—love alone; and women as well as men.
Plato—The Symposium.
Qui amat, tamen hercle si esurit, nullum esurit.
He that is in love, faith, if he be hungry, is not hungry at all.
Plautus—Casina. IV. 2. 16.
Amor et melle et felle est fœcundissimus:
Gustu dat dulce, amarum ad satietatem usque aggerit.
Love has both its gall and honey in abundance: it has sweetness to the taste, but it presents bitterness also to satiety.
Plautus—Cistellaria. I. 1. 71.
Auro contra cedo modestum amatorem.
Find me a reasonable lover against his weight in gold.
Plautus—Curculio. I. 3. 45.
Qui in amore præcipitavit pejus perit, quam si saxo saliat.
He who falls in love meets a worse fate than he who leaps from a rock.
Plautus—Trinummus. II. 1. 30.
A lover’s soul lives in the body of his mistress.
Plutarch.
Ah! what avails it me the flocks to keep,
Who lost my heart while I preserv’d my sheep.
Pope—Autumn. L. 79.
Is it, in Heav’n, a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender or too firm a heart,
To act a lover’s or a Roman’s part?
Is there no bright reversion in the sky
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?
Pope—Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady.
Of all affliction taught a lover yet,
’Tis true the hardest science to forget.
Pope—Eloisa to Abelard. L. 189.
One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight;
Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight.
Pope—Eloisa to Abelard. L. 273.
Love, free as air, at sight of human ties,
Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies.
Pope—Epistle to Eloisa. Last Line.
Ye gods, annihilate but space and time,
And make two lovers happy.
Pope—Martinus Scriblerus on the Art of Sinking in Poetry. Ch. XI.
O Love! for Sylvia let me gain the prize,
And make my tongue victorious as her eyes.
Pope—Spring. L. 49.
Scilicent insano nemo in amore videt.
Everybody in love is blind.
Propertius—Elegiæ. II. 14. 18.
Divine is Love and scorneth worldly pelf,
And can be bought with nothing but with self.
Sir Walter Raleigh—Love the Only Price of Love.
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.
Sir Walter Raleigh—The Nymph’s Reply to the Passionate Shepherd.
Ach die Zeiten der Liebe rollen nicht zurück, sondern ewig weiter hinab.
Ah! The seasons of love roll not backward but onward, downward forever.
Jean Paul Richter—Hesperus. IX.
Die Liebe vermindert die weibliche
Feinheit und verstärkt die männliche.
Love lessens woman’s delicacy and increases man’s.
Jean Paul Richter—Titan. Zykel 34.
Ein liebendes Mädchen wird unbewust kühner.
A loving maiden grows unconsciously more bold.
Jean Paul Richter—Titan. Zykel 71.
As one who cons at evening o’er an album all alone,
And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,
So I turn the leaves of Fancy, till in shadowy design
I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.
James Whitcomb Riley—An Old Sweetheart of Mine.
The hours I spent with thee, dear heart,
Are as a string of pearls to me;
I count them over, every one apart,
My rosary, my rosary.
Robert Cameron Rogers—My Rosary.
Oh! she was good as she was fair.
None—none on earth above her!
As pure in thought as angels are,
To know her was to love her.
Samuel Rogers—Jacqueline. Pt. I. L. 68.
Love is the fulfilling of the law.
Romans. XIII. 10.
Trust thou thy Love: if she be proud, is she not sweet?
Trust thou thy love: if she be mute, is she not pure?
Lay thou thy soul full in her hands, low at her feet—
Fail, Sun and Breath!—yet, for thy peace, she shall endure.
Ruskin—Trust Thou Thy Love.
Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.
Ruth. I. 16.
Et l’on revient toujours à ses premiers amours.
One always returns to his first love.
St. Just.
L’amour est un égoïsme à deux.
Love is an egotism of two.
Antoine de Salle.
Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.
II Samuel. I. 26.
Raum ist in der kleinsten Hütte
Für ein glücklich liebend Paar.
In the smallest cot there is room enough for a loving pair.
Schiller—Der Jüngling am Bache. St. 4.
Arm in Arm mit dir,
So fordr’ ich mein Jahrhundert in die Schranken.
Thus Arm in Arm with thee I dare defy my century into the lists.
Schiller—Don Carlos. I. 9. 97.
Ah, to that far distant strand
Bridge there was not to convey,
Not a bark was near at hand,
Yet true love soon found the way.
Schiller—Hero and Leander. Bowring’s trans.
O dass sie ewig grünen bliebe,
Die schöne Zeit der jungen Liebe.
O that it might remain eternally green,
The beautiful time of youthful love.
Schiller—Lied von der Glocke.
Ich habe genossen das irdische Glück,
Ich habe gelebt und geliebt.
I have enjoyed earthly happiness,
I have lived and loved.
Schiller—Piccolomini. III. 7. 9.
Mortals, while through the world you go,
Hope may succor and faith befriend,
Yet happy your hearts if you can but know,
Love awaits at the journey’s end!
Clinton Scollard—The Journey’s End—Envoy.
And love is loveliest when embalm’d in tears.
Scott—Lady of the Lake. Canto IV. St. 1.
In peace, Love tunes the shepherd’s reed;
In war, he mounts the warrior’s steed;
In halls, in gay attire is seen;
In hamlets, dances on the green.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below, and saints above;
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
Scott—Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto III. St. 2.
Her blue eyes sought the west afar,
For lovers love the western star.
Scott—Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto III. St. 24.
True love’s the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven.
*****
It is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart, and mind to mind,
In body and in soul can bind.
Scott—Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto V. St. 13.
Where shall the lover rest,
Whom the fates sever
From his true maiden’s breast,
Parted for ever?
Where, through groves deep and high,
Sounds the far billow,
Where early violets die,
Under the willow.
Scott—Marmion. Canto III. St. 10.
Magis gauderes quod habueras, quam moereres quod amiseras.
Better to have loved and lost, than not to have loved at all. (Free trans.)
Seneca—Epistles. 99.
Odit verus amor nec patitur moras.
True love hates and will not bear delay.
Seneca—Hercules Furens. 588.
Qui blandiendo dulce nutrivit malum,
Sero recusat ferre, quod subiit, jugum.
He who has fostered the sweet poison of love by fondling it, finds it too late to refuse the yoke which he has of his own accord assumed.
Seneca—Hippolytus. CXXXIV.
Si vis amari, ama.
If you wish to be loved, love.
Seneca—Epistolæ Ad Lucilium. IX. Ausonius—Epigrams. XCI. 6. Martial—Epigrams. VI. 11. Ovid—Ars Amatoria. II. 107. Attributed to Plato by Burton.
But love that comes too late,
Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried,
To the great sender turns a sour offence.
All’s Well That Ends Well. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 5.
There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 15.
If thou remember’st not the slightest folly
That ever love did make thee run into,
Thou hast not lov’d.
As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 4. L. 34.
It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover.
As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 245.
But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?
Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.
As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 418.
O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded; my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal.
As You Like It. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 208.
No sooner met but they looked, no sooner looked but they loved, no sooner loved but they sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason.
As You Like It. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 36.
Good shepherd, tell this youth what ’tis to love.
It is to be all made of sighs and tears;—
*****
It is to be all made of faith and service;—
*****
It is to be all made of fantasy.
As You Like It. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 89.
I know not why
I love this youth; and I have heard you say,
Love’s reason’s without reason.
Cymbeline. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 20.
This is the very ecstasy of love,
Whose violent property foredoes itself,
And leads the will to desperate undertakings.
Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 102.
He is far gone, far gone: and truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this.
Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 188.
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
When little fears grow great, great love grows there.
Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 181.
Forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum.
Hamlet. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 292.
Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee.
Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 444.
Though last, not least in love!
Julius Cæsar. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 189.
Which of you shall we say doth love us most?
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge.
King Lear. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 52.
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen can passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish’d himself the heaven’s breath.
Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. Song.
By heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy.
Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 10.
You would for paradise break faith and troth,
And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.
Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 143.
A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind.
A lover’s ear will hear the lowest sound.
Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 334.
Love’s tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste:
For valour, is not Love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 339.
And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 344.
But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit.
Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 6. L. 36.
Yet I have not seen
So likely an ambassador of love;
A day in April never came so sweet,
To show how costly summer was at hand,
As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.
Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 9. L. 91.
And swearing till my very roof was dry
With oaths of love.
Merchant of Venice. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 206.
Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.
Merry Wives of Windsor. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 217.
Ay me! for aught that I ever could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.
Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 132.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 234.
Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity
In least speak most, to my capacity.
Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 104.
Speak low, if you speak love.
Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 102.
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent.
Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 182.
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.
Much Ado About Nothing. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 106.
Upon this hint I spake;
She lov’d me for the dangers I had pass’d,
And I lov’d her, that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have us’d:
Here comes the lady; let her witness it.
Othello. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 166.
Perdition catch my soul,
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.
Othello. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 89.
What! keep a week away? seven days and nights?
Eight score eight hours? and lovers’ absent hours,
More tedious than the dial eight score times?
O, weary reckoning!
Othello. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 173.
If heaven would make me such another world
Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,
I’ld not have sold her for it.
Othello. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 144.
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme: of one, whose hand
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away,
Richer than all his tribe: of one, whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum.
Othello. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 383. (“Base Indian” is “base Judean” in first folio.)
There is no creature loves me,
And if I die, no soul shall pity me.
Richard III. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 200.
From love’s weak childish bow she lives unharmed.
Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Sc. 1. (“Uncharmed” instead of “unharmed” in Folio and early ed.)
Love is a smoke rais’d with the fume of sighs;
Being purg’d, a fire sparkling in a lover’s eyes;
Being vex’d, a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.
Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 196.
Steal love’s sweet bait from fearful hooks.
Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Sc. 5. Chorus at end. (Not in Folio.)
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
Cry but—“Ay me!” pronounce but “love” and “dove.”
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 9.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 23.
O, Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou, Romeo?
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 33.
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do that dares love attempt.
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 67.
At lovers’ perjuries,
They say, Jove laughs.
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 92.
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee
The more I have, for both are infinite.
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 133.
Love goes toward love as school-boys from their books,
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 157.
It is my soul that calls upon my name;
How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night,
Like soft music to attending ears.
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 165.
’Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone:
And yet no further than a wanton’s bird;
Who lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 177.
Love’s heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glide than the sun’s beams,
Driving back shadows over louring hills;
Therefore do nimble-pinion’d doves draw love,
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 5. L. 4.
Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 6. L. 14.
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him, and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine,
And all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 21.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
Sonnet CXVI.
They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform.
Troilus and Cressida. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 91.
For to be wise, and love
Exceeds man’s might; that dwells with gods above.
Troilus and Cressida. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 163.
The noblest hateful love that e’er I heard of.
Troilus and Cressida. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 33.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe’er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute!
Twelfth Night. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 9.
Then let thy love be younger than thyself,
Or thy affection cannot hold the bent.
Twelfth Night. Act II. Sc. 4. L. 37.
She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek; she pin’d in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.
Twelfth Night. Act II. Sc. 4. L. 114.
Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.
Twelfth Night. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 167.
For he was more than over shoes in love.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 23.
Love is your master, for he masters you;
And he that is so yoked by a fool,
Methinks, should not be chronicled for wise.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 39.
And writers say, as the most forward bud
Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,
Even so by love the young and tender wit
Is turn’d to folly, blasting in the bud,
Losing his verdure even in the prime.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 45.
How wayward is this foolish love,
That, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse
And presently, all humbled, kiss the rod.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 57.
O, how this spring of love resembleth
Th’ uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away!
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 84.
Didst thou but know the inly touch of love,
Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow,
As seek to quench the fire of love with words.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act II. Sc. 7. L. 18.
I do not seek to quench your love’s hot fire,
But qualify the fire’s extreme rage,
Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act II. Sc. 7. L. 21.
Except I be by Sylvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 178.
Love keeps his revels where there are but twain.
Venus and Adonis. L. 123.
What ’tis to love? how want of love tormenteth?
Venus and Adonis. L. 202.
When you loved me I gave you the whole sun and stars to play with. I gave you eternity in a single moment, strength of the mountains in one clasp of your arms, the volume of all the seas in one impulse of your soul. A moment only; but was it not enough? Were you not paid then for all the rest of your struggle on earth?… When I opened the gates of paradise, were you blind? Was it nothing to you? When all the stars sang in your ears and all the winds swept you the heart of heaven, were you deaf? were you dull? was I no more to you than a bone to a dog? Was it not enough? We spent eternity together; and you ask me for a little lifetime more. We possessed all the universe together; and you ask me to give you my scanty wages as well. I have given you the greatest of all things; and you ask me to give you little things. I gave you your own soul: you ask me for my body as a plaything. Was it not enough? Was it not enough?
Bernard Shaw—Getting Married.
The fickleness of the woman I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.
Bernard Shaw—The Philanderer. Act II.
Love’s Pestilence, and her slow dogs of war.
Shelley—Hellas. L. 321.
Yet all love is sweet
Given or returned. Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever
*****
They who inspire it most are fortunate,
As I am now: but those who feel it most
Are happier still after long sufferings
As I shall soon become.
Shelley—Prometheus Unbound. Act II. Sc. 5.
My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange, one for the other given;
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,
There never was a better bargain driven.
Sir Philip Sidney—My True Love Hath my Heart.
They love indeed who quake to say they love.
Sir Philip Sidney—Astrophel and Stella. LIV.
Priests, altars, victims, swam before my sight.
Edmund Smith—Phædra and Hippolytus. Act I. Sc. 1.
Thy fatal shafts unerring move;
I bow before thine altar, Love!
Smollett—Roderick Random. Ch. XL. St. 1.
Love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave.
Song of Solomon. VIII. 6.
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.
Song of Solomon. VIII. 7.
And when my own Mark Antony
Against young Cæsar strove,
And Rome’s whole world was set in arms,
The cause was,—all for love.
Southey—All for Love. Pt. II. St. 26.
Cupid “the little greatest god.”
Southey—Commonplace Book. 4th Series. P. 462.
They sin who tell us Love can die:
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity,
In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell,
Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell.
Southey—Curse of Kehama. Mount Meru. St. 10.
Together linkt with adamantine chains.
Spenser—Hymn in Honour of Love. Phrase used by Drummond—Flowers of Sion. Belvoir, in Harleian Miscellany. IV. 559. Phineas Fletcher—Purple Island. Ch. XII. 64. (1633). Manilius. Bk. I. 921. Marini—Sospetto d’Herode. Sts. 14 and 18, Crashaw’s trans. Shelley—Revolt of Islam. III. 19.
To be wise and eke to love,
Is granted scarce to gods above.
Spenser—Shepheard’s Calendar. March.
Love is the emblem of eternity: it confounds all notion of time: effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end.
Madame de Staël—Corinne. Bk. VIII. Ch. II.
Where we really love, we often dread more than we desire the solemn moment that exchanges hope for certainty.
Madame de Staël—Corinne. Bk. VIII. Ch. IV.
L’amour est l’histoire de la vie des femmes; c’est un épisode dans celle des hommes.
Love is the history of a woman’s life; it is an episode in man’s.
Madame de Staël—De l’influence des passions. Works. III. P. 135. (Ed. 1820).
Sweetheart, when you walk my way,
Be it dark or be it day;
Dreary winter, fairy May,
I shall know and greet you.
For each day of grief or grace
Brings you nearer my embrace;
Love hath fashioned your dear face,
I shall know you when I meet you.
Frank L. Stanton—Greeting.
To love her was a liberal education.
Steele—Of Lady Elizabeth Hastings. In The Tatler. No. 49. Augustine Birrell in Obiter Dicta calls this “the most magnificent compliment ever paid by man to a woman.”
I who all the Winter through,
Cherished other loves than you
And kept hands with hoary policy in marriage-bed and pew;
Now I know the false and true,
For the earnest sun looks through,
And my old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew.
Stevenson. Poem written 1876.
And my heart springs up anew,
Bright and confident and true,
And the old love comes to meet me, in the dawning and the dew.
Stevenson. Poem written 1876.
Just like Love is yonder rose,
Heavenly fragrance round it throws,
Yet tears its dewy leaves disclose,
And in the midst of briars it blows
Just like Love.
Viscount Strangford—Just like Love. Trans. of Poems of Camoens.
Why so pale and wan, fond lover,
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can’t move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee, why so pale?
Sir John Suckling—Song. St. 1.
Love in its essence is spiritual fire.
Swedenborg—True Christian Religion. Par. 31.
In all I wish, how happy should I be,
Thou grand Deluder, were it not for thee?
So weak thou art that fools thy power despise;
And yet so strong, thou triumph’st o’er the wise.
Swift—To Love.
Love, as is told by the seers of old,
Comes as a butterfly tipped with gold,
Flutters and flies in sunlit skies,
Weaving round hearts that were one time cold.
Swinburne—Song.
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf,
Our lives would grow together
In sad or singing weather.
Swinburne—A Match.
O Love, O great god Love, what have I done,
That thou shouldst hunger so after my death?
My heart is harmless as my life’s first day:
Seek out some false fair woman, and plague her
Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed.
Swinburne—The Complaint of Lisa.
Love laid his sleepless head
On a thorny rose bed:
And his eyes with tears were red,
And pale his lips as the dead.
Swinburne—Love Laid his Sleepless Head.
I that have love and no more
Give you but love of you, sweet;
He that hath more, let him give;
He that hath wings, let him soar;
Mine is the heart at your feet
Here, that must love you to live.
Swinburne—The Oblation.
Cogas amantem irasci, amare si velis.
You must make a lover angry if you wish him to love.
Syrus—Maxims.
Tum, ut adsolet in amore et ira, jurgia, preces, exprobrutio, satisfactio.
Then there is the usual scene when lovers are excited with each other, quarrels, entreaties, reproaches, and then fondling reconcilement.
Tacitus—Annales. XIII. 44.
When gloaming treads the heels of day
And birds sit cowering on the spray,
Along the flowery hedge I stray,
To meet mine ain dear somebody.
Robert Tannahill—Love’s Fear.
I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!
Bayard Taylor—Bedouin Song.
Love better is than Fame.
Bayard Taylor—Christmas Sonnets. Lyrics. To J. L. G.
Love’s history, as Life’s, is ended not
By marriage.
Bayard Taylor—Lars. Bk. III.
For love’s humility is Love’s true pride.
Bayard Taylor—Poet’s Journal. Third Evening. The Mother.
And on her lover’s arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old.
Tennyson—Day Dream. The Departure. I.
Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths.
Tennyson—Lover’s Tale. L. 466.
Where love could walk with banish’d Hope no more.
Tennyson—Lover’s Tale. L. 813.
Love’s arms were wreathed about the neck of Hope,
And Hope kiss’d Love, and Love drew in her breath
In that close kiss and drank her whisper’d tales.
They said that Love would die when Hope was gone.
And Love mourn’d long, and sorrow’d after Hope;
At last she sought out Memory, and they trod
The same old paths where Love had walked with Hope,
And Memory fed the soul of Love with tears.
Tennyson—Lover’s Tale. L. 815.
’Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all.
Tennyson—In Memoriam. Pt. XXVII. St. 4.
For love reflects the thing beloved.
Tennyson—In Memoriam. Pt. LII.
Love’s too precious to be lost,
A little grain shall not be spilt.
Tennyson—In Memoriam. Pt. LXV.
I loved you, and my love had no return,
And therefore my true love has been my death.
Tennyson—Lancelot and Elaine. L. 1,298.
Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder’d string?
I am shamed through all my nature to have lov’d so slight a thing.
Tennyson—Locksley Hall. St. 74.
There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, “She is near, she is near;”
And the white rose weeps, “She is late;”
The larkspur listens, “I hear; I hear;”
And the lily whispers, “I wait.”
Tennyson—Maud. Pt. XXII. St. 10.
She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthly bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.
Tennyson—Maud. Pt. XXII. St. 11.
Love is hurt with jar and fret;
Love is made a vague regret.
Tennyson—The Miller’s Daughter. St. 28.
It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.
Thackeray—Pendennis. Ch. VI.
Werther had a love for Charlotte,
Such as words could never utter;
Would you know how first he met her?
She was cutting bread and butter.
Thackeray—The Sorrows of Werther.
Like to a wind-blown sapling grow I from
The cliff, Sweet, of your skyward-jetting soul,—
Shook by all gusts that sweep it, overcome
By all its clouds incumbent; O be true
To your soul, dearest, as my life to you!
For if that soil grow sterile, then the whole
Of me must shrivel, from the topmost shoot
Of climbing poesy, and my life, killed through,
Dry down and perish to the foodless root.
Francis Thompson—Manus Animam Pinxit.
Why should we kill the best of passions, love?
It aids the hero, bids ambition rise
To nobler heights, inspires immortal deeds,
Even softens brutes, and adds a grace to virtue.
Thomson—Sophonisba. Act V. Sc. 2.
O, what are you waiting for here? young man!
What are you looking for over the bridge?—
A little straw hat with the streaming blue ribbons
Is soon to come dancing over the bridge.
Thomson—Waiting.
Nec jurare time; Veneris perjuria venti
Irrita per terras et freta summa ferunt,
Gratia magna Jovi; vetuit pater ipse valere,
Jurasset cupide quicquid ineptus amor.
Fear not to swear; the winds carry the perjuries of lovers without effect over land and sea, thanks to Jupiter. The father of the gods himself has denied effect to what foolish lovers in their eagerness have sworn.
Tibullus—Carmina. I. 4. 21.
Perjuria ridet amantium Jupiter et ventos irrita ferre jubet.
At lovers’ perjuries Jove laughs and throws them idly to the winds.
Tibullus—Carmina. III. 6. 49.
Die Liebe wintert nicht;
Nein, nein! Ist und bleibt Frühlings-Schein.
Love knows no winter; no, no! It is, and remains the sign of spring.
Ludwig Tieck—Herbstlied.
At first, she loved nought else but flowers,
And then—she only loved the rose;
And then—herself alone; and then—
She knew not what, but now—she knows.
Ridgely Torrence—House of a Hundred Lights.
For Truth makes holy Love’s illusive dreams,
And their best promise constantly redeems.
Tuckerman—Sonnets. XXII.
The warrior for the True, the Right,
Fights in Love’s name;
The love that lures thee from that fight
Lures thee to shame:
That love which lifts the heart, yet leaves
The spirit free,—
That love, or none, is fit for one
Man-shaped like thee.
Aubrey Thos. De Vere—Miscellaneous Poems. Song.
Quis fallere possit amantem?
Who can deceive a lover?
Vergil—Æneid. IV. 296.
Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori.
Love conquers all things; let us yield to love.
Vergil—Eclogæ. X. 69.
For all true love is grounded on esteem.
Villiers (Duke of Buckingham).
Qui que tu sois, voici ton maître;
Il l’est—le fut—ou le doit être.
Whoe’er thou art, thy master see;
He was—or is—or is to be.
Voltaire—Works. II. P. 765. (Ed. 1837). Used as an inscription for a statue of Cupid.
To love is to believe, to hope, to know;
’Tis an essay, a taste of Heaven below!
Edmund Waller—Divine Poems. Divine Love. Canto III. L. 17.
Could we forbear dispute, and practise love,
We should agree as angels do above.
Edmund Waller—Divine Poems. Divine Love. Canto III. L. 25.
And the King with his golden sceptre,
The Pope with Saint Peter’s key,
Can never unlock the one little heart
That is opened only to me.
For I am the Lord of a Realm,
And I am Pope of a See;
Indeed I’m supreme in the kingdom
That is sitting, just now, on my knee.
C. H. Webb—The King and the Pope.
O, rank is good, and gold is fair,
And high and low mate ill;
But love has never known a law
Beyond its own sweet will!
Whittier—Amy Wentworth. St. 18.
“I’m sorry that I spell’d the word;
I hate to go above you,
Because”—the brown eyes lower fell,—
“Because, you see, I love you!”
Whittier—In School-Days. St. 4.
Your love in a cottage is hungry,
Your vine is a nest for flies—
Your milkmaid shocks the Graces,
And simplicity talks of pies!
You lie down to your shady slumber
And wake with a bug in your ear,
And your damsel that walks in the morning
Is shod like a mountaineer.
N. P. Willis—Low in a Cottage. St. 3.
He loves not well whose love is bold!
I would not have thee come too nigh.
The sun’s gold would not seem pure gold
Unless the sun were in the sky:
To take him thence and chain him near
Would make his beauty disappear.
William Winter—Love’s Queen.
The unconquerable pang of despised love.
Wordsworth—Excursion. Bk. VI. Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 1.
For mightier far
Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway
Of magic potent over sun and star,
Is love, though oft to agony distrest,
And though his favourite be feeble woman’s breast.
Wordsworth—Laodamia. St. 15.
O dearer far than light and life are dear.
Wordsworth—Poems Founded on the Affections. No. XIX. To. ——. VII. 114.
While all the future, for thy purer soul,
With “sober certainties” of love is blest.
Wordsworth—Poems Founded on the Affections. VII. 115. (Knight’s ed.)
Farewell, Love, and all thy laws for ever.
Sir Thomas Wyatt—Songs and Sonnets. A Renouncing of Love.