Verse of Love, Romance and Broken Hearts....
ENCOUNTERS
I've come to know your body and your eyes
the way a child might memorize
his favorite fairy tale
Yet I need the reading once a night
the same as children do.
"Don't leave out one dragon
or a single tree that grows within the forest
that the knight rides through."
So a child will tell you
of the story he loves best.
~ Rod McKuen
FULL MOON SONG
And what if your vows prove false in time?
And what if I'm left to weep,
Is the rose less sweet in its crimson prime,
That its beauty cannot keep?
Was ever the moon that didn't wane?
Yet tonight the moon is full,
And the heart is richer that chances pain
Than the heart in cotton wool.
Then what, my love, if your love is brief?
Tonight you are mine to kiss,
And better a century of grief
Than never an hour of bliss.
~ Georgie Starbuck Galbraith
I SHALL NOT CARE
When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Though you should lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care.
I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful,
When rain bends down the bough,
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
Than you are now.
~ Sara Teasdale
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful, it is not arrogant or rude.
Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in the wrong, but rejoices in the right.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
~ I Corinthians 13:4-7
SORT OF A LOVE STORY
You closed the door that luckless day
And gave our shaky love a beating.
I should have fainted with dismay;
I merely watched your frame retreating.
You closed the door. I felt a gust
Of frigid air. The new snow glistened.
You do recall quite well, I trust,
Your chastisement. I merely listened.
You closed the door and plunged ahead
With deep self-satisfaction showing.
I should have wept with pain; instead
I merely murmered, 'Well, he's going."
Now you propose to use that door
And bring an olive branch to me,
But I don't live there anymore.
I locked the door and pitched the key.
~ Irene Warsaw
Alas! How easily things go wrong!
A sigh too deep, or a kiss too long,
And then comes a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is never the same again.
~ George MacDonald
SONG WITHOUT WORDS
I wanted to write you some words you'd remember;
words so alert they'd leap from the paper
and crawl up your shoulder and lie by your ears
and be there to comfort you down through the years.
But it was cloudy that day and I was lazy
and so I stayed in bed just thinking about it.
I wanted to write you and tell you that maybe
love songs from lovers are unnecessary.
We are what we feel and writing it down
seems foolish sometimes without vocal sound.
But I spent the day drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes
and looking in the mirror practicing my smile.
I wanted to write you one last, long love song
that said what I feel one final time.
Not comparing your eyes and mouth to the stars
but telling you only how like yourself you are.
But by the time I thought of it, found a pen,
put the pen to ink, the ink to paper,
you were gone.
And so, this song has no words.
~ Rod McKuen
My true love hath my heart and I hath his,
By just exchange, one for another given
I hold his dear and mine he cannot miss,
There never was a better bargain driven.
My true love hath my heart and I hath his.
~ from an old song
AFTER SHAKESPEARE
Well, what would you let me compare you to,
If you're not satisfied by "summer's day?"
A summer's sky turns so intensely blue,
Less lucent than your eyes, perhaps ~~ but say,
What's any closer? Not a bluejay's wing,
Flitting across the brilliant whites of snow,
Not double-budded violets in spring,
Nor shining lakes in whom fall colors glow.
There is no single thing upon the earth,
No momentary glory at its prime
Which satisfies me when compared to you.
I search in vain for things of equal worth
To freeze you fast in one immortal rhyme.
No match exists ~~ there's nothing left to do.
~ Suzanne M. Hawkinson
KASHMIRI SONG
Pale hands I love beside the Shalimar,
Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell?
Whom do you lead on Raptures's Roadway, far,
Before you agonize them in farewell?
Oh, pale dispensers of my Joys and Pains,
Holding the doors of Heaven and of Hell,
How the hot blood rushed wildly through the veins
Beneath your touch, until you waved farewell.
Pale hands, pink-tipped, like Lotus buds that float
On those cool waters where we used to dwell,
I would have rather felt you round my throat
Crushing out life than waving me farewell!
~ Laurence Hope
Follow love, and it will flee thee.
Flee love, and it will follow thee.
~ Chaucer
"Romant of the Rose"
TRY TO LOVE
Try to love.
It may cheat you mercilessly,
And fill your eyes with the sting of salt tears,
Pinch your heart and consume your thoughts.
Yet......
Try to love.
It will redeem you,
Open the portals of your soul,
Dull the longing for warmth and companionship.
Try to love.
~ Inez M. Robinson
For aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.
~ William Shakespeare
From loving girls, ye wise, refrain;
'Tis little pleasure, longer pain.
But love three females nonetheless,
Compassion, Wisdom, Friendliness;
For swelling breasts of lovely girls,
Trembling beneath their strings of pearls,
And hips with jingling girdles ~~ well,
They do not help you much in Hell.
~ Niti Sataka Bhartrihari (50 BC)
Woman was made from the rib of man.
She was not created from his head ~
to top him
nor from his feet ~
to be stepped upon.
She was made from his side ~
to be equal to him:
from beneath his arm ~
to be protected by him:
near his heart ~
to be loved by him.
~ unknown
SUMMER SERENADE
When the thunder stalks the sky,
When tickle-footed walks the fly,
When shirt is wet and throat is dry,
Look, my darling, that's July.
Though the grassy lawn be leather,
And prickly temper tug the tether,
Shall we postpone our love for weather?
If we must melt, let's melt together!
~ Ogden Nash
"Love is Strange"
~"Seasons of Love"~
an original composition by
Bruce DeBoer
Copyright, 1999
