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Love Poems

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realiz

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Love Poems

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After reading the topic 'Love' in the philosophy section I thought we could use a thread devoted to the many faces of love. Poetry and love, they go together. No matter how conflicting, how diverse, no other single subject has such a passionate mountain of writing.

Here is the first:

Symtoms of Love
by Robert Graves

Love is a universal migraine,
A bright stain on the vision
Blotting out reason.

Symptoms of true love
Are leaness, jealousy,
Laggard dawns;

Are omens and nightmares --
Listening for a knock,
Waiting for a sign:

For a touch of her fingers
In a darkened room,
For a searching look.

Take courage, lover!
Can you endure such grief
At any hand but hers?
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Bravo, good thread. I'm glad you're doing this before Valentines Day, when I feel forced by commercialism to declare love. I like your Graves poem on the "terror" of love. My love poem guy is W.B. Yeats. He had a long, unrequited love going on that fueled a number of good poems. This is not one about Maud Gonne, more a traditional treatment, but I like it and have posted it before.

BROWN PENNY

I whispered, 'I am too young,'
And then, 'I am old enough';
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
'Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair.'
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.

O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.
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Yes, good idea starting this thread. I had thought the philosophy discussion about love needed some poetry but somehow the atmosphere over there just seemed too cut and dried. I like ee cummings because his poems push plain old logic and reason and sentence structure to the side in favor of love and i really like his imagery. This poem is actually more logical than others but i like it anyway.


your little voice

your little voice
Over the wires came leaping
and i felt suddenly
dizzy
With the jostling and shouting of merry flowers
wee skipping high-heeled flames
courtesied before my eyes
or twinkling over to my side
Looked up
with impertinently exquisite faces
floating hands were laid upon me
I was whirled and tossed into delicious dancing
up
Up
with the pale important
stars and the Humorous
moon
dear girl
How i was crazy how i cried when i heard
over time
and tide and death
leaping
Sweetly
your voice

ee cummings
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Thanks for that e.e. cummings. Here's one I happened on by Robert Herrick (of "gather ye rosebuds while ye may" fame). It has some surprising vocabulary.

UPON JULIA'S CLOTHES

Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free,
O how that glitteriing taketh me!
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Here's a favorite love poem of mine --

It's all I have to bring today (26)
by Emily Dickinson

It's all I have to bring today
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Did someone post a poem called, I think, "Delight in Disorder"? The Ben Jonson reminded me of it, and it was just recently, but I can't place it.
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DWill wrote:Did someone post a poem called, I think, "Delight in Disorder"? The Ben Jonson reminded me of it, and it was just recently, but I can't place it.
Nope, I checked. I've never read this one before. So, here it is and it seems it may be a poem that was in response to another. I will check that out too.


DELIGHT IN DISORDER.
by Robert Herrick

A SWEET disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness :
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction :
An erring lace which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher :
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly :
A winning wave (deserving note)
In the tempestuous petticoat :
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility :
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.
Last edited by Saffron on Mon Jan 12, 2009 10:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Saffron wrote:
DWill wrote:Did someone post a poem called, I think, "Delight in Disorder"? The Ben Jonson reminded me of it, and it was just recently, but I can't place it.
Nope, I checked. I've never read this one before. So, here it is and it seems it may be a poem that was in response to another. I will check that out too.
Well, sill me. It seems that the Ben Johnson and Robert Herrick poems are often paired together. Every Google hit for one poem lead to the other. I also found the following -- which technically doesn't belong on a thread for poems about love. It does however explaining something of the poem, "Delight in Disorder".

DWill, did you already know about the connection?

His Prayer to Ben Jonson

by Robert Herrick
(1591-1674)

When I a verse shall make,
Know I have pray'd thee,
For old religion's sake,
Saint Ben to aid me.

Make the way smooth for me,
When I, thy Herrick,
Honouring thee, on my knee
Offer my lyric.

Candles I'll give to thee,
And a new altar,
And thou, Saint Ben, shalt be
Writ in my psalter.
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No, I didn't know about the Herrick-Jonson connection, Saffron. I can imagine Bob and Ben sitting in the Queen's Arms Tavern betting each other which one can write the better poem on this theme. It could be that "delight in disorder" was a conventional idea that poets played with. And maybe originality did not have such a high premium placed on it. What is it they say about Shakespeare?-- he is the most quoted writer because he used the most quotes.
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DWill wrote: It could be that "delight in disorder" was a conventional idea that poets played with. And maybe originality did not have such a high premium placed on it. What is it they say about Shakespeare?-- he is the most quoted writer because he used the most quotes.
You are so clever! The following is copied from eNotes.com --

Much poetry of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries incorporates the idea of a "slight disorder in the dress" as well as in the hair of its female subjects.
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