Thanks to Tori and Mary Emily who both submitted this e. e. cummings poem. It’s one of my favorites, too. If you haven’t sent your favorite poem yet, it’s not too late.
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
Here are my favorite sonnets by Shakespeare. The first could be given as a party favor if you’re having a Valentine’s Day party and watching Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. The poem is used in the movie twice.
Sonnet 116
| Let me not to the marriage of true minds |
| Admit impediments. Love is not love |
| Which alters when it alteration finds, |
| Or bends with the remover to remove: |
| O no! it is an ever-fixed mark |
| That looks on tempests and is never shaken; |
| It is the star to every wandering bark, |
| Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. |
| 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. |
| If this be error and upon me proved, |
| I never writ, nor no man ever loved. |
I also love these:
| Sonnet 29 |
|---|
| When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, |
| I all alone beweep my outcast state |
| And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries |
| And look upon myself and curse my fate, |
| Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, |
| Featured like him, like him with friends possess’d, |
| Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope, |
| With what I most enjoy contented least; |
| Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, |
| Haply I think on thee, and then my state, |
| Like to the lark at break of day arising |
| From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate; |
| For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings |
| That then I scorn to change my state with kings. |
Sonnet 18
| Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? |
| Thou art more lovely and more temperate: |
| Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, |
| And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: |
| Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, |
| And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; |
| And every fair from fair sometime declines, |
| By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d; |
| But thy eternal summer shall not fade |
| Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; |
| Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, |
| When in eternal lines to time thou growest: |
| So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, |
| So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Love Song by Ranier Maria Rilke How shall I hold on to my soul, so that |
LOVE IS ENOUGH
Love is enough: though the world be a-waning,
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
Though the skies be too dark for dim eyes to discover
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
And this day draw a veil over all deeds passed over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter:
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.
William Morris (1834-96)
When You Are Old
When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And love your beauty with love false or true;
But one man love the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And his face amid a crowd of stars.
W. B. Yeats (1865- 1939)
WHEN WE TWO PARTED
by: George Gordon (Lord) Byron (1788-1824)
HEN we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow–
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o’er me–
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Lond, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
I secret we met–
I silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.
Author: Reden Magpantay Jobli
Have you ever been silently in love
With someone you can never have?
So close you can touch her hand
Yet, so far to feel her heart?
Have you ever lived in pretense
Quietly loving without any condition?
A feeling of love that’s unknown
Hiding it, not knowing for how long.
Have you ever fallen deeply
Loving the person unconditionally?
So afraid to say what you feel
Acting normal, keeping things still.
Have you ever been hurt unintentionally
But put on a smile, pretended to be happy?
Deep inside you’re in pain and suffering
But outside you’re jolly and laughing.
Why does holding her hand feel so right?
Your heart smiles everytime she’s at sight
Hearing her sweet voice makes your day
Hope you can hug her in a special way.
A stranger you were once.
Then, with a gentle look you took my hand.
As our lives engaged,
you lit my life and I held both your hands.
Now that decades have passed,
ours souls have indeed become one.
How fortunate we are
that we have found the love so true
that everyone dreams about.
– Laura Veronica Merodio –
Author: Jessica Voyles
Meeting you
was pure destiny,
You and I
were ment to be.
Maybe not now
but someday soon,
We’ll meet not under the sun
but beneath the moon.
We’ll watch the stars
’till they fade away,
but we won’t fade
together we’ll always stay.
This is the day
I’m waiting for,
from that day
I’ll love you more and more.
I can’t wait to watch
the sun set with you,
every sunset from that day
’till the rest of our lives are through.
if i love You
if i love You
(thickness means
worlds inhabited by roamingly
stern bright faeries
if you love
me) distance is mind carefully
luminous with innumerable gnomes
Of complete dream
if we love each (shyly)
other, what clouds do or Silently
Flowers resembles beauty
less than our breathing
Brad Warren
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
ee cummings
Sonnet XXXVI: When We Met First
When we met first and loved, I did not build
Upon the event with marble. Could it mean
To last, a love set pendulous between
Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled,
Distrusting every light that seemed to gild
The onward path, and feared to overlean
A finger even. And, though I have grown serene
And strong since then, I think that God has willed
A still renewable fear … O love, O troth …
Lest these enclasped hands should never hold,
This mutual kiss drop down between us both
As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold.
And Love, be false! if he, to keep one oath,
Must lose one joy, by his life’s star foretold.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her
by Christopher Brennan (1870-1932)
If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.
Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.
For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?
Then seek not, sweet, the “If” and “Why”
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give.
it is at moments after i have dreamed
it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when (being fool to fancy) i have deemed
with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds
the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always)and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;
moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination, when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:
one pierced moment whiter than the rest
-turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
i watch the roses of the day grow deep.
ee cummings
So We’ll Go No More A-roving
by George Gordon, Lord Byron
So, we’ll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath
And the soul wears out the breast
And a heart must pause to breathe
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving
And the day returns too soon,
Yet, we’ll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.
🙂
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need; by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,–I love thee with the breath.
Smiles, tears, of all my life!–and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning