Hey guys, I write for the Harvard Crimson and I just wanted to get a consensus of what you guys believe to be the most romantic poem. Be sure to include your name, so that I may include it in my article. Thanks.

Sameer

Here's my favorite:

How Do I Love Thee?
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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 candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a 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.

Hmm, this is a difficult one, Sameer. There are just so many beautiful poems to choose from!
I probably have a different 'favourite' each day - from the classics, to Lorca throwing fistfuls of ants at his lover in the morning, to Pablo Neruda etc; but as i'm re-reading lots of aussie poetry at the moment, this is today's favourite:


Woman to Man

The eyeless labourer in the night,
the selfless, shapeless seed I hold,
builds for its resurrection day -
silent and swift and deep from sight
forsees the unimagined light.

This is no child with a child's face;
this has no name to name it by;
yet you and I have known it well.
This is our hunter and our chase,
the third who lay in our embrace.

This is the strength that your arm knows,
the arc of flesh that is my breast,
the precise crystals of our eyes.
This is the blood's wild tree that grows
the intricate and folded rose.

This is the maker and the made;
this is the question and reply;
the blind head butting at the dark,
the blaze of light along the blade.
Oh hold me, for I am afraid.

Judith Wright

Dust
by Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)


When the white flame in us is gone
And we that lost the world's delight
Stiffen in darkness, left alone
To crumble in our separate night

When your swift hair is quiet in death
And through the lips corruption thrust
Has stilled the labour of my breath -
When we are dust, when we are dust! -

Not dead, not undesirous yet
Still sentient, still unsatisfied
We'll ride the air, and shine, and flit
Around the places where we died

And dance as dust before the sun
And light of foot, and unconfined
Hurry from road to road, and run
About the errands of the wind

And every mote, on earth or air
Will speed and gleam, down later days
And like a secret pilgrim fare
By eager and invisible ways

Nor ever rest, nor ever lie
Till, beyond thinking, out of view
One mote of all the dust that's I
Shall meet one atom that was you

Then in some garden hushed from wind
Warm in a sunset's afterglow
The lovers in the flowers will find
A sweet and strange unquiet grow

Upon the peace; and, past desiring
So high a beauty in the air
And such a light, and such a quiring
And such a radiant ecstasy there

They'll know not if it's fire, or dew
Or out of earth, or in the height
Singing, or flame, or scent, or hue
Or two that pass, in light, to light

Out of the garden, higher, higher. . .
But in that instant they shall learn
The shattering ecstasy of our fire
And the weak passionless hearts will burn

And faint in that amazing glow
Until the darkness close above
And they will know -- poor fools, they'll know! -
One moment, what it is to love

Add me to the "How Do I Love Thee" vote.

How about this one, posted earlier by Stephen? (okay, maybe 'romantic' isn't the best description, but if you've got a poll for 'hottest poem,'........)

pam

The Thief

What is it when your man sits on the floor
in sweatpants, his latest project
set out in front of him like a small world, maps
and photographs, diagrams and plans, everything
he hopes to build, invent or create,
and you believe in him as you always have,
even after you set your coffee down
and move toward him, to where he sits
oblivious of you, concentrating
in a square of sun --
you step over the rulers and blue graph-paper
to squat behind him, and he barely notices,
though you're still in your robe
which falls open a little as you reach
around his chest, feel for the pink
wheel of each nipple, the slow beat
of his heart, your ear pressed to his back
to listen -- and you are torn,
not wanting to interrupt his work
but unable to keep your fingers
from dipping into the ditch in his pants,
torn again with tenderness
to the way his flesh grows unwillingly
toward your curved palm, toward the light,
as if you planted it, this sweet root,
your mouth already an echo of is shape --
you slip your tongue in his ear
and he hears you call him away
from his work, the angled lines of his thoughts,
into the shapeless place you are bound
to take him, over the bridges of bone, beyond
borders of skin, climbing over him
into the world of the body, its labyrinth
of ladders and stairs -- and you love him,
with equal measures of expectancy
and fear and awe, taking him with you
into the soft geometry of the flesh, the earth
before its sidewalks and cities,
its glistening spires,
stealing him back from the world he loves
into this other world he cannot build without you.

Dorianne Laux

Interesting that you are from Harvard because my favorite romantic poem is by e. e. cummings, a Harvard graduate:

somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

Tennyson once again:

The Skipping-Rope
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

SURE never yet was antelope
Could skip so lightly by.
Stand off, or else my skipping-rope
Will hit you in the eye.
How lightly Whirls the skipping-rope !
How fairy-like you fly !
Go, get you gone, you muse and mope --
I hate that silly sigh.
Nay, dearest, teach me how to hope,
Or tell me how to die.
There, take it, take my skipping-rope,
And hang yourself thereby.

My favorite romantic poem is "Bridal Ballad" By: Edgar Allan Poe

I am not sure that this poem is exactly "Romantic", but it is about love.

"Loving people is like farting in the wind; You don't actually accomplish anything, but you feel better."

~The Great and Powerful Angelia~

Immortality

I will not say that men will not forget you,
Nor boast that your brown eyes will never fade;
I should be living, had I never met you,
But I'd have lived alone, and in the shade...
I will not praise your laugh, your graceful walking,
Nor say that death will never close your eyes --
There have been those who praised a woman's talking
-- Said it would live for ever. These were lies.

The time will come, dear heart, when suddenly laughter
Dies on the lips, glad hair turns quickly grey;
And friends will have forgotten shortly after --
But I shall say, that once your skin was fair,
And as you stood beside me in the trees
A petal fluttered down upon your hair...
--John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

BRIDAL BALLAD
Edgar Allan Poe

The ring is on my hand,
And the wreath is on my brow;
Satins and jewels grand
Are all at my command,
And I am happy now.

And my lord he loves me well;
But when first he breathed his vow
I felt my bosom swell—
For the words rang as a knell,
And the voice seemed his who fell
In the battle down the dell,
And who is happy now.

But he spoke to reassure me,
And he kissed my pallid brow,
While a revery came o’er me,
And to the church-yard bore me,
And I sighed to him before me,
Thinking him dead D’Elormie,
“Oh, I am happy now!”

And thus the words were spoken,
And this the plighted vow,
And though my faith be broken,
And though my heart be broken,
Behold the golden token
That proves me happy now!

Would God I could awaken!
For I dream I know not how,
And my soul is sorely shaken
Lest an evil step be taken,—
Lest the dead who is forsaken
May not be happy now.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Time does not bring relief.

Time does not bring relief; you all hve lied
Who told me time would ease my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,- so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, "there is no memory of him here!"
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

I also would go for Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 'How do I love thee', sonnet XLIII from 'Sonnets from the Portuguese'.

Add my vote to Tandy's for the e.e.cummings

And I'll go for a 2nd one:
Sonnet: Love Is Not All

Love is not all: It is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain,
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
and rise and sink and rise and sink again.
Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
pinned down by need and moaning for release
or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It may well be. I do not think I would.

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

I am amazed no one mentioned the Bard yet:



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.



William Shakespeare

Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
-T.S. Elliot

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs it back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, 'Do I dare?' and, 'Do I dare?'
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
(They will say: 'How his hair is growing thin!')
My morning coat, my collar mouting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
(They will say: 'But how his arms and legs are thin!')
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all--
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

* * * * * * * * *

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

* * * * * * * * *

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ...tired... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald)
brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet -- and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat,

and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: 'I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all' --
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: 'That's not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.'

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor --
And this, and so much more? --
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worthwhile
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
'That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.'

* * * * * * * * *

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous --
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us and we drown.

I can't think of a "most" romantic poem, but I do like the intensity of feeling in this one:



"Funeral Blues"
by W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

That's it! Thanks Hugh. You always seem to be so helpful. Isn't it a sad, but lovely poem? Well, I certainly think so. For the record my name is Angelia Allen. Don't incriminate me! I beg you! Oh, well. I tried.

"Loving people is like farting in the wind; You don't actually accomplish anything, but you feel better."

~The Great and Powerful Angelia~

How's this one for romantic intensity? Emily Dickinson never sounded so passionate.

Wild Nights-Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile-the Winds_
To a Heart in port-
Done with the Compass-
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden-
Ah, the sea!
Might I but moor-Tonight-
In Thee!

I don't think this one is romantic either, but it is about love:

Love Thyself Last
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Love thyself last. Look near, behold thy duty
To those who walk beside thee down life's road;
Make glad their day by little acts of beauty,
And them bear the burden of earth's load.

Love thyself last. Look far and find the stranger
Who staggers 'neath his sin and his despair;
Go lend a hand, and lead him out of danger,
To heights where he may see the world is fair.

Love thyself last. The vastnesses above thee
Are filled with Spirit Forces, strong and pure.
And fervently, these faithful friends shall love thee:
Keep thou thy watch o'er others, and endure.

Love thyself last; and, oh, such joy shall thrill thee,
As never yet to selfish souls was given.
Whate'er thy lot, a perfect peace will fill thee,
And earth shall seem the anteroom of Heaven.

Love thyself last, and thou shall grow in spirit
To see, to hear, to know, and to understand.
The message of the stars, lo, thou shall hear it,
And all God's joys shall be at thy command.

Les

How about some romantic realism?

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

The Spring and the Fall

In the spring of the year, in the spring of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The trees were black where the bark was wet.
I see them yet, in the spring of the year.
He broke me a bough of the blossoming peach
That was out of the way and hard to reach.

In the fall of the year, in the fall of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The rooks went up with a raucous trill.
I hear them still, in the fall of the year.
He laughed at all I dared to praise,
And broke my heart, in little ways.

Year be springing or year be falling,
The bark will drip and the birds be calling.
There's much that's fine to see and hear
In the spring of a year, in the fall of a year.
'Tis not love's going hurt my days.
But that it went in little ways.

Not sure whether you'd call this romantic - but it does it for me every time:

LINES OF LEAVING

I am losing you again
all again
as if you were ever mine to lose.
The pain is as great
beyond formal possession
beyond the fierce frivolity of tears.

Absurdly you came into my world
my time-wrecked world
a quiet laugh below the thunder.
Absurdly you leave it now
as always I foreknew you would.
I lived on an alien joy.

Your gentleness disarmed me
wine in my desert
peace across impassable seas
path of light in my jungle.

Now uncatchable as the wind you go
beyond the wind
and there is nothing in my world
save the straw of salvation in the amber dream.
The absurdity of that vast improbable joy
The absurdity of you gone.

Christy Brown

One is too hard, how about two (tomorrow they might be different):

Firstly W B Yeats:

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven

Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.


Secondly, this by Guilliaume Appollinaire

The Ninth Secret Poem

I worship your fleece which is the perfect triangle
Of the Goddess
I am the lumberjack of the only virgin forest
O my Eldorado
I am the only fish in your voluptuous ocean
You my lovely Siren
I am the climber on your snowy mountains
O my whitest Alp
I am the heavenly archer of your beautiful mouth
O my darling quiver
I am the hauler of your midnight hair
O lovely ship on the canal of my kisses
And the lilies of your arms are beckoning me
O my summer garden
The fruits of your breast are ripening their honey for me
O my sweet-smelling orchard
And I am raising you O Madeleine O my beauty above the earth
Like the torch of all light

P. B. Shelley

CLXXII. Lines to an Indian Air

I ARISE from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low
And the stars are shining bright—
I arise from dreams of thee, 5
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me—who knows how?
To thy chamber-window, Sweet!

The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream; 10
The champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine, 15
O belovèd, as thou art!

O lift me from the grass!
I die, I faint, I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale. 20
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast;
O press it close to thine again
Where it will break at last!


Shelley goes all the way! His match in passion is Emily Dickenson in "Wild Nights". What would ensue if these two had been placed in a room together overnight?

Jody

I had a dream
It was my dream
I dreamt it
I dreamed my true love's hair was kempt
And I unkempt it.

Ogden Nash

My next candidate for MOST ROMANTIC POEM is the one written by Mendoza, the revolutionary bandit, and recited by him in Act III of Shaw's MAN AND SUPERMAN. I'm including a few lines from the scene, for context.

============


MENDOZA … Ah, sir, how the words of Shakespear seem to fit every crisis in our emotions! I loved Louisa: 40,000 brothers / Could not with all their quantity of love / Make up my sum. And so on. I forget the rest. Call it madness if you will—infatuation. I am an able man, a strong man: in ten years I should have owned a first-class hotel. I met her; and—you see!—I am a brigand, an outcast. Even Shakespear cannot do justice to what I feel for Louisa. Let me read you some lines that I have written about her myself. However slight their literary merit may be, they express what I feel better than any casual words can. … Just allow me to read a few lines before you go to sleep. I should really like your opinion of them.

TANNER [drowsily] Go on. I am listening.

MENDOZA. I saw thee first in Whitsun week
Louisa, Louisa—

TANNER [rousing himself] My dear President, Louisa is a very pretty name; but it really doesnt rhyme well to Whitsun week.

MENDOZA. Of course not. Louisa is not the rhyme, but the refrain.

TANNER [subsiding] Ah, the refrain. I beg your pardon. Go on.

MENDOZA. Perhaps you do not care for that one: I think you will like this better. [He recites, in rich soft tones, and in slow time]

Louisa, I love thee.
I love thee, Louisa.
Louisa, Louisa, Louisa, I love thee.
One name and one phrase make my music, Louisa.
Louisa, Louisa, Louisa, I love thee.

Mendoza thy lover,
Thy lover, Mendoza,
Mendoza adoringly lives for Louisa.
Theres nothing but that in the world for Mendoza.
Louisa, Louisa, Mendoza adores thee.

[Affected] There is no merit in producing beautiful lines upon such a name. Louisa is an exquisite name, is it not?

TANNER [all but asleep, responds with faint groan].

MENDOZA. O wert thou, Louisa,
The wife of Mendoza,
Mendoza’s Louisa, Louisa Mendoza,
How blest were the life of Louisa’s Mendoza!
How painless his longing of love for Louisa!

That is real poetry—from the heart—from the heart of hearts. Dont you think it will move her?

Another favorite of mine...

PROPOSAL.

Tom Vaughan.

Let's fall in love-
In our mid-thirties
It's not only
Where the hurt is.

I won't get smashed up
Should you go
Away for weekends-
We both know

No two people
Can be completely
All-sufficient.
But twice weekly

We'll dine together
Split the bill,
Admire each other's
Wit. We will

Be splendid lovers,
Slow, well-trained,
Tactful, gracefully
Unrestrained.

You'll keep your flat
And I'll keep mine-
Our bank accounts
Shall not entwine.

We'll make the whole thing
Hard and bright.
We'll call it love-
We may be right

Sameer, they are all beautiful poems and I too am quite partial
to the ee cummings -- it is very dear.

However, I would like to submit Rainer Maria Rilke's "Love Song" to
the list:

How shall I hold my soul, that it may not
be touching yours? How shall I lift it then
above you to where other things are waiting?
Ah, Gladly would I lodge it, all-forgot,
with some lost thing the dark is isolating
on some remote and silent spot that, when
your depths vibrate, is not itself vibrating.

You and me -- all that lights upon us, though,
brings us together like a fiddle-bow
drawing one voice from two strings it glides along.
Across what instrument have we been spanned?
And what violinist holds us in his hand?
O sweetest song.

He has such a finely tuned voice, a gentleness
very tender and very kindly towards the loved one.

jenniferlayne

I love it!

Thanks, jenniferlayne!

Someone mentioned the Bard above, and another mentioned realism. Here's my favorite...combining both. This sonnet offers stark contrast to "Shall I compare Thee To A Summer's Day," and yet, the speaker's love for his "mistress," I think, is far stronger and true.

Joseph R. Torelli


Sonnet CXXX
by William Shakespeare

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Amoretti – Sonnet 75

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide and made my pains his prey.
Vain man (said she) that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalise;
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quod I); let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame;
My verse your virtues rare shall eternise,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where, when as Death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.

by Edmund Spenser 1595

This is today's email Poem of the Week. It's over four hundred years old and it's still as fresh and intense as the day it was written. It's very simple too, there's hardly a polysyllable in sight!

marian2's got the idea

My name: Bob Rankin

This one has lodged itself into my brain since high school...


La Belle Dame sans Merci

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.

I see a lilly on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheek a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a Lady in the meads,
Full beautiful, a fairy's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sideways would she lean, and sing
A faery's song.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew;
And sure in language strange she said,
I love thee true.

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she gaz'd, and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
So kiss'd to sleep.

And there we slumber'd on the moss,
And there I dream'd, ah woe betide
The latest dream I ever dream'd
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cry'd - 'La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'

I saw their starv'd lips in the gloom,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill side.

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.


John Keats

I'll vote for the "Love is not ALL" by Edna St. Vincent Millay