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After having entered my own poetry on this Poetry
of Love Page
I would like to now share five beautiful love poems written
by four
Grand Old Masters of Poetry:
William Butler Yeats
William Shakespeare
Kahlil Gibran
Omar Khayyam
Elaine
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THE
CLOTHS OF HEAVEN
by:
William Butler
Yeats
England 1865 - 1939
Had
I the heaven's embroider'd 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.
*
WHEN
YOU ARE OLD
by:
William Butler Yeats
England 1865 - 1939
When
you are old and grey 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 loved your beauty with love false or true
But one man loved 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 hid his face amid a crown of stars
*
LET
ME NOT TO THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS (Sonnet 116)
by: William Shakespeare
England, 1564 - 1616
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.
Oh no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks upon tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star of 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 within his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out ev'n to the edge of doom.
If these be error and upon me proved
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
*
"LOVE"
From "THE PROPHET"
by: Kahlil Gibran
Lebanon, 1883 - 1931
When
love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep,
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you,
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the
garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that
quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the
earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for
God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your
heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's
threshing floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter,
and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed.
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather,
"I am in the heart of God".
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you
worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love,
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of
praise upon your lips.
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QUATRAIN
X1
From the
RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM
by:
Omar Khayyam
Persia, 1048 - 1132
As translated by Edward
Fitzgerald
Ireland, 1809 - 1883
Here
with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and Thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness -
And Wilderness is Paradise 'enow.