What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning, but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply, And my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: I cannot say what loves have come and gone, I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.
Edmund Spenser:
The love which me so cruelly tormenteth So pleasing is in my extreamest paine, That, all the more my sorrow it augmenteth, The more I love and doe embrace my bane. Ne do I wish (for wishing were but vaine) To be acquit fro my continual smart, But ioy her thrall for ever to remayne, And yield for pledge my poor and captyved hart, The which, that it from her may never start, Let her, yf please her, bynd with adamant chayne, And from all wandring loves, which mote pervart His safe assurance, strongly it restrayne. Onely let her abstaine from cruelty, And doe me not before my time to dy.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
XLII 'My future will not copy fair my past'— I wrote that once; and thinking at my side My ministering life-angel justified The word by his appealing look upcast To the white throne of God, I turned at last, And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried By natural ills, received the comfort fast, While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim's staff Gave out green leaves with morning dews impearled. I seek no copy now of life's first half: Leave here the pages with long musing curled, And write me new my future's epigraph, New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!
XXXVIII First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write, And ever since it grew more clean and white,... Slow to world-greetings...quick with its “Oh, list,” When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. The second passed in height The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed, Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed! That was the chrism of love, which love’s own crown, With sanctifying sweetness, did precede. The third, upon my lips, was folded down In perfect, purple state! since when, indeed, I have been proud and said, “My Love, my own.”