You Who Never Arrived

You who never arrived in my arms,
Beloved, who were lostfrom the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of
the next moment. All the immense
images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt
landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and
unsuspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods--
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house-- , and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,--
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and,
startled, gave back my too-sudden image.
Who knows? Perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening...

Rainer Maria Rilke

Oh, Jankin, this poet has expressed the inexpressible. Such love and sorrow--too much to ask of the human heart.

I wish I'd know that Rilke when my heart was broken sophmore year and I wallowed in sad love poetry.

When we Two parted

When 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 browÂ
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 meÂ
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we metÂ
In 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.

George Gordon Byron

i carry your heart by e.e. cummings

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)

e.e. cummings experimented with spacing, punctuation and capitalization to create the rhythms he wanted-this poem was used in the movie In Her Shoes.

Chris, here is another for the sad times.

FOOTPRINTS
R. Liljestrand

Footprints
In that narrow band
Where the sea mixes intimately
With the land
Footprints
Where the sand is firm
In an aisle between abandon and concern.
On one side--lights--glaring,
People in direct assault.
On the other--lights--reflected.
Couples swimming--a human result.

Here were our footprints--
Two sets--
Together . . .
Prints of feet running, jumping, kicking--in play,
Prints of feet kneading, digging, tunneling--in thought.
Prints of feet pausing--pausing--in love.
Here were our footprints.
Down that narrow aisle they led
Where we walked and talked and tried each other.
Here were our footprints.
Down that aisle to a sandy bed
Where one young person gave birth to another . . .

Footprints--
One set--
Alone near the sea.
The other set?
Gone now--to another beach--another sea.
The other set?
Gone now--so is he, so is he . . .

And romance becomes aloneness--
And memories, guides to what can be . . .

O, my luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June.
O, my luve's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my Dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun!
O I will luve thee still, my Dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!

Robert Burns

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

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.

William Shakespeare

Sonnet 18

I can't pick only one of the love poems by John Donne. The Anniversary, The Ecstacy, The Canonization, The Sun Rising, and others. All are wonderful but too long to quote.

Dido, I am psychic -- somehow I just knew you would post the Burns poem!

Yeats is one of my favorite poets:

"....And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
with apple blossom in her hair
who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

though I am old with wandering
through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun."

(from "the Song of the Wandering Aengus")

Another by Yeats:

"Had I the heavens' 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."

There is a terrible and inescapable poignancy even tragedy to all 'love stories'; that is why I contributed the Rilke and I'm also going to add this Cavafy -

Body, remember not only how much you were loved
not only the beds you lay on.
but also those desires glowing openly
in eyes that looked at you,
trembling for you in voices-
only some chance obstacle frustrated them.
Now that it's all finally in the past,
it seems almost as if you gave yourself
to those desires too-how they glowed,
remember, in eyes that looked at you,
remember, body, how they trembled for you in those voices.

and Roethke's

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek.)

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin:
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing did we make.)

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved.)

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
What's freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways.)

What wonderful choices. Many are new to me, others old-time favorites. Most seem to be speaking of romantic love while some could refer to any deep love, for example, love for one's children.
Love poems do seem to carry either a heavy dose or a hint of grief. On first reading,I interpreted Jankin's first entry as an expression of sorrow for a stillborn child.

You who never arrived in my arms,
Beloved, who were lost from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you.

I found it heart-stoppingly sad and wonder if anyone else read it that way?

Here is a "memory" which brings to mind an old man reminiscing by the fireside, blanket across his knees, a worn pipe in one hand, the other hand stroking the aged dog by his side.

Jenny kissed me
by Leigh Hunt

Jenny kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss'd me.

Light to Dark

You're the turtle in my soup,
You're the alley in my oop,
The muffin spread wth jam and butter,
The joy behind the words I utter,
Greetings for this special day,
Though I may have feet of clay
I try to give it my best go
Though my heart is buried deep in snow.

S.K. (that's me)

Thank you for the Cavafy poem. He is one of my favourites and I have read him in English only. I was happy to be told by a Greek friend that the English translation is almost better than the original Greek!

Siobhan -

I like your poem - good job! It has some good imagery -
You're the turtle in my soup..... Funny.

Thank you, froniga for this thread...and thank you to all who have contributed. Our wedding anniversary is the 14th. I set out to give my husband a surprise message each day of February until our anniversary. There are some marvelous poems here that I will definitely use. I love the Yeats and the cummings.

Siobahn, yours is today's offering.

And yes, I will add at least one to the thread.

Thanks for the kind words about my little verse. I do love to write poetry even though I am probably dreadful (not fishing for compliments). That one is going on the Valentine's card to DH this year.

A Decade by Amy Lowell

When you came you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all, for I know your savor;
but I am completely nourished.

Erat Hora by Ezra Pound

"Thank you, whatever comes."
And then, she turned
And, as the ray of sun
on hanging flowers
Fades when the wind hath
lifted them aside,
Went swiftly from me.

Nay, whatever comes
One hour was sunlit
And the most high gods
May not make boast
Of any better thing
Than to have watched
That hour as it passed.

Love the Amy Lowell especially here is poem by R S Thomas (Oh dear they're all my favourites)

A Marriage by R. S. Thomas

We met
under a shower
of bird-notes.
Fifty years passed,
love's moment
in a world in
servitude to time.
She was young;
I kissed with my eyes
closed and opened
them on her wrinkles.
`Come,' said death,
choosing her as his
partner for
the last dance, And she,
who in life
had done everything
with a bird's grace,
opened her bill now
for the shedding
of one sigh no
heavier than a feather.

I'm offering an old favorite here, but first must thank everyone for some new favorites. Jankin, who has not felt the emotion so poignantly expressed in the poem by Rainer Maria Rilke? Thanks for posting it; I've never read it before. And I loved the portrait of a happy marriage by Amy Lowell, so beautifully and succinctly distilled.

THE ANNIVERSARY.
by John Donne

ALL kings, and all their favourites,
All glory of honours, beauties, wits,
The sun it self, which makes time, as they pass,
Is elder by a year now than it was
When thou and I first one another saw.
All other things to their destruction draw,
Only our love hath no decay ;
This no to-morrow hath, nor yesterday ;
Running it never runs from us away,
But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.

Two graves must hide thine and my corse ;
If one might, death were no divorce.
Alas ! as well as other princes, we
�"Who prince enough in one another be�"
Must leave at last in death these eyes and ears,
Oft fed with true oaths, and with sweet salt tears ;
But souls where nothing dwells but love
�"All other thoughts being inmates�"then shall prove
This or a love increasèd there above,
When bodies to their graves, souls from their graves remove.

And then we shall be throughly blest ;
But now no more than all the rest.
Here upon earth we're kings, and none but we
Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be.
Who is so safe as we? where none can do
Treason to us, except one of us two.
True and false fears let us refrain,
Let us love nobly, and live, and add again
Years and years unto years, till we attain
To write threescore ; this is the second of our reign.

I enjoy the work of Nikki Giovanni:

Kidnap Poem

ever been kidnapped
by a poet
if i were a poet
i'd kidnap you
put you in my phrases and meter
you to jones beach
or maybe coney island
or maybe just to my house
lyric you in lilacs
dash you in the rain
blend into the beach
to complement my see
play the lyre for you
ode you with my love song
anything to win you
wrap you in the red Black green
show you off to mama
yeah if i were a poet i'd kid
nap you

Siobahn, I like your verse.

I enjoy reading all of your selections.

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms,
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Pablo Neruda

Sonnet 17

Not really a love poem, but to me this poem captures the essense of sharing life with another -

Coming Home

by Mary Oliver

When we're driving, in the dark,
on the long road
to Provincetown, which lies empty
for miles, when we're weary,
when the buildings
and the scrub pines lose
their familiar look,
I imagine us rising
from the speeding car,
I imagine us seeing
everything from another place  the top
of one of the pale dunes
or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea Â
and what we see is the world
that cannot cherish us
but which we cherish,
and what we see is our life
moving like that,
along the dark edges
of everything  the headlights
like lanterns
sweeping the blackness Â
believing in a thousand
fragile and unprovable things,
looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping
barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me.

The ultimate love poetry is a great sensation of love that are posted in the love. The poetry is very romantic that tells the great sensation of love. I like the poems.

Here is a link that might be useful: love poems

Mother's Day in the U.S. will be celebrated a week from tomorrow. In honor of our mothers -

Mother
by Ted Kooser

Mid April already, and the wild plums
bloom at the roadside, a lacy white
against the exuberant, jubilant green
of new grass an the dusty, fading black
of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet,
only the delicate, star-petaled
blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume.

You have been gone a month today
and have missed three rains and one nightlong
watch for tornadoes. I sat in the cellar
from six to eight while fat spring clouds
went somersaulting, rumbling east. Then it poured,
a storm that walked on legs of lightning,
dragging its shaggy belly over the fields.

The meadowlarks are back, and the finches
are turning from green to gold. Those same
two geese have come to the pond again this year,
honking in over the trees and splashing down.
They never nest, but stay a week or two
then leave. The peonies are up, the red sprouts
burning in circles like birthday candles,

for this is the month of my birth, as you know,
the best month to be born in, thanks to you,
everything ready to burst with living.
There will be no more new flannel nightshirts
sewn on your old black Singer, no birthday card
addressed in a shaky but businesslike hand.
You asked me if I would be sad when it happened

and I am sad. But the iris I moved from your house
now hold in the dusty dry fists of their roots
green knives and forks as if waiting for dinner,
as if spring were a feast. I thank you for that.
Were it not for the way you taught me to look
at the world, to see the life at play in everything,
I would have to be lonely forever.

Oh, my. My mother has been gone ten years, and this still produced a tear.