World's Most Treasured Love Poems

Suheil Bushrui

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781786072979
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

The only truly global collection of love poetry, bringing together the most stunning and inspiring poems from all around the world This beautiful collection of love poems gathers together thousands of years of timeless verse from around the world. From Shakespeare to Rossetti, traditional English classics sit alongside the works of Eastern writers such as Ibn 'Arabi and Rumi, as well as lesser known gems from the indigenous peoples of Africa, Australasia, and the Americas.Exploring the many facets of love – desire, devotion, delirium, joy, and sorrow – this uniquely diverse volume offers us wisdom from across the ages and reminds us of the bonds we all share.

THE SORROWS AND PAIN OF LOVE

Percy Bysshe Shelley

from Epipsychidion

… Love’s very pain is sweet,

But its reward is in the world divine,

Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave …

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

from The West-Eastern Divan

Love wrought on me with evil mind!

That in good truth I well may say;

I sing indeed with heavy heart.

But see these tapers—’tis their part

To shine even while they waste away.

Love’s anguish sought a place apart,

Where all was desolate, wild and rude;

He found betimes my empty heart,

And nested in the solitude.

—translated from the German by Edward Dowden

Dame Edith Sitwell

from Heart and Mind

Said the Sun to the Moon—‘When you are but a lonely white crone,

And I, a dead King in my golden armour somewhere in a dark wood,

Remember only this of our hopeless love:

That never till Time is done

Will the fire of the heart and the fire of the mind be one.’

Francesco Petrarca

Sonnet XIII

If the lorn bird complain, or rustling sweep

Soft summer airs o’er foliage waving slow,

Or the hoarse brook come murmuring down the steep,

Where on the enamel’d bank I sit below

With thoughts of love that bid my numbers flow;

’Tis then I see her, though in earth she sleep!

Her, form’d in Heaven! I see, and hear, and know!

Responsive sighing, weeping as I weep:

‘Alas!’ she pitying says, ‘ere yet the hour,

Why hurry life away with swifter flight?

Why from thy eyes this flood of sorrow pour?

No longer mourn my fate! through death my days

Become eternal! to eternal light

These eyes which seem’d in darkness closed, I raise!’

—translated from the Italian by Barbarina Dacre

Hartley Coleridge

Early Death

She pass’d away like morning dew

Before the sun was high;

So brief her time, she scarcely knew

The meaning of a sigh.

As round the rose its soft perfume,

Sweet love around her floated;

Admired she grew—while mortal doom

Crept on, unfear’d, unnoted.

Love was her guardian Angel here,

But Love to Death resign’d her;

Tho’ love was kind, why should we fear

But holy Death is kinder.

Sa‘dí of Shíráz

from The Preface to the Rose-Garden

Ask me not His description! Nay, for how,

How might I senseless of the Signless speak?

We lovers are the slain of the Beloved,

’Tis idle of the slain a voice to seek.

—translated from the Persian by Reynold A. Nicholson

Charles Baudelaire

The Death of Lovers

We shall have beds full of subtle perfumes,

Divans as deep as graves, and on the shelves

Will be strange flowers that blossomed for us

Under more beautiful heavens.

Using their dying flames emulously,

Our two hearts will be two immense torches

Which will reflect their double light

In our two souls, those twin mirrors.

Some evening made of rose and of mystical blue

A single flash will pass between us

Like a long sob, charged with farewells;

And later an Angel, setting the doors ajar,

Faithful and joyous, will come to revive

The tarnished mirrors, the extinguished flames.

—translated from the French by William Aggeler

Alexander Pushkin

The Rose

Where is our rose, friends?

Tell if ye may!

Faded the rose, friends,

The Dawn-child of Day.

Ah, do not say,

Such is life’s fleetness!

No, rather say,

I mourn thee, rose, —farewell!

Now to the lily-bell

Flit we away.

—translated from the Russian by Thomas B. Shaw

Anonymous

Love Song

The body perishes, the heart stays young.

The platter wears away with serving food.

No log retains its bark when old,

No lover peaceful while the rival weeps.

—translated from the Zulu by Ulli Beier

Jalálu’ddín Rúmí

Love, the Hierophant

’Tis heart-ache lays the lover’s passion bare:

No sickness with heart-sickness may compare.

Love is a malady apart, the sign

And astrolabe of mysteries Divine.

Whether of heavenly mould or earthly cast,

Love still...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• On love itself
• Love’s desires and longing
• Love’s adoration and devotion
• Love’s delirium
• The joys and pleasures of love
• The sorrows and pain of love
• Sensual love
• Spiritual love
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INDEX OF FIRST LINES
• INDEX OF AUTHORS
• Copyright