Poetry for love

"The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes."

~ André Gidé, Journals, 1894

From time out of mind, people have expressed their feelings through poetry. As Saint Valentine's day is approaching, this is the moment we were waiting for to send the person you love the most beautiful words ever written. Here there's a selection of poems where you can choose the one you prefer. I would like to take this opportunity to introduce these poets to those who are not acquainted with this sort of reading. I hope you enjoy them!

Alexander Pushkin

A Moment to Remember

A magic moment I remember:

I raised my eyes and you were there.

A fleeting vision, the quintessence

Of all that's beautiful and rare.

I pray to mute despair and anguish

To vain pursuits the world esteems,

Long did I near your soothing accents,

Long did your features haunt my dreams.

Time passed- A rebel storm-blast scattered

The reveries that once were mine

And I forgot your soothing accents,

Your features gracefully divine.

In dark days of enforced retirement

I gazed upon grey skies above

With no ideals to inspire me,

No one to cry for, live for, love.

Then came a moment of renaissance,

I looked up- you again are there,

A fleeting vision, the quintessence

Of all that`s beautiful and rare.

Emily Dickinson

22

I gave myself to him,

And took himself for pay.

The solemn contract of a life

Was ratified this way

The value might disappoint,

Myself a poorer prove

Than this my purchaser suspect,

The daily own of Love

Depreciates the sight;

But, 'til the merchant buy,

Still fabled, in the isles of spice

The subtle cargoes lie.

At least, 'tis mutual risk,—

Some found it mutual gain;

Sweet debt of Life,—each night to owe,

Insolvent, every noon.

William Shakespeare

Sonnet 130

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 damasked, 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.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Echo

Come to me in the silence of the night;

Come in the speaking silence of a dream;

Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright

As sunlight on a stream;

Come back in tears,

O memory of hope, love of finished years.

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter-sweet,

Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,

Where souls brim-full of love abide and meet;

Where thirsting longing eyes

Watch the slow door

That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live

My very life again though cold in death;

Come back to me in dreams, that I may give

Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:

Speak low, lean low,

As long ago, my love, how long ago.

Sara Teasdale

Love-Free

I am free of love as a bird flying south in the autumn,

Swift and intent, asking no joy from another,

Glad to forget all of the passion of April

Ere it was love-free.

I am free of love, and I listen to music lightly,

But if he returned, if he should look at me deeply,

I should awake, I should awake and remember

I am my lover’s.

Emily Brontë 

Love and Friendship

Love is like the wild rose-briar,

Friendship like the holly-tree—

The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms

But which will bloom most constantly?

The wild-rose briar is sweet in the spring,

Its summer blossoms scent the air;

Yet wait till winter comes again

And who will call the wild-briar fair?

Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now

And deck thee with the holly's sheen,

That, when December blights thy brow,

He may still leave thy garland green.

Omar Khayyam

A Book of Verse

A book of verse, underneath the bough,

A jug of wine, a loaf of bread - and thou

Beside me singing in the wilderness -

Ah, wilderness were paradise now!

Robert Frost

A Time to Talk

When a friend calls to me from the road

And slows his horse to a meaning walk,

I don’t stand still and look around

On all the hills I haven’t hoed,

And shout from where I am, What is it?

No, not as there is a time to talk.

I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,

Blade-end up and five feet tall,

And plod: I go up to the stone wall

For a friendly visit.