Sonnets from the Portuguese 14: If Thou by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sonnets from the Portuguese 14: If Thou

BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

If thou must love me, let it be for nought

Except for love's sake only. Do not say

I love her for her smile ... her look ... her way

Of speaking gently, ... for a trick of thought

That falls in well with mine, and certes brought

A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'—

For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may

Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,

May be unwrought so. Neither love me for

Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,—

A creature might forget to weep, who bore

Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!

But love me for love's sake, that evermore

Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

Well said, sometimes it takes us a while to love for love's sake. A link to read more is here.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Barrett_Browning

Sonnet 1 by Sir Philip Sidney

Sonnet 1 

BY SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

That the dear She might take some pleasure of my pain,

Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,

Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,—

I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,

Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,

Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow

Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburned brain.

But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay:

Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows,

And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.

Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,

Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:

“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart and write.”

The ending made me smile. A link to read more is here. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/philip-sidney

Bright Star, Would I were Steadfast as Thou Art by John Keats

Bright Star, Would I were Steadfast as Thou Art

BY JOHN KEATS

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—

         Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

         Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

         Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

         Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—

No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,

         Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

         Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

Beautiful imagery and emotion. A link to read more. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-keats

Sonnet by Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson

Sonnet

BY ALICE MOORE DUNBAR-NELSON

I had not thought of violets late,

The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet

In wistful April days, when lovers mate

And wander through the fields in raptures sweet.

The thought of violets meant florists' shops,

And cabarets and soaps, and deadening wines.

So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed,

I had forgot wide fields; and clear brown streams;

The perfect loveliness that God has made,—

Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams.

And now—unwittingly, you've made me dream

Of violets, and my soul's forgotten gleam.

Sonnets are cool and not easy. I admire those that can pull it off. A link to read more about her and her poetry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Dunbar_Nelson