Ideal Love

She Walks in Beauty
                   Lord Byron

She walks in beauty like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts srenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.

Sonnet XLIII
               Elizabeth Barret Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I Love thee freely, as men stive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and if God choose
I shall but love thee better after death.

Sonnet XIV

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. do not say
"I love 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, beloved, 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 only, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

He Wishes For the Clothes of Heaven
                      W.B. Yeats

Had I the heaven's emrododered clothes,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim of 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.