• Richard Lovelace (1618-1657?)
  • Samuel Lover (1797-1868)
  • William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
    William Shakespeare play -- Love's Labour 's Lost
  • Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
    Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover,
    Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense.
    The virtuous Marcia towers above her sex.
    Cato. Act i. Sc. 4.
  • William Allingham (1824-1889)
    Scarcely a tear to shed;
    Hardly a word to say;
    The end of a Summer's day;
    Sweet Love is dead.
    An Evening.
  • William Allingham (1824-1889)
    Mary kept the belt of love, and oh, but she was gay!
    She danced a jig, she sung a song that took my heart away.
    Lovely Mary Donnelly.
  • William Allingham (1824-1889)
    “O mother, mother, mak' my bed
    To lay me down in sorrow.
    My love has died for me to-day,
    I 'll die for him to-morrow.”
    Barbara Allen's Cruelty from “Ballad Book.”
  • Beaumont and Fletcher
    Of all the paths [that] lead to a woman's love
    Pity 's the straightest.
    The Knight of Malta. Act i. Sc. 1.
  • Philip James Bailey (1816-1905)
    Poets are all who love, who feel great truths,
    And tell them; and the truth of truths is love.
    Festus. Scene xvi. The Hesperian Sphere.
  • Park Benjamin (1809-1864)
    Flowers are Love's truest language.
    Sonnet.
  • Laman Blanchard (1803-1845)
    Give me to live with Love alone
    And let the world go dine and dress;
    For Love hath lowly haunts….
    If life's a flower, I choose my own—
    'T is “love in Idleness.”
    Dolce far Niente. Stanza 4.
  • George Henry Boker (1823-1890)
    Love is that orbit of the restless soul
    Whose circle grazes the confines of space,
    Bounding within the limits of its race
    Utmost extremes.
    Sonnet. Love.
  • John Henry Boner (1845-1903)
    Gather leaves and grasses,
    Love, to-day;
    For the Autumn passes
    Soon away.
    Chilling winds are blowing.
    It will soon be snowing.
    Gather Leaves and Grasses.
  • John Henry Boner (1845-1903)
    “I love you because
    You're a sweet little fool!”
    The sweet little Fool (The Sequel).
  • Book of Common Prayer
    To have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.
    Solemnization of Matrimony.
  • Book of Common Prayer
    To love, cherish, and to obey.
    Solemnization of Matrimony.
  • Francis William Bourdillon (1852- ?)
    The Night has a thousand eyes,
    And the Day but one;
    Yet the light of the bright world dies
    With the dying sun.
    The mind has a thousand eyes,
    And the heart but one;
    Yet the light of a whole life dies
    When love is done.
    Light.
  • John Gardiner Calkins Brainard (1795-1828)
    Far beneath the tainted foam
    That frets above our peaceful home,
    We dream in joy and wake in love
    Nor know the rage that yells above.
    The Deep.  
  • Mary Gardiner Brainard (1837-1905)
    That which we look on with unselfish love
    And true humility is surely ours,
    Even as a lake looks at the stars above
    And makes within itself a heaven of stars.
    Ownership.
  • Tom Brown (1663-1704)
    I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,
    The reason why I cannot tell;
    But this alone I know full well,
    I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.
    Laconics.
  • Thomas Edward Brown (1830-1897)
    A Garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!
    Rose plot,
    Fringed pool,
    Ferned grot,
    The veriest school of Peace; and yet the fool contends that God is not—
    Not God! in Gardens! when the eve is cool?
    Nay, but I have a sign:
    'T is very sure God walks in mine.
    My Garden.
  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
    But since he had
    The genuis to be loved, why let him have
    The justice to be honoured in his grave.
    Crowned and buried. xxvii.
  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
    Whoso loves
    Believes the impossible.
    Aurora Leigh. Book v.
  • Robert Browning (1812-1889)
    God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures
    Boasts two soul-sides,—one to face the world with,
    One to show a woman when he loves her!
    One Word more. xvii.
  • Robert Browning (1812-1889)
    God made all the creatures, and gave them our love and our fear,
    To give sign we and they are his children, one family here.
    Saul. vi.
  • Robert Browning (1812-1889)
    O woman-country!  wooed not wed,
    Loved all the more by earth's male-lands,
    Laid to their hearts instead.
    By the Fireside. vi.
  • Robert Browning (1812-1889)
    For life, with all it yields of joy and woe,
    And hope and fear (believe the aged friend),
    Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,—
    How love might be, hath been indeed, and is.
    A Death in the Desert.
  • Robert Browning (1812-1889)
    For I say this is death and the sole death,—
    When a man's loss comes to him from his gain,
    Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance,
    And lack of love from love made manifest.
    A Death in the Desert.
  • Robert Browning (1812-1889)
    Can we love but on condition that the thing we love must die?
    La Saisiaz.
  • Robert Browning (1812-1889)
    Never the time and the place
    And the loved one all together!
    Never the Time and the Place.
  • William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)
    To him who in the love of Nature holds
    Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
    A various language.
    Thanatopsis.
  • William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)
    But 'neath yon crimson tree
    Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame,
    Nor mark, within its roseate canopy,
    Her blush of maiden shame.
    Autumn Woods.
  • William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)
    Loveliest of lovely things are they
    On earth that soonest pass away.
    The rose that lives its little hour
    Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
    A Scene on the Banks of the Hudson.
  • Robert William Buchanan (1841-1901)
    I say the world is lovely
    And that loveliness is enough.
    Artist and Model.
  • Edward Robert, Earl of Lytton (Owen Meredith) Bulwer-Lytton (1831-1891)
    The world is filled with folly and sin,
    And Love must cling, where it can, I say:
    For Beauty is easy enough to win;
    But one is n't loved every day.
    Changes.
  • Edward Robert, Earl of Lytton (Owen Meredith) Bulwer-Lytton (1831-1891)
    We may live without poetry, music and art;
    We may live without conscience and live without heart;
    We may live without friends; we may live without books;
    But civilized man can not live without cooks.
    He may live without books,—what is knowledge but grieving?
    He may live without hope—what is hope but deceiving?
    He may live without love,—what is passion but pining?
    But where is the man that can live without dining?
    Lucile. Part i. Canto ii.
  • Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855-1896)
    Love must kiss that mortal's eyes
    Who hopes to see fair Arcady.
    No gold can buy you entrance there;
    But beggared Love may go all bare—
    No wisdom won with weariness;
    But Love goes in with Folly's dress—
    No fame that wit could ever win;
    But only Love may lead Love in.
    The Way to Arcady.  
  • Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855-1896)
    Ah woe is me, through all my days
    Wisdom and wealth I both have got,
    And fame and name and great men's praise;
    But Love, ah! Love I have it not.
    The Way to Arcady.
  • Robert Burns (1759-1796)
    Auld Nature swears the lovely dears
    Her noblest work she classes, O;
    Her 'prentice han' she tried on man,
    And then she made the lasses, O!
    Green grow the Rashes.
  • Robert Burns (1759-1796)
    From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,
    That makes her loved at home, revered abroad:
    Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
    ”An honest man 's the noblest work of God.”
    The Cotter's Saturday Night.
  • Robert Burns (1759-1796)
    But to see her was to love her,
    Love but her, and love forever.
    Ae Fond Kiss.
  • Robert Burns (1759-1796)
    Had we never loved sae kindly,
    Had we never loved sae blindly,
    Never met or never parted,
    We had ne'er been broken-hearted!
    Ae Fond Kiss.
  • Robert Burns (1759-1796)
    To see her is to love her,
    And love but her forever;
    For Nature made her what she is,
    And never made anither!
    Bonny Lesley.
  • Robert Burton (1577-1640)
    No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread.
    Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 2, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2.
  • Robert Burton (1577-1640)
    To enlarge or illustrate this power and effect of love is to set a candle in the sun.
    Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 2, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2.
  • Samuel Butler (1612-1680)
    Love in your hearts as idly burns
    As fire in antique Roman urns.
    Hudibras. Part ii. Canto i. Line 309.
  • Samuel Butler (1612-1680)
    Love is a boy by poets styl'd;
    Then spare the rod and spoil the child.
    Hudibras. Part ii. Canto i. Line 843.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    I only know we loved in vain;
    I only feel—farewell! farewell!
    Farewell! if ever fondest Prayer.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    Had sigh'd to many, though he loved but one.
    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto i. Stanza 5.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    There was a sound of revelry by night,
    And Belgium's capital had gather'd then
    Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
    The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men.
    A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
    Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
    Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,
    And all went merry as a marriage bell.
    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto iii. Stanza 21.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    The sky is changed,—and such a change! O night
    And storm and darkness! ye are wondrous strong,
    Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
    Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
    From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,
    Leaps the live thunder.
    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto iii. Stanza 92.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    I have not loved the world, nor the world me.
    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto iii. Stanza 113.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    The cold, the changed, perchance the dead, anew,
    The mourn'd, the loved, the lost,—too many, yet how few!
    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 24.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    Parting day
    Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
    With a new colour as it gasps away,
    The last still loveliest, till—'t is gone, and all is gray.
    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 29.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    Oh that the desert were my dwelling-place,
    With one fair spirit for my minister,
    That I might all forget the human race,
    And hating no one, love but only her!
    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 177.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
    There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
    There is society, where none intrudes,
    By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
    I love not man the less, but Nature more.
    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 178.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
    Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
    Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy.
    I wantoned with thy breakers,
    . . . . .
    And trusted to thy billows far and near,
    And laid my hand upon thy mane,—as I do here.
    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 184.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    And lovelier things have mercy shown
    To every failing but their own;
    And every woe a tear can claim,
    Except an erring sister's shame.
    The Giaour. Line 418.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    The cold in clime are cold in blood,
    Their love can scarce deserve the name.
    The Giaour. Line 1099.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    She was a form of life and light
    That seen, became a part of sight,
    And rose, where'er I turn'd mine eye,
    The morning-star of memory!
    Yes, love indeed is light from heaven;
    A spark of that immortal fire
    With angels shared, by Alla given,
    To lift from earth our low desire.
    The Giaour. Line 1127.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle
    Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime;
    Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
    Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?
    The Bride of Abydos. Canto i. Stanza 1.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    Who hath not proved how feebly words essay
    To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray?
    Who doth not feel, until his failing sight
    Faints into dimness with its own delight,
    His changing cheek, his sinking heart, confess
    The might, the majesty of loveliness?
    The Bride of Abydos. Canto i. Stanza 6.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    The light of love, the purity of grace,
    The mind, the music breathing from her face,
    The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,—
    And oh, that eye was in itself a soul!
    The Bride of Abydos. Canto i. Stanza 6.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    It is the hour when from the boughs
    The nightingale's high note is heard;
    It is the hour when lovers' vows
    Seem sweet in every whisper'd word.
    Parisina. Stanza 1.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    Folly loves the martyrdom of fame.
    Monody on the Death of Sheridan. Line 68.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    Here 's a sigh to those who love me,
    And a smile to those who hate;
    And whatever sky 's above me,
    Here 's a heart for every fate.
    To Thomas Moore.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    I loved my country, and I hated him.
    The Vision of Judgment. lxxxiii.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe
    When tipp'd with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe;
    Like other charmers, wooing the caress
    More dazzlingly when daring in full dress;
    Yet thy true lovers more admire by far
    Thy naked beauties—give me a cigar!
    The Island. Canto ii. Stanza 19.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    My days are in the yellow leaf;
    The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
    The worm, the canker, and the grief
    Are mine alone!
    On my Thirty-sixth Year.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    Man's love is of man's life a thing apart;
    'T is woman's whole existence.
    Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 194.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    A long, long kiss,—a kiss of youth and love.
    Don Juan. Canto ii. Stanza 186.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    Alas, the love of women! it is known
    To be a lovely and a fearful thing.
    Don Juan. Canto ii. Stanza 199.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    In her first passion woman loves her lover:
    In all the others, all she loves is love.
    Don Juan. Canto iii. Stanza 3.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
    Where burning Sappho loved and sung.
    . . . . .
    Eternal summer gilds them yet,
    But all except their sun is set.
    Don Juan. Canto iii. Stanza 86. 1.
  • George Gordon Noel Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
    “Whom the gods love die young,” was said of yore.
    Don Juan. Canto iv. Stanza 12.
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